Here are 3 out of the 15 letters:

Dear Myself,

I know you have changed greatly, I know it clearly. Although you're not naughty, sometimes you make trouble in your family. Remember being punished by Mother when you hit a neighbour boy to bleeding? I still remember it. The neighbour told your mother your 'crime'. That made her quite angry. She had thought you were at home. In fact you were out playing, even hit a neighbour boy. Mother beat you with a stick; you protected yourself with your hands. But at last you began crying. It's the neighbour who stopped Mother.

You're a pupil now. You should make efforts to learn more and more. Of course you are still a boy. I think you should play too. All work, no play makes Jack dull. Work and play together will make your future the same as mine - I like my job now, an English teacher. You'll certainly be an English teacher. Would you be my close friends and follow my path?

I think surely you should.

Love, Yours, K.

Dear Ling Jr,

Eighteen years have passed since I was your age. But I don't think whatever I'd in me have changed much, in spite of the passing years. Of course I'm taller, bigger and I'm more mature. I known more of the world. I've read more, travelled more and experienced much more. Yet I was fairly the same in heart!

As a habit, I don't quarrel with anyone. I think a lot but do a little. Even my life now is nearly the same. Most of my time is spent in school, and my friends are teachers and students. Occasionally, when I have time and I feel like, I go to visit people at their home; those are people concerning school, too.

You'd never dream that you'll remain nearly the same eighteen years later. But this is nothing to wonder about. It's hard for anybody to change his character, unless he has experienced something very, very unusual. You'll understand when you arrive at my age.

Up to now I have nothing to complain about life. I'm not a fatalism, but I believe in the saying " whatever will be will be "; since you have tried your best, the rest is beyond your reach. You can be at ease yourself; you have nothing to blame or to complain. Anyway, I'm quite mature. I wish you'd see me now.

Yours, Ling Sr

Dear Little He,

Things changed so much; now I'm your teacher. I would have taught you how to behave if I had known I could become what I am today.

You are ten, aren't you? You always nose around adults affair. When your parents ask you to do homework, you usually climb upstairs with a whole bag of books- but they aren't textbooks but novels. You read and read, imagining yourself the characters in the novel.

Then you go to your mother and ask her if the men and women characters are really so handsome and beautiful and wise and everything. You silly little thing! They aren't real people but characters in novels! You even want to find and see them with your own eyes when you grow up.

How can that be? Now I'm grown-up and I've never seen anyone so perfect in the world. Of course I have no reason to laugh at a ten year old's fantasy, but I do hope you won't read so many novels. That'll spoil your eyes and your school study and your mind even.

You'll get too sentimental if you keep being fond of these tragedies. Remember my advice. I am old and I know much more than you.

I was told that you dislike your grandfather. Do love him. He won't live long, but he is showing his last love to you. I know what you hate isn't he himself but his long finger nails. But it's his habit. For God's sake, don't mind about that. Stay with him as much as possible and he will die with his eyes closed.

Well, I hope to hear from you soon. Will you write to an adult like me, you little elves?

Yours loving, Big He.

There are people in the language teaching world who would accuse John Morgan's lead-in to this writing of being intrusive and over-intimate. They tend to say things like: " leave therapy to the therapists ( the rapists) , we are language teachers".

Yet the letters of these three people ( and the other letters I have) do not make me think they feel manipulated ( a favourite of term of those who dislike affective classroom work), psychologised, embarrassed or invaded. I guess they were having fun in the writing class and maybe saying things they had never before thought or said in mother tongue. Maybe they were making the target language more their own.
( the editor )