How my 4-year-old practices non-violence

A pacifist gets feisty when someone hits her child.

Victor is an introvert, like me, low-key and easygoing. He loves the preschool and calls his classmates girlfriends and boyfriends, except for a few children who hits and curses. One child, N, hits/pushes Victor every day. Victor is not singled out, because N hits others as well. But he likes to approach Victor, and sometimes they form a bond. Victor plays with N and gets hit. To get back at the aggressor, he calls N "Crybaby" to make him mad. Then the conflict escalates.

One day N did some stunt. A teacher couldn't catch him. N threw a rock and hit Victor's head. N was then taken to the director. Hearing the news, I felt as if someone bashed me on the head. I complained to the teacher and director. N was put on a "program" to learn proper behaviors. I heard that he has tuned down, but Victor still gets hit/pushed every day. Since he is not hurt, I ignored his complaints, such as, N called "Victor" during the naptime, N bared his belly, N took off his pants and showed his booty (not in the bathroom). N slapped a teacher on the hand and spat on her.

Yesterday Victor said he was pushed down three times and cried three times. His teacher saw one incident at least, but didn't see Victor cry. I talked to the director again. Evidently she has heard such complaints.

Director: Don't listen to other parents' stories. You should come to the classroom and observe the children. There's more to it than you thought.

Yang: I heard the complaints from Victor, not from other parents. [I haven't spent a lot of time in the classroom but I had some observations. Once I saw N slap a teacher. Another time N chased after boy J, who didn't want to play with him. Being the selfish mother that I am, I told Victor to imitate J. But Victor couldn't behave like J to save his own skin.]

D: The teachers should intervene.

Y: A teacher cannot predict when a child is going to hit. After N hits someone, she can only sit him down and tell him not to hit, which is not effective because he doesn’t listen.

D: N’s parents came to observe him. They said he doesn’t behave like this at home. They are doing what we tell them to do. I cannot remove N from the classroom. If you want, I can put Victor in another class.

Y: But Victor was here first. [Victor has been in the class for a year and half, and N came two months ago.]

D: Technically, N came first. He has been with the Center since he was six months old. [Now he’s three.]

Y: Really? I am very surprised. Then there’s little chance that he’ll change.

D: I won’t say that. I won’t give up on any child, until we go through the program, which takes some time to complete, we cannot make him drop out. N is not a bad child. He is a spirited child.

Y: [I didn’t care to label N as any kind of child. I didn’t want Victor to be his punching bag. It's not fair or acceptable to me.] N needs to respect other people’s boundaries. Otherwise, it’s not safe for Victor to be in the same classroom with him. [N also hits other children every day.]

D: Other children also do things to N.

Y: I know Victor calls him “Crybaby” a few times to make him mad.

D: You see, you need to teach Victor to stop doing that.

Y: Comparing to hitting someone, this is less offensive; besides, it’s the only thing Victor can do. He cannot hit N back, so he calls him “Crybaby” to get back at him. It’s the only power Victor has over N. If you take that away, N still hits, but Victor can do nothing to express his anger. He is victimized and powerless. This is a vicious cycle.

D: What do you want me to do?

Y: I came to you and hope you might have a solution.

D: I offer that you come to observe, or you move Victor to another class.

Y: Victor loves his teachers. [Victor told me he needed to pee, he was probably bored. I asked him to wait a second. He climbed into my chair so I had to stand up.]

D: Why don’t you control your child? Sit down. [It was getting personal. Victor and I spoke in Mandarin.]

Y: Maybe you can understand: as a parent, I’m worried about his safety at school. In the other class, there is also an aggressive child. He’s very tall and his name starts with N. He hit Victor but not on a daily basis.

D: I’m not removing N from the class. His mother is a nursing student here.

Y: [I didn’t think this was relevant. I realized I was in the wrong political camp: the wrong race and social/economic class. I didn’t have a chance.] Will N be in the summer program?

D: Why? If he’s here, Victor won’t come?

