The Woman Teacher

This short piece describes a junior high school student who comes to the house for lessons but the next day brings no books, because his father forbids him to read vernacular Chinese and will pay tuition only for classical Chinese, washing his hands of vernacular study. The narrative is extremely spare, capturing little more than an ordinary episode, yet it brings the choices made within a family at the turn between old and new culture plainly into view. Xiao Hong's touch remains restrained here; the first-person "I" hiding in the kitchen is a detail that rewards rereading, at once a way of coping with the situation and a hint of some silent distance. The piece's strength lies not in argument but in turning the small matter of "what books to read" into a cut into the ideas of the age: the dispute between vernacular and classical, brought down to one child, becomes the practical question of whether he can keep studying and whether he will become a merchant or a scholar. It is short but information-dense, suitable as supplementary reading for understanding the social impact of the modern vernacular movement, and suitable for classroom discussion of educational choices and generational attitudes. Readers should not expect dramatic conflict, but should attend to the clash of ideas behind the dialogue.