Last year when I went to China to visit my grandparents my granddad presented me with an old essay book from the year right before I left for America. In it there were weekly essays written by me for Chinese class. One of the highest scoring essays in the entire booklet is titled “Savings Jar”. I seriously did not remember writing any of the essays in that booklet, but I really enjoyed reading this particular essay, and it really shows that I have been saving ever since I was a kid. Since the original is in Chinese, I am translating it here for your reading pleasure
Savings Jar
I have a pretty savings jar made out of colorful porcelain. It has a small mouth, but its tummy is quite large. It is rotund and has a hemispherical cover. It looks just like a fat child wearing a set of flowery clothes and a multicolored hat. Its black bottom has drawings of large pink flower buds and tiny yellow blooms with blue and green leaves and a yellow stem. The jar’s rim has a decorative border that looks like lotus flower petals that are blue, green, and red. Its many colors look as if they’re dancing and it’s extremely beautiful.
Its large stomach can hold many things. Originally It was used to store stamps, but when my first pig-shaped coin bank broke, my mom gave this jar to me for saving money. The money in the jar is all saved by me on a daily basis. Whenever I am given a coin I would put it in. Just like this days turned into months, what was small grew large, and grains of sand became a tower. After several years, the jar now contains more than ten yuan, and it is quite heavy when it is held.
One day, I was showing off my savings jar to my grandmother. Because it is very heavy I accidentally dropped the cover on the ground and it broke in two. I was so sad that I almost cried. Then I heard that my uncle has all purpose glue in his factory, so I carefully put together the pieces of the cover and wrapped it up with paper. Afterwards, my uncle used the glue and repaired the cover, and my jar was perfectly restored.
Savings jar, you are my little bank. You are not only beautiful on the outside, but you also are training me to maintain the good habit of saving money!
Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed translating it. The teacher underlined some of the poetic parts indicating that she liked it, and she didn’t edit this essay at all. If you’re curious, the ten yuan I collected in that jar was worth about $1.60 back in the early 1990s, but it was possible to buy quite a lot of things in China with it back then, at least from an eight year girl’s perspective. The lowest scored essay in the booklet was titled “An Event I Found Deeply Moving”, and it was about an old woman barfing on the street non-stop. That essay seriously made my mom choke from laughter when she read it. Do any of you guys remember your piggy banks? Was it a fond memory?
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8 comments ↓
I had a michaelangelo teenage mutant ninja turtles bank, it was about 1.5 ft high and pretty accurately painted. The only downside was the artisan didn’t place any hole or such to remove coins, poor guy lasted 8 years til he got shin kicked Hard..forgot what he went for.
Very cute. Keep writing.
[…] Savings Jar — An Essay by the Baglady at Age 8 @ The Baglady. Savings jar, you are my little bank. You are not only beautiful on the outside, but you also are training me to maintain the good habit of saving money! […]
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That was so nice that your granddad kept your essays all those years and was kind enough to give you the book back!
One of my aunt’s likes to tease me that one time when she was visiting she peaked in my room and I was sitting on my bed singing while i counted my money (mostly change).
I still sing when I count it!
hahaha Mr. Cheap you crack me up. I can sort of imagine that, a MiniCheap singing and counting coins.
When I was younger, I used to save my coins and put them into rolls. I would ride my bike down to my bank (it was about 3 blocks away) and deposit the money. I was quite good at saving money when I was younger…something happened though…
Beautifully written essay! I always had to move my money around to different hiding spots because my sister would steal it. So, not a fond memory for me!
By the way, my daughter was born in China, too. My husband and I spent 3 weeks in China during her adoption and we found it fascinating there!
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