A tall 60-year-old brunette with sparkling friendly blue eyes and a quick way of speaking, Madame Bullynck radiates vitality and energy. In March 2003, along with her husband, she relocated from Belgium to the elegant city of Suzhou, in China's eastern province of Jiangsu.

The Heredity of Kindness

Bullynck is a person full of love and caring, qualities she attributes to her mother, who was also always ready to help others.

Since 1989, Bullynck, a former pre-school teacher and librarian, has lived in locations around the globe, due to her husband's occasional transfers for business. Wherever she settled, she would make a point of volunteering to assist in public-welfare activities, such as organizing charity sales to raise funds for orphans, reading books to the blind and generally serving as a goodwill ambassador. Following her steps, all of her three sons have chosen to become teachers, carrying on her legacy of love and charity.

In March 2003, when her husband was transferred to the Suzhou Philips Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd, Bullynck relocated to Suzhou. Upon learning that some children in North China had to cease their studies due to poverty, to a local newspaper she contributed an editorial calling on international friends to offer a helping hand. And when Bullynck learned that after advanced study abroad, the son of a fisherman returned home to Zhejiang Province to establish a school for the children of fishermen, she and several of her foreign friends visited the school to help out.

A Friendship not Foreign

The Bullyncks settled in Jinhua Garden, a residential development designed primarily for foreign business people located in the Suzhou High-Tech Industrial Zone, and they thus became residents of the Shishan Community. Not given to idleness, Madame Bullynck soon made friends with the senior citizens in the community and regularly visits the neighborhood committee, offering to help out with local causes. "Don't treat me as a foreigner," she says.

The neighborhood committee of Shishan Community now has a foreign national volunteer who takes an active part in cooking traditional Chinese food and creating paper art with her neighbors. When the community established a society for painting and calligraphy, Mrs. Bullynck, who is fond of oil painting, immediately signed up. The community also has a Peking Opera society, which often features amateur performers. Although Bullynck is still learning her Chinese, she is fascinated with the unique rhyme and rhythm of Peking Opera. She once invited the opera society to perform before more than 20 of her foreign friends. She also participates in dance programs organized by the community, teaching local residents Belgian folk dances.

During last summer's holiday, when community managers invited her to teach at a short-term training program, Bullynck agreed without hesitation. Every Tuesday morning she would volunteer her services teaching English to the children. In class, she encouraged the kids to be bold, ask questions and refer to her as "Borien," instead of "Teacher." To help the students better grasp more phrases for daily use, she once brought a pan and mixing bowl from home and taught the students how to make pancakes. Step-by-step, she demonstrated and explained how pancakes are made. The students learned not only how to prepare sweet pancakes, but also many new English words. Bullynck has become popular with the Chinese children, and is now a welcomed foreign neighbor among the Chinese residents in the community. Last year, the Women's Federation of the Suzhou Hi-Tech Industrial Zone granted Bullynck the honorary title of "Love Ambassador."

The Good Life of China

"I live a fairly easy life in China," says Bullynck, in the country for two years now. In comparison with some of the other regions she has lived, she finds that in China there is generally good understanding between foreigners and residents. Communication is not difficult, and she was pleased to discover that Chinese people are broad of mind, tolerant, and that conveying ideas is comparatively quite easy.

For Bullynck, the only serious challenge has been grasping China's age-old traditions and profoundly complex culture. As a foreigner, in her view, one must take the initiative in learning and respecting local customs and habits. Bullynck enjoys those elements of China arts new to her, such as Peking Opera, Suzhou ballad singing, calligraphy and embroidery. She praises the Chinese custom of younger generations showing respect for their elders. In her eyes, Westerners could learn a few things in this regard.

As a homemaker, Bullynck supports the work of her husband, attends painting class twice a week and participates in events with other foreign women. She has invited a tutor to teach her Chinese language and instruct her in the ways of traditional Chinese culture. During weekends, she and her husband stroll around the city, or fish in a neighboring small township. Soon she would like to visit the prairies of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. "It must be a beautiful place," she says.

(China Pictorial July 8, 2005)