Half of the families who studied abroad went bankrupt, and they cut off their supply before graduation: some people dropped out of school in their sophomore year and returned to China to take the college entrance examination

Suddenly thrown into a cruel world

When asked why she needed this 18-kn-hourly office assistant part-time, Linglu Zheng, a sophomore at the University of California, San Diego, did not hesitate and replied, "My mom got a bankruptcy, so I do need money to support my life." (My mother is bankrupt and I need the money to support my life) It's the third round of interviews, and she has to get the job.

Throughout the month, she repeatedly interviewed for part-time jobs at school. Frustrated is commonplace, once she was interviewing in the seminar room of the library, after the scheduled half an hour, the person behind knocked on the door and drove her out, she could only hold the computer and walk out, the corridor was very noisy, she couldn't hear anything, she could only deal with it indiscriminately, the person opposite frowned, she couldn't remember the details behind, "Anyway, the last job is yellow."

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Life before seemed like a long dream. Before her mother's business suffered a crisis, what Zheng Linglu enjoyed most was to go on vacation with her girlfriends, regardless of money, just for the sense of experience. The cabin rented by the Big Bear Lake in Los Angeles, gathered around the fireplace for Christmas, more than 900 knives a night hotel for a week, the window is a garden with no end, a classical piano is placed in the living room, and afternoon tea is delivered to the bedroom every day. Of course, the mother will give additional reimbursement every time.

Now, she has to turn down a friend's invitation to travel, "save about a year's worth to hang out with her once."

For some international students, the "supply cut" came by surprise. Most of their parents took advantage of the dividends of the times to start from scratch and enter the middle class. Their children were able to go abroad and get an education – without having to work and study like the early international students and worry about their livelihoods forever. Their accounts will regularly appear a lot of living expenses every month, and even the purpose of studying abroad is not so utilitarian, "go out and see, broaden your horizons." "In recent years, their parents have been in danger in the tide of the times, with less or no money in their accounts, and children born with golden spoons in their mouths are thrown into the real world before they are ready to stand on their own.

Zheng Linglu's mother once ran five K12 education schools (adopted by the United States, Canada and other countries, covering the whole grade of kindergarten to high school) schools in a second-tier city. At the beginning of the epidemic, offline gatherings were prohibited, and many parents chose to withdraw from class, but the salary and rent had to be paid, and the family began to lose money, and her mother told her not to worry, "It will be fine when the epidemic is over." The next year, "no buffer time was given", and the wind direction of the education and training industry changed. My mother made an alternative and invested in some brick-and-mortar catering, "but you know, lost a lot of money."

Previously, her mother had saved her millions of money for studying abroad and starting a business, initially "the money for entrepreneurship is gone, but the money for studying abroad should still be there", until one day, her mother called and cried, "all stores must be closed", and explained to her that if she filed for bankruptcy, she may not be able to fly in the future, and her mother chose to write off the business, and all losses were borne by individuals, including compensation for many old employees who were more than ten years old. In the blink of an eye, studying may require selling the last of her old house and using her pension. Hang up the phone, the 20-year-old girl's fingers are shaking, there will be no more cabins in California, the family can still afford the tuition, and the living expenses are cut in half.

Bankruptcy may seem like an overnight event, but if you think about it, it was foreshadowed. At the beginning of last year, the second semester of her sophomore year in Glasgow, England, just began, Chen Jie routinely spoke with her mother, the other end of the phone was silent for a while, and suddenly said, "The family's economy is not working, you must be mentally prepared", she felt that her mind was blank, unable to think, hung up the phone and was stunned for a while, completely unacceptable.

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Her mother does financial consulting and usually speculates in stocks, but in Chen Jie's impression, the business has been good, and she has a special study abroad account of 2 million yuan. But the problem is in the investment mistake, with the mentality of trying, the mother was pulled into the capital plate by acquaintances, and the result was more and more investment, and even the money for studying abroad was also invested. At the moment of the collapse, he was convicted of pyramid schemes, all the money was handed over, 3 people were caught in the country, and the rest all ran to Myanmar, and the victims could only admit that they were unlucky, and their families went bankrupt.

For a while, Chen Jie felt that her mother earned a lot and the living expenses were higher, but she didn't understand finance, thinking that she just invested in products with a high rate of return, and now she thinks, "How can there be such easy money?" ”

He Ye's four factories mainly do processing, usually paying a deposit in advance and paying the balance after delivery, so there is a lot of material costs to pay in advance. Last year, during the epidemic, power cuts stipulated that work could only be started at a specific time, or not at all, and since May, many orders can only be refunded, negative expenses, and cash flow is tightened, but it can still afford the tuition and living expenses of his upcoming graduate school.

