It was such a long time ago that I could not understand why the memory deep downat the bottom of my mind was still so clear; time had hardly washed it away!

I don't know if other people think about their kindergarten lives, butfor me, it was so special and unforgettable. Indeed, can you imagine akindergarten without a fixed classroom? Without chairs, tables, books, toys ...?Without anything that a kindergarten child usually has? Mine was in suchcondition.

It has already been twelve years since I was in kindergarten.At that time, people in China were very poor, just as now! The government did nothave money to build a kindergarten for little children, only a small school forgrades one to ten, for children who were villagers and lived nearby. Smallchildren were usually left at home unattended, so some little-educated womendecided to organize a kindergarten for them, and by doing that, they couldreceive a fixed amount of money from the government.

That was how my lifestarted really, learning things in kindergarten, and it is also the beginning ofchildhood memories. I remember that we had to keep moving from place to placebecause we didn't have a classroom. If the houseowners were nice, they would letus stay for a few weeks. If not, sometimes we didn't even have a place to stay.Anyway, anywhere could be our classroom even if there were chickens jumpingaround.

Every morning, we had to bring our own chairs with us and takethem home in the evening. It was hard for a little child to do that, but luckily,my mother was one of the teachers, so she helped me to move mine every day. Wedidn't have a book, but we did have our own pencils and rough paper. The teacherstaught us how to write numbers and some Chinese characters, then they startedteaching us singing and dancing and playing games. It was fun though we didn'thave toys, but with our own imagination, everything soon became our toys: thechairs were arranged into a train, the useless paper was folded into ships andairplanes. Everything could seem fun for a simple-minded child.

Iespecially remember my mother then. She was so happy about my first schoolingthat she sewed me a little school bag. With that encouragement, my happinessenabled me to do anything. I didn't feel sad or uncomfortable in those firstschool days, instead I had a lot of fun playing with other children and learningnew things. I definitely preferred to stay at the changeable classrooms ratherthan staying home by myself!

Now whenever I look at little children, Ithink about my kindergarten life. It was hard, but from that start, I learned howto cherish the rest of my school life.