Y: I want to know my options.

D: I don’t know at this time.

Y: I want to avoid conflict as best as I can. So it’ll be helpful if I know whether N will be in the class.

D: I don’t know.

Y: Thank you for your time.

D: You’re welcome. I’ll be here until eight o’clock.

[We both smiled.]

I came outside and asked Victor, “How about I switch you to the other class?”

He burst into tears. “No, I love Ms. S!”

“But N hits you every day.”

“Let him hit me. I want to be in Ms. S’s class.”

“But I don’t want him to hit you.”

“It’s okay. N is funny sometimes.”

“How?”

He couldn’t tell me. “I want to be in Ms. S’s class.”

There was not much I could say to that.

On our way home, we listened to a Chinese song, Sailor. He hums the lyrics:

在受人欺负的时候总是听见水手说/他说风雨中这点痛算什么/
Whenever I’m bullied I remember what the sailor said/In the storm my pain is nothing

擦干泪不要怕/至少我们还有梦
Dry my tears, don’t be afraid/At least we still have dreams

他说风雨中这点痛算什么/擦干泪不要问为什么　
In the storm my pain is nothing /Dry my tears and don’t ask why

I had low expectations for the preschool. I wanted Victor to learn English, make friends and have fun. He has done that and more, he is learning to practice non-violence. It’s easy to punch a smaller child, but it takes courage, wisdom and self-reliance to practice non-violence. Victor has taken on the task voluntarily because he won’t succumb to a bully either by withdrawing or imitating the aggressor.

Republished: I am a success (in Chinese Simplified)

From: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4a16eb0f01000994.html

不怕失败，放手一搏。朝着最初的目标走下去，迎着世界的风我要无畏的挺立，每天告诉自己一遍：我真的很不错！

学做任何事得按部就班，急不得。抱着最大的希望，我做最大的努力。对于必须要做的事我一点都不怀疑。要做就做最好的，优秀是我的性格；我知道我能做的就是不停不停地努力。

我已经开始，我不再停止，我不再退却。孤单寂寞与被遗弃感是最可怕的贫穷。人若软弱就是自己最大的敌人。装满勇气面对困难，勇往直前，永不泄气；我知道我能做的就是不停不停地努力。

我用我的生命来实践自己证明自己我真的很不错。

Keira's world in OASIS

Keira is the protagonist in my new novel: http://www.yanghuang.com/books/main.asp#oasis

My fiction is not autobiographical. In China and the U.S., I’ve belonged to the middle class. But in fiction, I’m aspired to write about the under-privileged people: peasants, workers, even an illiterate woman. Giving them a voice gives me satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

So, what drives people in Keira’s world? Given what you have (the land: be it poor or rich, it’s the motherland that bore and nurtured you), you survive and thrive.

What is the greatest sin? Stroke your ego rather than treat yourself well. Examples: it’s okay to be a bandit if that enables you to take care of your clan. It’s okay to be a prostitute if that’s the only way you can raise your child. But it’s NOT okay to be an educated elite and drink yourself to death. Self destruction is loathed because it wastes your talent and resources. The same goes for the environment: you should not exploit the land even if you own it.

5 bad things that a person can do:

1. Kill yourself.
2. Go crazy. Doesn’t matter if you love too much, have too much money, are super sensitive/intelligent/creative, you have failed. Your story is a tragedy.
3. Give up trying. It’s okay to lose money as long as you try to earn it. If you quit and expect your parents to feed you, you have failed.
4. Not ask for help when you need it. Parents can take you in when you lose your job. Humans are cooperative, that’s why we’re more evolved than animals.
5. When confronted with powerful evils, you suppress other people instead of fighting the injustice. For example, in a racist society, minorities try to keep each other down rather than demand for their rights.

These five deeds harm the individuals and the society of which they are a part. Survival first, and others things second, that includes: justice, integrity, compassion, fidelity, love, ambition, etc. Pride is not valued. People take pleasure in doing good work, and life seems to have meaning.

