teacher gui | buy it or get out ::
:: in this short, 93 year old Teacher Gui (Ms. Gui Biqing, 桂碧清) talks about her experiences with customer service in the times of government-assigned jobs and the “big rice pot,” a cousin of the “iron rice bowl.”
The “teacher gui” video series will be sharing short excerpts from ongoing interviews with Teacher Gui, who is working with Chen Yi (陈怡), a reporter at the Shanghai Service Platform for Science & Public (上海科普资源开发与共享平台), to write her memoirs; a yet-to-be titled autobiography published sometime in 2009.
This video is also available on Tudou for faster loading in China (and without the disappointing “skip” in the YouTube version above).
Fortunately, Teacher Gui was kind enough to allow one of her students (i.e. me) to sit in and film these sessions. Unfortunately though, the invitation came a bit late in the process, as she has already finished talking about most of the cultural revolution period in China (1966 – 76).
Teacher Gui is 93 years old and has been a resident of Shanghai since she was a late teenager. Born in 1917, she spent her early years growing up on the campus of Qinghua University where her father was a professor. When the Japanese came too close for comfort, Teacher Gui and her family fled south to Shanghai, where shortly thereafter they were again inconvenienced by the Japanese.
Teacher Gui has lived through some of modern China’s most turbulent and interesting times. Through it all, including an 18 month stint locked up during the cultural revolution for being accused of espionage, she’s never stopped working. She was a radio news broadcaster (with the Soviet Union broadcasting station in Shanghai), a kindergarten headmaster, and Chinese language teacher. She’s been teaching Mandarin to foreigners in Shanghai since the early 1940’s, and still teaches to this day.
For more on Teacher Gui, feel free to Baidu or her; there are plenty of interesting articles, interviews, etc. from over the years.
// AjS
- teacher gui | nixon's letter & good kids gone bad ::
- shorts | helen lee @ shanghai fashion week ::
- shorts | interview w/ wen yunchao ::
- shorts | happy chinese new year ::
- shorts | teardop ::
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:31 am
I find that people who have had freedom and choice, in Australia, find themselves in jobs they do not like and also treat their customers with the same discourtesies described here in this example. It’s not enough to have choice and freedom, there also needs to be education and not just academic education but also vocational eduction so that people can work out what kind of job they will enjoy.
I think the problem here is that the lifestyle dictates that you have to have “things” to be happy and to get things you need money. So rather than getting a job you like, regardless of the lower pay, you will get a job you hate just get money to buy “things”.
It’s interviews like these that show you just how lucky you are in the modern times.
December 24th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I remember those days where you had to tell the guy behind the counter what you want. Look far away from central Beijing (like say Shijingshan in the western outskirts), and some of these still exist to this very day.
Having taken a look at this, I consider what I’m doing these days very much something to be treasured myself, and more importantly, something that I feel lucky that I am able to do. It ain’t easy! We’ve got to be happy with what we have!