I was only nine when my family moved to Shenzhen to realize our dream of a better life. Living in a crowded flat I imagined attending a beautiful state school. However, when school finally started, I stood in front of a dilapidated three-story private school with tears in my eyes. This was the first time I had experienced the consequences of the Chinese Hukou system, a household registration system that divides China's population into two groups, City-Hukou and Countryside-Hukou. Only people with official Shenzhen City-Hukou could attend its state schools. As an outsider, I could not. Instead, I had to attend a second-rate private school.
　　在我九岁时，为了更美好的生活我们全家搬到了深圳。那时我们全家住在一个拥挤的公寓里，我总是梦想着能进入一所漂亮的公办学校上学。然而，当我第一天去上学时，我发现自己的面前只有一幢破破烂烂的三层小楼，看着这所让人失望的私立学校我的眼里涌上了泪水。这是我第一次体验到中国户口体系的严重后果，它把中国人分成两种：城市户口和农村户口。只有具有深圳本市户口的学生才能进入公立学校；而作为外来人口的我，只能选择二流的私立学校。

　　The disappointment overwhelmed my heart when I found an unconceivable discrepancy between the private schools and public schools in city. In addition to the difference in education facilities, the abilities of the teachers are also dissimilar. In my primary private school, most of my teachers had only graduated from high school, whereas in Shenzhen’s public schools most teachers are college graduates. I often wondered if I would have the opportunity to go to college.
　　当我发现私立学校与公立学校之间巨大的差异时我失望到了极点。除了教学设施上的落后，教师的教学能力比起公立学校更是相差甚远。我当时就读的私立小学里，多数老师只是高中毕业，而深圳的公立学校绝大部分都大学毕业。那时候我真怀疑自己能否有机会上大学。

　　Now I discern that I was not alone. There are about eight million rural children who migrate to China’s cities like me and study at the nonstandard private schools because they don’t have a City-Hukou.  Many just play in the streets instead of going to school every day. More children from the countryside are blocked off from universities because most universities are located in cities and accept only about ten percent of several million rural students. Where do the rest go? They plough the fields, build bungalows and feed pigs – the things that go on in my hometown. Those scenes make me ponder – what is the traditional goal of education? I think it should narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and give society more equality. However, from what I saw, the Hukou system definitely reverses the supposed Chinese education goal. It enlarges the gap between rich and the poor and increases the possibility of interclass conflict.
　　现在我发现像我这样的情况绝不止一例。中国现有约八百万农村儿童移居到城市后像我一样只能去不正规的私立学校学习，只因为他们没有城市户口。很多儿童甚至每天只能在大街上玩耍而没有书读。更多的农村学生被大学拒之门外，因为大学多设在城市里，中国几百万的农村儿童中只有百分之十有机会上大学。那么其余的人去了哪里？他们或是在田地里耕田，或是去建筑工地打工，或者去喂猪 — 我的家乡年复一年地重复着这样的故事。这些情景不禁让我陷入了深思 — 教育的本质目的到底是什么？我想它应该是为了减少人们的贫富差距让这个社会变得更公平。然而，我所看到的却是在户口体制的干涉下中国的教育现状与它的理论目标是背道而驰的。它加大了贫富差距，激化了阶层冲突。

　　Under such an unfair Hukou system my parents have spent a lot of effort. Many other parents support their children to emigrate from the countryside to the cities or from undeveloped cities to more developed cities where famed universities are located. Other poor students without sufficient resources can only watch other young people migrate with envy. One of them is my cousin. Without City-Hukou my cousin had been back to our barren hometown surrounded by mountains to study, while my parents achieved the resources to change my Hukou fairly rapidly. When I visited him in our hometown I sadly realized that he had become very humble. He asked if I could do him a favor in the future.
　　在这样不公平的户口体制下，我们的父母为了孩子的教育费尽了心血。很多家长为了支持孩子从农村搬到了城市，或者从小城市搬到了有著名大学的大城市。其他家庭条件有限的孩子只能眼睁睁地看着其他同龄人搬家，我表弟就是其中之一。因为没有城市户口，表弟只能回到我们那大山环绕的贫困的家乡上学，而我父母很快得到了足够的资源帮我办成了城市户口。当我回乡看见他时，我很伤心地发现他变得很自卑。他甚至问我将来可否帮一帮他。
 　　