In early August, he was preparing for the autumn recruitment in China at the same time and received his first job offer. My father said, "Aren't you going to study again?" Then refuse it", and two days later, he said to He Ye, "Do you want to take it?" The job is pretty good," he explained that he had refused, and his father's tone changed, "Are you trying to stay in the United States and not come back?" I can't learn English in my life, I can't go to the United States, how good it is to have a stable job in China", looking back now, this is probably the first sign that something is wrong at home.

In September and October, he received a number of graduate offers. The first admission notice came from Boston University, and my father looked at the budget expenditure, more than 600,000 a year, and directly gave two words, "no money." He learned that there were no orders at home.

He Ye's father has always been committed to being a "great industrialist", in his words, "all real estate and finance-linked products are speculative behavior", and firmly implemented the principle of "housing and living without speculation" (so there is no real estate investment) - of course, the eggs are all in the same basket, and the ability to resist risks will be poor. In order to advance the cost of materials, at the worst time, half of the house was mortgaged to the bank. His mother later calculated the accounts to him, a total of four factories, only one is still profitable, one has lost money since the beginning of the epidemic, and it is now astronomical, "The loss of money in three years is probably enough for me to study in Boston for more than ten years."

When filling in the undergraduate volunteers, out of vigilance against finance, his father did not let He Ye study business, but chose a "good major" electronic science and technology. After graduation, He Ye's main purpose of choosing to go abroad was to have fun, and it happened that his family had a little money, and he heard that a certain senior went to a university that did not need language scores, so he didn't even think about it, and casually applied for a master's degree in optics. The current interruption of the confession happened before he was ready to study for the second master's degree.

As for the reason for studying for the second master's degree, it was that he later found that the university ranking he applied for casually could only squeeze into QS1000, so he had to change back to the electronic direction and "wash" the first master's degree. He let out a long sigh, "But I accepted it if I was not a Huake undergraduate." "The implication is that this QS1000 school is really a disgrace to the alma mater of 985. Speaking of this, He Ye's tone is still relaxed, with a bit of playfulness and funny, on today's social networks, this may be the "sense of relaxation" that people are looking for.

If you don't have money, you live without money

Walking or staying is a difficult problem in front of every international student who has cut off supply. Zheng Linglu chose to stay and continue studying. Her family can still pay for school fees and most of the rent, and the rest is on her own. Initially, to control her expenses, she ate only one meal a day at 2 p.m., went to Starbucks to smell coffee when she was hungry, and picked up vegetables that were about to expire at school, which "tasted average," she said. On holidays, she went to rub the free meals distributed by the school club, the crowd filled the whole road, she queued for two hours, and finally got a box lunch, now she can't remember the taste, "just try to get some wool."

During that time, prices in the United States soared, Zheng Linglu moved, shared a room with friends, 3,000 knives only one bedroom and living room, they used curtains to separate the room, each person left with a mattress position, every day to sit on it to eat. She often thinks of the villa she lived in when she used to stay, with her own separate bedroom and bathroom, spacious and bright, and she can soak in the pool in the yard when she is okay in the summer.

She cried every night. When her best friend finds out, she often comforts her, but she occasionally feels scared, "Can I still socialize and hang out with them?" For the first time in her life, she experienced the hardships of poverty. If you go to a restaurant with friends, even the most ordinary restaurant, it means that you will be hungry for two days afterwards. Once they rarely AA, taking turns to treat, one person for each project pays, now she will be sensitive to who pays more, who pays less, the money for meals and taxi obviously does not match, this difference is very glaring, she will default to the treat, "I'll AA with you." Others cast their gazes, perhaps without any meaning, and she was still breathless in that moment. After eating, her friends planned to go bowling, she found a reason to leave, tensed her back, tried to pretend to be calm, took a taxi home, and felt sorry for the extra 10 knives in the car, "as if she became someone she never thought of."

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Chen Jie, a sophomore, chose to return to China, and if she wanted to study, she would need at least 400,000 yuan a year, and her family couldn't get the money. She may be facing a future without a college degree. She thought about transferring, and relatively inexpensive Southeast Asian schools don't have inter-school cooperation. Back in China, most schools require college entrance examination results, and only one engineering major that is not required is not suitable for her. She had nowhere to go. If she is unable to return to the UK within two years, her school status there will also be cancelled.

