Kindergarden

Author: Isamu Hayashi

Two years after I was in Beijing my parents turned to work in the Communist League Central Committee. They sent me to its boarding kindergarden. There children could only go back their home once a week. A bus provided by the organization sent the children to the kindergarden each week because it was located in Guan Yuan, which was on other side of Beijing far away from the organization.

The kindergarden had a big yard. There was a two story main building for the children and an internal complex for the caregivers and staff. There was a playground in front of the main building. On the playground there was a sand box, a climbing structure, a swing, and a seesaw.

At the beginning I really did not want to go to the kindergarden. The worst moment for me was leaving home. But gradually I got along with other children. There were about three classes of children depending on the age of child. I was in the highest class. We were on the second floor. There were about twenty children in this class. We had caregivers, Zao Jing Li and Liu Qin Min, and a teacher, Huang Yi Lei, with us. The caregivers took care of our daily life and our teacher taught us singing and drawing. Teacher Huang was an active, charming, young lady who worn eye glasses. She taught us to sing the songs and draw something. She could play very wonderful music with an organ. What I liked was drawing. By that time I could draw horse, bird, pigs, chicken, and gold fish. The teacher appreciated my drawings.

The closest playmate was Liu Xiao Hong, a little girl in the same class with me. There were many other children playing with me but most of time I liked playing with Liu. We were drawing something or playing in the sand box during play hours. Hu De Hua, a thin little boy was also in my class. He was the son of Hu Yao Bang, the top leader of the Communist League Central Committee.

Our schedule was fixed by the kindergarden routine. Getting up at seven; taking lunch at 12:00; a nap time after lunch; then playing time; going to bed at 8:00 PM. Sometimes our teacher provided a slide show using overhead projection before bed time.

The most favorite thing for me was watching slide show. The story of little red riding hood was a favorite slide show for us. Our teacher projected the slide on to the wall and told the story for each screen. During the slide show we were very quiet.

In summer sometimes afternoon nap we could eat strawberries. Our caregivers put the strawberries into big bowl and added sugar and then smashed them into something like jam. They gave each of us a small bowl of this kind of jam. I liked this fruit time.

In my final year of kindergarden, it held a summer camp in Beidaihe, a beach city several hundred miles away from Beijing. This was my first time to see the ocean. The first day we approached the sea I saw under the blue sky an ocean wave raised very high and then fell onto the golden sand making a heavy sound. I was very excited. We laid on the sand. It was very warm. I tried to catch the small crabs. When I found a hole on the ground I put the dry sand into it and then dug the hole following the trace of the dry sand. The small crab would appear at the end of the hole.

When the sun fell in the west the sky became dyed red color. I wondered where the sun was. If I went to the west direction I would see it bigger and clearer. I went on and on to the direction of west, but could never catch up to the sun.

There were a lot of peach trees around the house that we stayed. One day after bed time I and some of the room mates went out to pick up peaches. The peach trees were surrounded by wire fence. We climbed the poles and jumped into the peaches orchard. Unfortunately my foot stepped on a thorn of the wire. It was blooding. At night when all the children had been fallen on sleep, I was still awake. The frogs, somewhere around our house, made endless noises. The bright moon was shining on the sky. I felt sad because of homesick. 

My aunt Ma Shao Jie also came to this summer camp. She was a caregiver who took care of the small children. One day she brought me to down town Beidaihe. That was a private trip away from the kindergarden. There were only several shops in down town Beidaihe. Some shops sold very beautiful sea shells, photographs, caps, and other souvenirs. Some shops sold fruits such as peaches, water melons, other kind of melons. There were few customers and no foreigners. My aunt bought me a cap. It was a white cap with big hood. It was made of cloth with wire in it to keep its shape.