BOOK REVIEW
1. Type : Poignant autobiography
2. Title : The Diary of Ma Yan: The Struggles and Hopes of a Chinese School
Girl (English ver)
Alternatif book title : Mayan (by :Sanie B Kuncoro; Indonesia ver.)
3. Author/Writer : Ma Yan
4. Publisher : Pierre Haski.
5. Year of Publication : 2005
6. Total pages : 166 pages
7. Summary :
The story begin as the group of foreigner came to a village of Zhangjiashu, in the nthwesternor region of Ningxia, in march 2001. Haski the publisher was on this group, they were on a journey to make a documentary on Chinese Muslims. Even though the region was so poor both in education and water, but they were treated well by the impoverished villagers. Of course the came of foreigner in such remote village, was not a common thing, the news that they were staying in one of the imam’s house already spreaded throughout the village.
As they were leaving, the mother of thirteen-year-old Ma Yan thrust her daughter's diaries into the arms of the foreigners, pleading them to help her. At that time they were very confused by her action, and they just accept it. By the time they were arrived in Shanghai the group tried to translate it, and they were thouched by this young girl’s diary. Haski the publisher tried to publish this book in France, and by a title of “Journal de Ma Yan.”
It based of a diary of Ma Yan a young girl who lived in poverty has illiterate mother, while suffering from an ulcer, undertook a job of hard labor hundreds of miles from home to pay for her daughter's education. She was determined to excel at school, and she has a goal that she must to achieved : "I must work really hard in order to go to university later. Then I'll get a good job, and Mother and Father will at last have a happy life." Though frequent restatements of this goal, numerous references to Ma Yan's fear of disappointing her mother and recaps of similar classroom incidents make for rather repetitious reading, they do underscore the girl's extraordinary resolve, generosity of spirit and resilience. Many of the details will open youngster's eyes (e.g., Ma Yan went without food for days to save money to buy a pen; each weekend, she and her brother walked more than 12 miles to and from school, where they boarded during the week and often went hungry). Even the Ma family had to pull Ma Yan out of school as the fees were much too expensive for Ma Yan's family to afford.
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