Translation from this article (thanks Joel for the link)

The tone is a bit maudlin, but this article captures well the sense I often hear from adults that Pinyin is almost a secret code. They find it very hard to read (naturally, I’m not implying anything intrinsic to the script, just that if you’re not used to it, it’s rather slow going) and often seem captivated by the idea that kids in first grade can use it to write out comprehensible language, even, as in Huihui’s case, to express heartfelt thoughts.

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女儿第一篇“拼音日记”让母亲泪流满面

Mother bursts into tears at daughter’s first “Pinyin Diary”

2010-10-29 10:46:37

卉卉的“拼音日记”。

(Picture) Huihui’s Pinyin diary

刚上一年级的女儿卉卉（化名）睡熟了，家住镇江桃花坞新村的王女士，无意中看到了女儿写的第一篇日记，当看到用汉语拼音拼出的日记的第一句竟然是“我的愿望是妈妈不要打骂我”时，想到自己“盼女成凤”心切而对女儿的“严格”教育，王女士忍不住泪流满面。昨天，卉卉父亲给记者讲述了女儿日记惹哭母亲的故事。

When her daughter, who just started first grade, was asleep, Ms. Wang, from Zhenjiang’s Taohuawu village, happened to see the first entry in her diary. Surprised to see that the first sentence, written in Pinyin, was, “my hope is that Mommy won’t hit and scold me,” she thought of her own hopes and dreams for her daughter (盼女成凤*) and her quickness to be severe about schoolwork; unable to endure, tears covered her face. Yesterday, Huihui’s father told this reporter the story of how the diary provoked her mother’s tears.

25日晚，王女士携7岁的女儿到超市买米，女儿让她给自己买一本日记本，说是要写日记。王女士就花7.8元给她买了带有密码按键的日记本。当晚睡觉前，王女士就看到女儿坐在床上用拼音写日记。她也没在意，就让孩子写着玩吧，女儿今年9月才上小学一年级，正学汉语拼音呢，拼音写日记，正好巩固一下教学内容。

On the evening of the 25th, Ms. Wang took seven-year-old to the supermarket to buy rice. Her daughter asked her to buy a diary book, saying she wanted to write a diary. Ms. Wang spent 7.8 yuan to buy a diary with a password lock. That night before going to sleep, Ms. Wang saw her daughter sitting on the bed using Pinyin to write in her diary. She didn’t think any more of it, just letting the child do it for fun, perfect to supplement her schoolwork since she had just started first grade in September and happened to be in the middle of learning Pinyin.

26日晚10时许，女儿睡着了，无意中王女士翻看日记内容，她着实吓了一跳——日记的内容应该是《女儿的愿望》，原文全用汉语拼音写成的，并且还有一些拼写错误。王女士试着将这些拼音拼读出来，内容竟然是：“我的愿望是妈妈不要打骂我，还希望妈妈不要烦我……”王女士当即就愣住了：没想到女儿人生的第一篇日记，竟然要求母亲不要打骂她，而且稚嫩的言语中居然对深爱她的母亲充满了怨恨！

On the evening of October 26, her daughter asleep, Ms. Wang accidentally happened to see the diary’s content and was truly shocked: the diary’s content was supposed to be “a daughter’s hopes”; the original text was completed entirely in Pinyin and had some spelling mistakes. Ms. Wang worked to sound out the Pinyin, to her surprise finding the content was: “My hope is that Mommy won’t hit and scold me, and I hope Mommy won’t be annoyed with me…” Ms. Wang was stunned: she hadn’t imagined that the first diary entry in her daughter’s life would be a request for her mother not to hit and scold her, and that the unexpectedly tender words would be filled with resentment towards her mother!

卉卉的父亲告诉记者，妻子当即回想起自己对女儿的教育。为了不让女儿输在起跑线上，尽管女儿才上一年级，她却和太多的母亲一样，不仅额外给女儿买了许多课外辅导书，另外还逼女儿学这学那，比如围棋、舞蹈等等。如果女儿不愿意学，轻则开口斥骂，重则举手就打，且每每美其名曰“这是为你好”。这篇拼音日记，引起了妻子的太多思考，卉卉父亲说，痛定思痛，妻子已经意识到要检讨和改善对女儿的教育方法了，“她不想再给女儿一个充满怨恨的童年”。

Huihui’s father told this reporter his wife immediately thought of how she educated her daughter. In order to give their daughter a head start (不让女儿输在起跑线上, literally: not let their daughter lose at the starting line), she and many of the mothers bought a lot of extra tutoring books and force their daughter to learn this and that, like chess, dance, and so on, even though the daughter is only in first grade. If the daughter refused to study, solutions ranged from verbal reproach to hitting her hand, often with the words, “This is for your good.” This Pinyin diary brought his wife much reconsideration, Hui Hui’s father said, with the silver lining in this dark cloud being that his wife has become aware of the need to review and improve teaching methods for her daughter, “She does not want to give her daughter any more of a childhood full of resentment.”

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*Joel says he’s seen this phrase paired with 望子成龙