In my consciousness, my mother is like a tree, and my father is like a mountain. They taught me a lot of simple ways to behave in the world, which benefited me for the rest of my life. I think that for everyone, the parents' early tutors have a primary elementary simple humanistic element. The tendency to democratize my work is inseparable from the education and influence of my parents from an early age.
I was born in Harbin city of Harbin to a family of five construction workers, five brothers and sisters, in order to raise our five children, my father went to work in the field when I was very young, sending money home every month. He was the country's first generation of construction workers. Mother was at home to take care of the lives of our five children, very hard. My mother gave me the impression of a tree, the kind of tree I saw when I was in school—it didn't fall leaves in the fall, and it didn't fall until the following spring, when the new leaves grew, and the dead leaves didn't fall.
At that time, my father's salary was very low, and every time he sent back money, he could not support the living expenses of the family, and seeing that our five children who were growing up were not enough to eat and shoes to protect their feet, my mother borrowed money from the neighbors. She has a special ability to borrow money from acquaintances a few streets away. I think that's the role of her good relationship. Despite this, we had a hard time living because of poverty, and our five children often went hungry.
Once, when I was walking home from elementary school, my stomach was grumbling with hunger, and I was rushing home listlessly when I saw an old man driving a carriage past me. A fragrant smell of bean cake came rushing in, and I immediately looked over to the old man's carriage and found a piece of bean cake on it. I was already hungry, coupled with the stimulation of the smell of bean cake, and I had only one thought at the time, to fill my stomach with bean cake. Taking advantage of the fact that the old man was not paying attention, I picked up the only piece of bean cake next to him, pulled out my leg and ran.
The old man took the horse whip and chased me behind, and I ran into the house, and he didn't know which house I had run into at once. I hid at home in horror, but I didn't expect him to find my house.
"Did you see a kid who stole my bean cake," the old man asked my mother.
The mother had no idea what was happening. The old man told his mother in detail what had happened, and then squatted on the ground and said in frustration: "I am a farmer in the countryside, specially for others to deliver vegetables to people in the city, every time I deliver vegetables, there is no wage, I get a quarter of the bean cake, but I did not expect that the bean cake was robbed by a student baby halfway through, poor my family still has a wife and children, just rely on this bit of bean cake to fill the hunger ..."
After my mother listened, she immediately ordered me to return the bean cake to the old man. After he had walked about ten meters away, his mother suddenly called out to him. His mother gave him the few potatoes and nests left in the house, and when the old man saw the nests made of cornmeal, he was like a man who had never seen grain, his eyes lit up, and he kept saying words of gratitude and shedding tears.
When my mother came home, I thought she would scold me, but she didn't, and she had to wait until all the children came back. After dinner, she asked me to repeat her actions, and then she taught me sternly: "If you can't understand from an early age what a person can never do, how can I expect you to be a good person in society in the future?" If you can't be a good person in society in the future, what comfort can you get from being a mother? "These truths are not in books, not in the classroom, but they have benefited me all my life.
At that time, although my family was very poor, my mother was still very supportive of my study, and the reading time in the poor days was the happiest for me. At that time, I did everything like buying vegetables at home, and as long as I had two or three cents left, my mother would let me keep it for myself. Now two or three cents fell to the ground and no one pickled them, and then five cents could go to the store to buy a large dish of shredded pickles, the family could eat two meals, two cents could buy a pound of greens, and sometimes the five cents mother let me take it myself. I took this money to read the villain book, "Red Flag Spectrum" borrowed from my classmates to read, only to know that there is the next set, the upper and lower two parts add up a little more than eight cents, I still clearly remember that the cover of the book is light green, painted with red guns, the color is very bright red, I like it, very much want to see the next episode of this book. I was in middle school, and I made a lot of determination to pluck up the courage to go to my mother for money.
