My daughter Pearl’s first school experience was a nightmare.

About 4, she was enrolled at a kindergarten affiliated to the auto factory where my wife was employed. Exactly speaking, it was more a nursery than a kindergarten. About a dozen preschool kids whose parents worked at the factory attended the place. The teacher was Ms Gao.

At home, Pearl was candid and lively. Weeks after she started kindergarten, her demeanour started to change. If my family of three bumped into Ms Gao in the neighbourhood, Pearl would cringe. One day when she came back home, we spotted faeces in her pants. Shocked, we asked her what had happened. According to Pearl, Ms Gao did not allow them to move about. Most of the time at school, all the kids were rigidly seated on the bench, hands behind back.

One Spring Festival holiday, I took Pearl to the kindergarten grounds, where there was a slide. I asked Pearl to go and play on it, but she balked at it, saying that Ms Gao forbade it. I reassured her I would be staying with her, encouraging her to have a go. Only with me by her side, did Pearl find her normal self and have great fun on the facility. Unbridled, the little girl went up and down the slide so fast that pretty soon she was red in the face, beads of sweat all over her forehead.

Some time later, I had to work away from my family because my employer was relocated to the city. It was only on the weekend that I could go back and join them. Considering her experiences with Ms Gao, we had Pearl transferred to a kindergarten run by a young woman called Ms Bai. Situated in a back alley, it was one room with a mini backyard. In retrospect, Ms Bai was probably not a certified teacher. She was operating the care centre at that inconspicuous site, licenceless, in order to make ends meet. Her service lasted no longer than three or four years. At the time, there was a shortage of childcare facilities and kindergartens keenly felt across the entire country, whether in remote villages or in metropolises. Hence expensive preschool for most families.

Judging from Pearl’s talk and reaction at home, she had a great time with her new mistress. At playtime, Ms Bai let them go and play to their hearts’ content in the backyard, tiny though it was. Pearl and her mates not only gambolled there but also explored its every corner. When peaches were in season, the woman served the fresh fruit to them. Talking about the teacher, Pearl beamed with joy and pride. It was some distance from our home to Ms Bai’s school, but my daughter insisted that she go there on her own.

One weekend I went back to visit my family. I offered to walk Pearl to her school. Before we could get close to the lane where the school was located, Pearl asked me to turn back. She kept waving goodbye to me, saying repeatedly, “Dad, you go home.” With the girlie toddling in small steps to the school with a little backpack on her back, I felt my eyes moistening.

Standing where I was, I let my eyes follow Pearl as she was turning the corner and heading for the one-room school. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me. I proceeded over, quietly pushed open the door, and saw Pearl standing at her seat chatting merrily with her friends. The sole teacher, Ms Bai, was seated at the front with a sleeping child in her arms. The classroom furniture could not have been simpler, but there was no lack of harmony at the humble place.

About two years later, we moved house. Living conditions were far better in the regional capital. Out of convenience, Pearl was placed in a kindergarten in our very community. The facilities there were first class in town, but Pearl’s experience did not match up to the quality of the hardware. She was far from happy there.

I visited the school once and felt that Pearl’s confidence was hurt. It was a parent-teacher conference, where the head was monologuing throughout, droning for half an hour about their excellent service and about care and love showered upon the kids. There was no communication whatsoever between teachers and parents. Just before the parents were dismissed, Pearl’s class performed a dance, during which our girl was standing at the back of the troupe. Pearl’s body language convinced me that something was not right. While flailing her arms and legs mechanically to the beat in the herd, she kept rubbing her eyes. She was not the Pearl I was familiar with back at home. What caused the difference?

By the time Pearl had to start primary school, my wife and I did not feel she was ready mentally or habitually. Having compared notes, we decided that Pearl stay in kindergarten for one more year. Through some connection, she was admitted to a kindergarten in another community. To our relief, this time, Pearl’s experience was way better. Every morning she could not wait to go to school. Back at home in the evening, her babble told us everything. “Ms Zhang the teacher is friendly and my mates are sweet,” Pearl shared. Because the school was quite a few blocks from our home, it was arranged that my daughter would stay at the school the whole day. We took her there in the morning and collected her in the afternoon. Pearl had lunch at the school canteen. Before class resumed for the afternoon, she took a nap in her little bed. Some days, Pearl was the only child in her class who was left behind to eat lunch and nap, but it was no issue for the brave girl.

This last kindergarten accompanied Pearl for only one year. At the end of the second term, she was in good shape—all set for primary school.

One Sunday, my family of three was shopping at the finest department store in town. At the time Pearl was attending her third kindergarten. On the staircase, we came across a lady. Not until the lady was out of sight did Pearl say to us in her signature small voice, proudly, “That was Ms Bai, Dad. We have just run into her on the stairs.”

“Oh, why didn’t you tell us earlier, girl?” I responded with a trace of reproach in my tone.

Pearl is a mousy girl, by nature. Regrettably, I missed an opportunity to acknowledge, face to face, Ms Bai’s positive influence on my daughter. Anyway, the child’s reaction revealed where Ms Bai truly stood in her heart.