Foreign Children Go to School in Yiwu

Yiwu， a city in central Zhejiang， operates the world’s largest wholesale market of household consumer products. The China Small Commodities City of Yiwu offers 1.7 million varieties of goods and exports to 215 countries and regions across the world. The marketplace’s export volume accounts for over 60% of its total trade volume. Yiwu is home to 13，000 foreign wholesalers who live in Yiwu all the year round and do business. Many of them have families with them in Yiwu. About 320 children from more than 20 countries and regions receive education in schools in Yiwu.

I came to know Sanlong， a boy from Afghanistan， on May 31， 2009， a day before Children’s Day. When I walk into the art room at Wu’ai Primary School of Yiwu， all the Chinese and foreign pupils are working hard at their paintings. When the bell rings， the kids burst into a swirl of activities. I notice the most handsome and most energetic foreign boy. Zhang Huaiqing， the art teacher， tells me that the 10-year-old boy is Sanlong in the fourth grade. He and two younger brothers came with their mother to join their father who had been in Yiwu since 2000. He came to the school in September， 2008.

I find him again in the homeroom for class 2 at fourth grade. He smiles at me after recognizing me. He is very interested in math and he solved a problem on the blackboard. But the Chinese language is a headache. He is totally confused by the intricate elements of the Chinese characters. He becomes absent-minded very easily when he runs into some problems in a language class. He rushed out of the classroom as soon as the recession bell rings.

We talk. He speaks mandarin in an accent of the northwest China. He says Sanlong is a Chinese name created by the private teacher. His Afghan name is Zayd. His two younger brothers， Hasse and Harlem， also attend the same school. The three boys have a liking for Chinese painting. The art teacher tells me that Sanlong was so curious about Chinese painting tools at his first art class that he thought the brush pen was edible and tried to find how it tasted. His friendly classmates guffawed at seeing this innocent effort.

Sanlong’s father has been running flourishing import and export business in Yiwu since 2000. The father is highly concerned with his sons’ education. A private teacher takes care of the three sons’ studies after school. And there is a desk in the father’s company， especially assigned for the three children to do their homework. He coaches the sons himself whenever he can spares time. And the strict father also asks his employees to supervise the three boys. But Sanlong disregards the adults who try to supervise his academic studies when his father is away on business. Sanlong tells me proudly that he is boss when his father is absent.

Sanlong is a very modest boy in school. He once sneaked to the teachers’ office to see if his teacher is on duty for fear that the teacher might forget to come to teach them. Whenever he sees a teacher carrying teaching tools， he rushes forward and helps the teacher out. He works very hard at art. He seeks answers whenever he runs into difficulties in art. But as soon as he is out of classroom， he is very active. He is mad about kongfu. Now and then he visits the kongfu room at the school and has a good time by doing all kinds of kongfu movements which his body and his imagination allow him to perform. He wants to be another dragon as his name suggests (long in his Chinese name means dragon). Sanlong is confident about his academic progress. He often says to his classmates. “Chinese， kongfu and art will not get me down. I will soon catch up.”