Ma Yan is an ordinary girl from a mountainous area in northwest China. But she has recently risen from the obscurity of poverty because of her extraordinary diary, which has been translated into five languages. The first translation was into French as Le journal de Ma Yan. First published in Paris, the book was soon on the list of best sellers in France, Italy, Belgium, and Japan.
The diary changed the fate of its author, thanks to the efforts of a French journalist, who brought Ma Yan's words to the rest of the world.
"I'll Cry for the Rest of my Life If I Cannot Go Back to School!"
Ma Yan is from Xihaigu in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the poorest area in China. Her family has merely 4,667 square meters of farmland, but has harvested nearly nothing because of draughts that have hit the area since 1998.
The educational expense for Ma Yan and her two younger brothers, totaling some 600 yuan per year, seemed to be an astronomical figure for her parents.
"My daughter had to quit so that her brothers could keep on studying," explains Ma Yan's mother.
Ma Yan, 14 years old at the time, didn't understand why her family had asked her to quit, but she knew quite well that the only way to change her destiny was to study. In poverty-stricken areas, boys are thought of highly, while girls are usually taken as laborers, and it's not unusual to see girls who have never gone to school.
To attempt studying, Ma Yan wrote her mother, who cannot read even a word, a letter, and asked her brother to read it. "I'll cry for the rest of my life if I cannot go back to school!" Ma Yan wrote.
"I felt terribly hurt," her mother says.
Ma Yan and her mother.
A French Reporter Was Shocked by Her Diary
In 2001, Pierre Haski, a reporter from the French newspaper Lib¨¦ration, came to Zhangjiashu, a small, mountainous village where Ma Yan lived. It was by chance that Haski heard about the village in Tongxi County from a reporter named Wang Zheng from Ningxia at a photo exhibition held in France.
"You can find the description of that place in Red Star On China by Edgar Snow," Wang told him.
Ma Yan and her mother were the main subjects in a photo Wang Zheng took in Ningxia, where Haski was along to take pictures of his own.
Before seeing him off, Ma Yan's mother gave her daughter's letter and three copies of her diaries to Pierre, who later learned about Ma Yan's story through a translator in Beijing. "I was shocked by the simple, native language of a 14-year-old girl," Haski says.
In her diary, Ma Yan wrote:
"We have a week off. Mum said, 'Honey, there is something I want to tell you.... I'm afraid this is your last time to go to school. You know we cannot afford it if you three kids go to school, because only your father works in other places.'
"I said, 'Then I have to stay at home?'
"'Yes,' Mum said.
"'What about my brothers?' I asked.
"'They must continue studying.'
"I asked mum why boys can go to school but girls cannot.
"'You are not grown up enough to understand all these until one day you are a mother,' Mum explained.
"This year, I cannot go to school, I'm back to do farm work to support my brothers. I felt like was at school each time I recalled the laughter of my classmates. If only I could go."
Haski could hardly keep calm, as he imagined how terrible a life would be for Ma Yan, who was so eager to receive an education.
Le journal de Ma Yan, the French version of Ma Yan's Diary.
The Publication of I Want to Go to School in France
As soon as he finished reading Ma Yan's stories, Haski was determined to do something for the family. Each year, he sent 1,500 yuan, 1,000 yuan for schooling, and 500 yuan for living expenses to the family. The three children were no longer bothered by the threat of having to leave school, and the couple didn't have to go out in the cold months to dig up facai, an herb, to eat.
On September 9, 2001, Lib¨¦ration published a long story, "I Want to Go to School," by Pierre, on two entire pages, arousing great attention from readers around Europe. Some wrote letters, others donated money.
"How could I cool down reading such a story when some of the youngsters give up study and play around?" wrote one reader. "The monthly sum that our kids have for candies and hamburgers is good enough to bring kids like Ma Yan in China back to school." The reader later donated money to Ma Yan and children like her, who he had never met but felt tied to by hope.
Katherine, an ordinary citizen of Bordeaux, France, also donated funds "hoping to pay debts of Ma Yan's family," although she herself was not well paid. Many people showed their willingness to help Ma Yan with her studies, from high school to postgraduate work.
A well-known French publisher recognized it as a touching story and asked Haski to write it all down. Soon after, a book entitled La vie quotidienne d'une ¨¨coli¨¨re chinoise, or A Chinese Girl Who Wants to Go to School, was published along with Ma Yan's Diary.
As soon as the book was published, an independent producer who specialized in political profiles for the French No. 2 national TV station went to Zhangjiashu Village and filmed the story of Ma Yan.
Thanks to the publication of the book and the donations, Ma Yan has gone back to school. Her family's life has been much improved: They have a brand-new color TV set, and the house has been refurbished. The publication of the Chinese version of her diary could bring Ma Yan hundreds of thousand of yuan.
In March 2002, Haski paid his third visit to Zhangjiashu Village, with a US$1,000 donation from his readers. He asked Ma Yan to find six more students from a similar family background. Finally, 16 students, including Ma Yan, became the first group of students who were financially supported by foreign funds.
On the wall of Ma Yan's house a horizontal board now hangs as a symbol of thanks to Pierre and other people, with the signatures of five girls, including Hu Xiaohua, Yang Juan, and Ma Xiaomei.
On the front cover of Le journal de Ma Yan published by Ramsay Publications are Ma Yan and her mother. The Beijing Huaxia Publications and the Beijing Zhiji Book Company have bought the copyright of the Chinese version. The inaugural ceremony was held on September 20, 2003, in Beijing for a first printing run of 100,000 copies.
(China Pictorial November 7, 2003)
