|
Dong Yue gets up at 5:50 a.m. for an hour-long bus trip across the city to her school. The six-year-old springs up the minute her alarm clock goes off, though she often dozes off during the bus ride.
For Dong, a first-grader at Haidian Experimental Primary School in western Beijing, being punctual at school is important.
Dong and her classmates all cherish the stickers their teachers give them for punctuality, concentration in class, high quality schoolwork and active participation in classroom activities.
Every 10 stickers can be swapped for a certificate of merit and for every five certificates of merit, the children can get awards ranging from sweets to erasers, pencil sharpeners and exercise books.
Unlike their parents who were scolded as kids for being late or disrupting class, Dong and her classmates face losses of stickers, and are always given chances to make up by helping clean their classroom or contributing hand cleaning gel to their class.
Among Dong's heroes are NBA player Yao Ming and Olympic champion hurdler Liu Xiang. "Canada is good, but they don't have our heroes," she announced proudly after a visit to Alberta early this year.
At six, Dong admires Yao, the 7-foot-6 NBA star playing for Houston Rockets, mainly for his fame and the honor he has done to China.
Though Liu Xiang limped off to a trail of tears amid public expectation for another Olympic gold last year, Dong idolizes him for his past glory as well as his perseverance to get back to the track.
She knows nothing, however, of Lei Feng, Mao Zedong's model soldier who spent all his time and money helping complete strangers and inspired her father's generation. |