　　“We can give mutual help to each other,” I replied. “When you studied in Shenzhen you really did a good job!” He just shook his head hopelessly and said:
 　　“I don’t know how to walk out from these mountains.”
　　Hearing this inconsolable answer I wanted to encourage him not to give up, but my mouth felt unable to say any positive words. The Hukou System makes the inequality a 　profoundly sensitive issue in our young minds.
　　“我们可以互相帮助。”我回答道。“你在深圳时学习一直很好！”他只是失望地摇了摇头：“我都不知道怎么才能走出这一片山。”听到他失落的回答，我很想鼓励他一定不要放弃，但我却无论如何也说不出任何鼓励的话语。在我们心中，户口制度已经使不平等成为了一个非常敏感的话题。

　　If the education system was fair, many rural children would have the same opportunity to compete with others and could improve their parents’ disadvantaged lives. Sadly it is not.  I was astounded when I heard that a multitude of cowherd children without Hukou live in the poorest countryside and only know how to watch over their cows.  Their destiny is to foster the next generation to watch over cows again. Generation by generation, these people strive perpetually in the underclass.
　　如果教育制度公平的话，很多农村儿童将有机会与其他儿童公平竞争，这样就能改善他们父母一辈的贫穷生活。可悲的是，现实并非如此。当我听到很多没有城市户口住在最偏远地区的放牛娃一辈子只会做一件事----放牛的时候，我觉得非常的震惊。他们的命运就是养育下一代继续放牛。一代接一代，这些人只能终身在下层社会里苦苦挣扎。

　　Although I have the City-Hukou to study at public schools I am still worried about the classmates I left behind who had no better option than a private school. Indeed, without access to a quality education, many had already stopped believing that they could go to college. I have experienced their insufferable feeling as an outsider being abandoned by this society. We have the responsibility and ability to bestow our care on them. This motivated me to establish Study Bush, a volunteer organization that encourages 120 excellent high school students to provide peer tutoring for children in substandard private schools. One and half years later we have taught over 300 children on weekends and holidays. However, there remain many children in cities all around China still limited to a low quality of education.
　　尽管现在我有了城市户口，在公立学校上学，我仍然为我以前的那些同学，他们只能选择私立学校的境遇而担忧。事实上，如果没有机会进入良好的教育系统，他们会渐渐终止上大学的想法。曾经也是一个被社会抛弃的外来户的我也体会过这种不堪忍受的感觉。我们有责任也有能力去关心他们。这种念头激励着我建立了“学从助学组”，这是一个自发的组织，由120位来自重点学校的尖子生为在私立学校学习的外来劳工子女免费补习辅导。在成立至今的一年半时间里，我们利用周末和寒暑假辅导了超过300名儿童。然而，中国的各城市中仍然还有很多儿童得不到良好的教育。

　　Sometimes I feel my volunteer efforts with Study-Bush are just like small drops of water in a vast ocean, and no matter what I have done I can’t change the ocean. Albeit we can’t eliminate such an enormous number of poor in such a large population as China has, maybe we can change the rules about who lives along the coastline.  This can be done by removing the stumbling blocks from the countryside to the city to help the poor to embark on a better life. From my cousin’s viewpoint, from the cowherd children’s words, from my childhood memory, I have perceived feelings of hopelessness. If there is no change in the Hukou system, how can we, this young generation, give China a better and more hopeful future?  
　　有时候，我觉得自己通过“学从助学组”所做的努力只不过是杯水车薪，不论我做了什么我也改变不了整个社会。尽管这样，我们也绝不能忽视作为一个人口大国的中国，占据了庞大比例的那些穷人。或许，我们可以改变居住在沿海地区的人口制度。我们可以废除从农村搬到城市的条条限制，使农村人也能过上更好的生活。从我表弟的看法中，从放牛娃的话语中，从我儿时的记忆中，我感到了一种绝望。如果户口制度不能改变，那么我们，作为中国的年轻一代，又怎么能给中国一个更好，更有希望的未来？   

     
       　           　A2-4 Phoebe 张翟梅