At two o'clock that afternoon, I came to my mother's small factory. When I went inside, it turned out that my mother was working in a factory that had been converted from a warehouse. The factory building is not ventilated, there is no sunlight, the winter is cold and the summer is hot, and a very low light bulb hangs above each sewing machine. Because the number of light bulb tiles is very high, it can be seen and done. The factory was very hot, everyone wore thick masks, the whole workshop was like a spinning factory, the air was flying with red cotton wool, all the masks worn by mothers were stained with red cotton wool, on the hair, on the face, on the eyelashes, it was difficult to identify which one was my mother.
I never knew my mother was working in such an environment, but it was my mother's colleagues who helped me find her. When I saw my mother, I came to her for money, but I couldn't speak for a while.
My mother said, "Say anything, I'm going to work." ”
"I want money."
"What do you want money for?"
"I'm going to buy books."
"Sister-in-law Liang, you can't get used to children like this, it's good to be able to read to him, and what books to buy." My mother's co-workers advised.
"He only has such a hobby, and reading is not a bad thing anyway." My mother gave me the money after saying that.
With the money given by my mother, my heart was very heavy, and I was still immersed in the joy of having a new book immediately, but now I had no idea of buying a book. I felt guilty because my mother had been working there for over two years and I never knew she was there. I hadn't visited her once, and I didn't have the money to honor her, so I was in the mood to buy her canned food with the money my mother gave me.
My mother was angry when she saw the cans I bought, and then she gave me money to buy books, and at that time I had the complete "Red Flag Spectrum" and "Sowing Fire", and I liked these two books very much. I was so impressed by this that the first thing I did after I joined the work later was to spend twenty or thirty yuan to buy back all the styles of canned food and snacks for my mother. My mother looked at the gift I had bought and burst into tears. She polished the cans very brightly and laid them neatly on the table.
What touched my mother the most was the one that happened during three years of natural disasters. At that time, because there were many children in our family, the government gave our family a little food subsidy, in fact, there was no subsidy, so we made up five to ten pounds of grain. On the last day of the end of the month, the family had no food at all, and the pot could not be opened, so my mother took the rice bowl and shook several empty flour bags while shaking and scraping, and finally scraped out some residual flour. Mother made it into a little knotty soup and put it on a stool in the small yard.
While we were eating, a beggar came. It was an old man with a long beard, his clothes were very tattered, and his face looked like he had not been washed for several days. He looked very hungry when he watched a few of our children drinking knotty soup. After bringing him face wash, his mother moved a stool for him and gave him her own portion of the knotty soup, while he was hungry.
However, after the neighbors saw this matter, I don't know who told the story when opening the neighborhood committee, saying that our family had too much food to eat, and still entertained people at home who wanted food. Since then, there has been no food subsidy in our family. But my mother didn't regret it, and she told us that you should do the same when you grow up. So I think sometimes some of the little things that mothers do have the color of humanistic education for children and teenagers in the early years. I now educate my students to often say this, write less about first love, depression, less about fashion and fashion, think more about their parents, if even their parents do not understand, talk about understanding the world.
How to live your life the way you like
If you don't know what you want, don't know what you should do, read those good books, communicate with those great souls and the wisdom of the sages, and give yourself a good foundation to cultivate your own concentration in the world.
Teacher Zhou specially invited famous artists, in the 5 classics, taste life together, grow themselves, scan the above picture QR code, you can listen ~ ~
Good news!
Teacher Zhou's Book of Life Answers
It was listed in the 2021 NetEase Snail Reading Annual Good Book List
Second place in the essay category
The examination paper of life is placed in front of everyone, no one can avoid it, and everyone must write their own answer sheet. So, needless to say, the so-called answer is just an answer sheet I wrote. I never believed in the so-called life coach, and I would never be ridiculous enough to want to be myself. In the examination hall of life, we are all students, I may be a more diligent student, then, my answer sheet may be for the reference of students, only this is enough.
——Zhou Guoping