Parody cover of Junior English for China. Photo: Li Miao

By Xu Liuliu

A new edition of English Plus, a textbook for learning English published by the People's Education Press (PEP), has stirred up interest on Chinese Internet forums for the outcome of a supposed relationship between two fictional characters featured in many of the original text's educational dialogues.

"Hello, My name is Li Lei. Nice to meet you!"

"Hello, I'm Han Meimei. Nice to meet you, too!"

These banal sentences from the original version of English Plus, called Junior English for China, were some of the very first English words many 1990s Chinese middle school students would read when studying English for the first time, introducing the characters Li Lei and Han Meimei.

In the new edition of the text, Han Meimei doesn't wed Li Lei, instead marrying and having two children with new-comer Han Gang.

Even freshmen at Peking University took up the topic at a recent campus debate.

"When we got the book, we couldn't help thinking about their relationship. After the first semester, most of my classmates thought they should be a couple," said David Feng, 26, an editor at English language-learning magazine.

"I thought Li Lei was handsome and smart, while Han Meimei was good at studying. Everyone thought they would make the perfect couple," said Lucy Li, 27, who works at a multinational corporation.

The original textbook, produced jointly by PEP and a UK partner, Longman Press, was read by over 100 million students in China but gradually dropped out of rotation after 2000.

"We went on to use different editions of the textbook, but many still miss the original," said Liu Daoyi, 70, who coauthored Junior English for China with Longman Press.

"I don't think so," she said, laughing, when asked if a love affair between Li and Han was hidden in the book. "There was little tension between them. At that time, we managed to prevent puppy love."

Recent posts on tianya.com. cn, written by the same students who grew up with Li Lei and Han Meimei as relationship role models, demonstrate their generation's nostalgia for a long lost era of when they were learning English for the first time:

"Why is it so hard for two people who love each other to be together?"

"Han, at my age, is already a mother of two. We are getting older!"

"Looking at Li and Han, we can see a shadow of ourselves. We are sorry about the years that have passed us by. The people we married are not our first loves."

"Our generation is tired of modern society, we should try to seek out our lost memories of the past joys in the sun."