SSIS Names & Faces
A Fish in the Water
by Rachele Consolini, Ina Rasmussen, Elisabetta Sorrentino, and Jenny Yang
Yay! Swimming!
Walk into the changing room, change, then go out and go to swimming class. Ever notice that person who teaches you how to swim properly? No?
We went to talk to the swim coach and found out interesting facts about him. His name is Xiao Jian Ping. He has a wife and a child, and they live in Suzhou now. He has been working at SSIS since last year.
Raised in a big family in Shanghai, Mr. Xiao started to swim when he was little because of a life-threatening incident that happened to him when he and his sisters were playing by the river. “My sister fell in, and without even knowing how to swim I jumped in and tried to rescue her. I got her up to my other sister who pulled her out of the water, but she didn’t have the time to grab my hand. I struggled to get up to the surface and it felt like hours. I was running out of breath before my sister was able to grab my hand and pull me back up.” After that terrifying experience, he decided to learn to swim.
He had a happy childhood. He and his sisters played all kinds of little games such as playing with balls, swimming in rivers, etc. He also went to school, of course.
Once he started to learn how to swim, he loved it. He practiced everyday. When he was older, he became a swim coach in the Suzhou Swimming department. He trained swimmers for Suzhou to go to different races and games. A year ago, the Suzhou government told him to move to SSIS and work as a swim coach. “My job is to help everyone to swim, and that is a really important skill.”
We asked him some questions about his job. “I work from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. everyday from Monday to Friday. I don’t get a lunch break. I eat whenever I am free.” We also asked about his students. “Yes, of course, it is a very nice thing for them to say hello, but usually only a few students that come to swimming class say hi to me.”
Apart from working, Xiao Jian Ping does other things too, such as swimming. He has also visited other places in China. “One time I went to Yellow River with my family. We tried to swim in the Yellow River, but it was so hard that I couldn’t really move, because the water was more like mud rather than water. We even tried to fill a bottle with water from the Yellow River, but most of the bottle was filled with mud, and only a little was water.”
“If I were to go back in time, I wouldn’t do anything different with my life because I love my job and family. My life is full of difficulties and adventures but I overcome them.”
View or download the colorful PDF version of Xiao Jian Ping's profile:
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Comments
Nicolas Navarro (unauthenticated)
May 27, 2010
Good job! It is very well written!
byronfarrow
May 28, 2010
An interesting article, although I would have like to know more about what Mr Xiao does outside of school, in the evenings and at weekends. I also think it's very sad that only a few students say "Hi" to him. I think this is a great project to put names to faces, but we should be able to operate at a minimum level of politeness even without the names!