What I remind myself

Why do I write?

Paint a picture of realistic characters, and make the readers see themselves in my characters.

My strength:

Good instincts about plot, symbolism and emotional significance. Rather ambitious.

My weakness:

Plot driven, inattention to details and internal monologue, insensitivity to the effects of one character on the others.

Tendency to over explain, repetitive writing. Not confident in my readers.

Potential downfall:

Lazy writing culminates in writing like “a movie,” or a screenplay. Lack of layers and complexity.

Ways to improve (a checklist):

1. Always write a fresh experience (do my research even on the smallest actions) based on real people’s experience. Remember: show my passion through the small, authentic details. NEVER give in to mediocrity, indifference and generic details. Don’t be clever, or write easily: I can NEVER be so interesting.
2. Create a realistic world. Notice the mundane details that will “go out of fashion” or cease to exist. Never leave my characters in a vacuum with pure emotions—they cease to matter!
3. Be passionately political. It is far better than sex; in fact, sex is not any good if it’s not political. The distaste for politics (telling lies) in my early years caused me to be turned off in order to develop my independence (to see the truth). This indifference made me insensitive to the intricacy of Chinese politics. I need to know the political world my characters live in, the forces they battle in their daily lives.
4. Focus on the conflicts. There are other ways to move the plot forward: natural growth (of people, a business, a town), beautiful scenery, and essentially life itself. But conflicts are essential to fiction because they tell the reader what to focus on, and reveal characters on a deep level: what they stand for, what they are capable of, what they will betray in order to survive/thrive.

Remember Anton Chekho, "Try and write a story about a young man - the son of a serf, a former grocer, choir boy, schoolboy and university student, raised on respect for rank, kissing the priests' hands, worshipping the ideas of others, and giving thanks for every piece of bread, receiving frequent whippings, making the rounds as a tutor without galoshes, brawling, torturing animals, enjoying dinners at the houses of rich relatives, needlessly hypocritical before God and man merely to acknowledge his own insignificance - write about how this young man squeezes the slave out of himself drop by drop and how, on waking up one fine morning, he finds that the blood coursing through his veins is no longer the blood of a slave, but that of a real human being." (Karlinsky, 85).

Should a woman be smart?

I’m not smart, but I get by. I work full time as a computer system administrator. I write fiction. I’m married and have two boys.

My life is wonderful in many ways, although I am not smart.

• I feel like a pawn working in the technology field.
• I wrestle with my demons and/or the lack of it when I write fiction.
• My boys wrap me around their little fingers.

When I was younger, I once thought I was bright, but I was ignorant. I didn’t have a job, a family or children. All I had was free time, daydreams and youthful ego. Over the years I’ve had the counsel from wise people.

When I was in elementary school, Dad said, “A woman shouldn’t be too smart. A smart woman is an oddity.” But when I had the second place for the midterm exams, he felt he lost face; his disappointment has haunted me to this day.

My colleague had a baby girl. She said, “My daughter shouldn’t be smart, she should be lovable and find a good husband.” She was an engineer with an MS degree, and her husband was a university professor. How dumb could her daughter be?

My relative was worried about her 23-year-old daughter who graduated from the MIT with a BS in chemistry. “When will she find a man and settle down? A career isn’t important to a woman.” Why did she spend $160,000 on her daughter’s college tuition?

A male friend told me 98% of affluent Chinese businessmen cheated on their wives. He went on cheerfully, “A woman shouldn’t be smart. She only needs to find a good man.” From the rest 2% or from the outer space?

Like most people I don’t have opinions on this matter. Intelligence is a naturally endowed gift, like one’s height, hair color or sexual orientation. If being gay is not of one’s choice, why should being smart be considered a personality?

I’ll never tell my boys, “be smart” or “be good-looking” because I gave them the intelligence and physical appearances. They can achieve professional competence through education. My ambition is that they shall grow up to become honest, courageous men with moral integrity.

You see, I’m not smart.