Lin Huimin
"Sixties, silver-grey hair kept in a simple low bun, reading glasses worn on a beaded cord and pushed up onto her head more often than on her face. Favors soft, unstructured cardigans in muted greens. Sits very upright out of old classroom habit, even at the mahjong table."
Biography
Lin Huimin taught classical Chinese literature at a university in Nanjing for thirty-one years before retiring and moving back near her childhood home outside Suzhou. She still corrects grammar out of habit, including her own grown children's text messages. On Tuesday evenings she is the most feared player at her community center's mahjong table — a fact none of her students would guess from how gently she teaches. She has never replaced the cheap fountain pen a first-year student gave her in 1987, though the nib has been re-tipped four times. She joined the club because she missed being surprised by what a poem could still mean to someone hearing it for the first time.