I am from Shanghai, but I have lived in Kunming for nearly forty years. Shanghai and Yunnan give me some strange experiences. I can speak Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese and English. During the Culture Revolution, I was put into the native prison for five years. Thanks for the hard life that I was as strong as a horse. I once worked in a chemical factory and a radio mill and I studied the restaurant management. I was a workaholic until I was out of work in 1986,but I chose one hand to learn English hardly by myself and another hand to find a job.      

Then I went to Shenzhen to work in several jewellery companies for jade transfer trade from Myanmar to Hongkong passing through China under the customs supervise. About ten years, I worked in Yunnan border areas. I know a lot of arcane and interesting stories about Yunnan minorities history and culture backgrounds. Also I know some supernatural jade culture stories and I’m familiar with jade products.

Now I everyday stay at home but have nothing to do. I hope that I can do something for motherland and the tourism in Yunnan. I want to be a guide, and I’m sure I will be a good English guide. I know that the world has entered the "silver" times, more and more visitors are middle and elders, so they need a guide who is at the same age with them.

I have a lot of hobbies. I like traveling, taking pictures, inventing, studying computer software, learning  English, operating DV or DC and so on. Particularly, l prefer to sing old English songs and I recorded some English songs at Shanghai Broadcast Station in 1995 and made a CD album, my songs surprised the foreigners.

I have a dream that one day before 2008,I will show myself on CCTV talking about my experiences. The topic will be the seniors’ education." It is never too old to learn", I can prove the truth of this statement. Last but not least I want to tell those friends who think a fifty-eight-year old man can never learn anything. I want to tell them a medical theory, that is "The more you use your brain, the better you will be". I did it! Recently, I have got the college law certificate, this is the first one for me. I believe I will have the second, the third … .now i have got a certification of English guider. 

This is me, a common Chinese.

    

Ye Jingchang

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Ye,

 

So sorry that I have not been able to reply you in time (even it’s too late!) though I have so much wanted to, because you are such a specially introduced friend of ours! As the forum host, I, with all my respect, would like to extend my warmest welcome to you, Mr. Ye.

As you might believe, a young person like I am can never ever fully understand and feel a harsher world you generation have gone through. My father, now a very ordinary clerk working in a small company, used to tell me how idealistic or even unrealistic our generation was compared to his. He seldom holds big dreams as I do. Now, approaching retiring age, he just wants to go find a quite place with my mother and spend time there writing and musing over his past family stories. He said he wanted to write a novel about our family in which he would seek out his deepest comfort for the never fulfilled dreams of his. My mother has been a retiree for 2 years and her dream is a rather vague one. For she is always talking about having a grandson or granddaughter while at the same time complaining about the possible burden I may bring her with my future kids. She is a very traditional woman not only because of her age but also as a woman who has had her whole life devoted to her family. Those tough days will linger in her mind and she will keep nagging at me in order that I will remain forever a good child.

To be honest, Mr. Ye, your arrival and your words and the great efforts you ever put into your life impressed me so much. You have long been trying so persistently to have led a life that stands out among others’. I admire you for all those unusual experiences and lovely hobbies and sweet dreams you have as a member of your own generation and now ours (if I may say soJ) since I can feel deep down in your heart, you are still as young as an 18 year old. Life is not supple knees or rosy cheeks but a state of mind, as you may hold the same opinion on this with Samuel Ullman who wrote Youth, one of the most wonderful articles I eve r read.

I wonder when you should be writing here again, to me and to all the youngsters who long to be a useful and helpful member of our society and our Motherland, China.  

 

Yours warmly and respectfully,

Charles