Home >> My Olympic Story (April 29-May 18)

Li Chuanyu: A village teacher who spreads the Olympic dream

My name is Li Chuanyu, I am 28 years old. I have taught English for eight years in Shuangchahe Middle School in Suileng County of Heilongjiang Province.

My Olympic story dates back to the 1,000-day countdown to the Olympic Games, when I started an Olympic-series column in the English Coaching Paper. Afterwards, on the 100-day countdown, I was selected as "Person Connected with the Olympic Games."

After graduating from university, I took a job as an English teacher in a middle school. I have always tried to bring more value to my life. For me, I believe the best way is through writing.

However, to my disappointment, my contributions to magazines and newspapers received no feedback. The turning point was in November 2005, when I received a phone call from the editor of the English Coaching Paper. She said that she had read all of my submissions and felt that although these articles were not quite suitable for publication, I could consider the possibility of writing for an "Olympic series" column. The first series would be about Olympic mascots.

I felt that my life was once again energized. Frankly, I knew very little about Olympic mascots at that time. But in order to accomplish this assignment, I was determined to give this task my best shot.

I spent days surfing the Internet, gradually familiarizing myself with mascots of the past ten Olympic Games. The first edition of my series featured Beijing Fuwa. This was followed by editions covering mascots of all the Olympic Games after 1972.

"I am Waldi, mascot of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. I am a cute little beagle…" I always introduced characteristics of each mascot in the first person. My first batch of readers was studying in their first year of junior middle school at that time. Time flies by. Now they are all in high school.

Three years have passed by and I wonder if there has been any new stories happening in their lives related to the Olympic Games. The "mascot" series, also my first series, is entitled "What the Mascots Say." "Yu," which in Chinese literally means "language" and shares the same pronunciation with the second character of my given name "Chuanyu," seems to indicate other connections between me and the Olympic Games.

Thanks to the success of the Olympic mascot series, I picked up self-confidence again to be a good writer. Meanwhile, this also preluded the birth of my other Olympic-themed series. In November 2007, I was once again given the opportunity to write about Olympic champions, one person per edition of the English Coaching Paper, totaling 26 issues per semester.

Olympic champions are heroes to the Chinese people. It is a real honor to introduce them to China's middle school students. As the number of issues of the English Coaching Paper is limited, I am only able to cover 26 champions each semester. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to cover only the most qualified Olympic champions, for example, Xu Haifeng, the shooting gold medallist, and Deng Yaping, table tennis champion.

Over the past three years, I have been covering such topics as Olympic mascots, the origin of the Olympic Games, and torch relay activities. I feel proud that over one million middle school students are reading my articles. I am now continuing with my pursuit of the Olympic dream. I expect to see a book one day, containing all the articles that I have ever published.

Meanwhile, I also would like to become an alternate Olympic torchbearer, attend the opening ceremony of the Games, and have a chance to communicate with Chinese middle school students about what I know about the Olympic Games.

Currently, I am working on the profiles of China's Olympic co-host cities. The articles will be completed and published in June or July. I hope that through my efforts, more Chinese middle school students will know and contribute to the Olympic Games.