Keeping in touch while keeping peace

"Does your mother log on the Internet herself?" Yang Yang's roommates often asked him when they saw him chatting with his mother online.

Yang, 26, and his roommates were members of China's fourth contingent of 125 peacekeeping policemen in Haiti from August 2006 to April 2007. Yang's mother Nie Aifeng, now 54, lived in Feidong County, of East China's Anhui Province. Nie not only surprised Yang's roommates but also gradually became famous in the neighborhood because of her son and her computer skills.

In Feidong, where computers are not yet commonplace, most local residents don't know much about computer operation, not to mention the elderly. "I learned to use the computer in order to keep close to my son," Nie explains.

They had relied on telephones to communicate since Yang served in the Fujian Zhangzhou Border Defense Detachment in 2001.

In 2004, Yang's brother Wang Wei, a businessman, brought a computer home and began to chat with Yang through QQ messenger.

"I thought my elder son was joking when he said I could see Yang Yang in the computer," Nie recalls. After Wang arranged for Yang to log on the Internet, Nie says she was really astonished at seeing and hearing Yang via the computer monitor and couldn't help asking: "Is that you? Is that really you, Yang Yang?"

"Even now I still remember my mother's smiles of great joy and surprise," Yang says.

"I never imagined seeing my son who is so far away," says Nie, who had only six years' schooling.

Since then, Nie had enjoyed watching her two sons "talking" on the Internet. Wang Wei's half-month absence in May 2005 made Nie determined to learn to use Web cam herself.

However, Nie became frustrated again after Yang arrived in Haiti. The local Internet was too unstable to use a Web cam.

Nie was so anxious that she urged Yang's father Shi Xianjin, who graduated from high school, to study typing with her.

Wearing presbyopic glasses, the couple in their mid-50s began reviewing Chinese phonetic alphabets they'd learned more than 40 years ago. They bought textbooks and became "pupils" of the students living in the neighborhood.

Shi filled his exercise books with notes. However, they had to give up, because alphabets were too hard to remember.

Fortunately, the couple managed to buy a special writing pad that could automatically input the Chinese characters written on it.

From then on, they regularly chatted on the Internet with their son in Haiti, with the mother talking and the father writing. When they could use the Web cam, they would simply show Yang a message written on paper. The couple has improved their computer skills to the extent that they often compete to play computer games.

"Now, they can be called modern people in my hometown," Yang says. "In fact, their computer studies encouraged me a lot when I was in Haiti. I didn't feel too far away from them."

During his peacekeeping mission, Yang often spent 10 to 20 minutes at night on the Internet and called his parents once a week. However, his family seldom talked of their difficulties. Nie didn't tell Yang about his father's gallstones-removal operation last September until he had recovered from the surgery.

Neither did Yang tell them about any dangers or hardships he faced until he came back to China. In fact, they camped in the northwest of Port-au-Prince, one of the most dangerous regions of the city. Yang himself had witnessed a local policeman being shot dead. In late December of 2006, the Chinese peacekeeping policemen fought with illegal militia in the Citesoleil region of Port-au-Prince. The warehouse they lived in could get as hot as 49 C. Yang and teammates ate mainly meat and stone-like rice, and missed green vegetables.

Through the efforts of the fourth contingent of peacekeeping police, local security was greatly improved. Later, Yang and teammates were awarded UN peace medals and Chinese Public Security Ministry's Peacekeeping Policemen Glory Medals.

Yang became a hero in Feidong after he returned. Relatives and friends all visited or called to congratulate him upon his arrival in May, inviting him for dinners. The couple cooked every meal for Yang during his 20-day holiday at home.

Nie and Shi said they are very proud of Yang. "We are so glad that he has made a contribution to our country."

(China Daily 07/24/2007 page23)