Over the past year, she has gone through a long period of mental adjustment. When she learned the news of the bankruptcy before the Spring Festival, several acquaintances made an appointment to cook at home, and she shed tears at the freshly washed dishes, and could only tell her friends, "I haven't been in a good mood recently." On the phone, she jokingly told me that there was a river next to the school, which was quite deep and turbulent, and "if there was no one around me at the time, I might have jumped." Later, friends always promised that she could be in group activities, talk about gossip and daily life, and her boyfriend always accompanied her, "no big deal, live without money."

Before the bankruptcy of her family, Chen Jie's biggest hobby was shopping, and she gave herself a "reverse limit" as soon as her emotions started, and she had to spend 5,000 yuan to buy clothes in two days, and she would not go home without spending it. I have to buy 2-3 new bags every month, sometimes I will all in when I like it, and my mother later limits it to a maximum of one a month. After returning to China, she went to a luxury recycling store and sold more than a dozen bags. That's when she learned that the flowery and green shows she liked did not maintain their value, and the 3w2 Chanel could only sell 1w6, while the classic model could have at least more than 20,000. Tangled repeatedly, she left Burberry's cowhide bag and Chanel's mini, "can match many occasions, but also reluctant". In the end, a total of more than 200,000 people were able to maintain their daily life.

After returning to China, Chen Jie's grandmother died suddenly, and her mother also suffered from acute kidney failure, and the indicators were not normal until this year. She sensed her mother's guilt, and if it weren't for her investment mistakes, she would have been able to finish college abroad. The 20-year-old knew she had to grow up quickly, and "if I broke down, my mom would collapse." When she spoke on the phone, her mentality had become calm, "Anyway, you can't die, there are people around you to stop you, then live."

In the face of drastic changes, He Ye would repeatedly think, "Why me? Seeing friends traveling around the world, "there will also be unfair emotions in the world." But in general, this young man has a strong "go with the flow" mentality about life and has never completely collapsed. This is largely due to the fact that he is a "little worse" person, "who will do a little about everything, but a little worse at everything". When he was in college, he made game commentary videos on station B, accumulated tens of thousands of fans, the video had the highest number of hundreds of thousands of views, earned a lot of thousands, and couldn't play games after going abroad, and gave up when he said abandoned. When taking the GRE, the friends around me who are preparing for the exam stick the slogan "if you can't get out of the exam in two months, you will die", he won't, if you can't do it in two months, you will have four months, there is a place with a low score with a low score, and if you can't do it, you will go to a place where you don't want GRE. Later, he really took the GRE exam four times in four months, sleeping, reading comics, fitness, and brushing short videos, and "finally passed the exam." After the family cut off the supply, he was dissatisfied, but he also accepted it like this, "Poor and poor, anyway, the family was a little worse than being rich and noble before." ”

He Ye finally chose to go abroad to study for the second master's degree and supported his life by working part-time. Although he can also lie at home and let his parents raise it, he is a little unacceptable to QS1000. In fact, there is another reason, he has a senior who is exactly the same as the master, returned to China and found a job with an annual salary of 30w, "I think it can't be lower than him", he made up his mind, as long as he found 30w to stay in the job, the last job salary difference is one or twenty thousand, he does not want to compromise, go abroad.

The feeling of making money is dizzy with excitement

If you choose to stay, the throttling is far from enough, and you need to open source. Taking the US public universities (private universities are more expensive) as an example, the annual tuition fee is about 15,000-40,000 knives, the total cost of room and lodging is 12,000-20,000 knives, the cost of books is 1,200 knives, and the rest of the daily expenses are 2,000-3,000 knives, and the total preparation is at least 30,000 knives or more - this is just a very ideal estimate, and the actual differences between different states and different projects are very large. He Ye has been studying in the middle of the United States, and the cost is relatively low, spending about 600,000 yuan in the first two years of master's degree; Zheng Linglu burned money in California, from Meigao to Meiben, and successively invested millions into it.

Where does the money come from? Hono began to look and try any way possible. In the past, he spent money at will, 150 knives of electric toothbrush, bought, very handsome shoes, bought, headphones out of new models, bought, regularly went to restaurants every week to improve food, and also bought a good car, counting the rent and electricity every month, a total of about 3,000 knives. Now he strips out all the extra expenses and cooks all his own meals. He thinks about his more than twenty pairs of shoes, a cabinet of clothes, but always wears only one pair, "it seems that you can do it without buying them." Buy vegetables often go to the Chinese Super League, the price is low, beef 6 knives a pound, 20 knives 3 bags can eat six meals, vegetables a bag of 3 knives can manage two meals, sometimes dinner is too much, but also packed for the next day's lunch. He occasionally thinks about the 40-knife self-service he ate before, and quickly relieves, "I can make it myself at home."

As the offers came down one after another, he began to contact the school, giving full play to the cheeky spirit of "asking about not missing a piece of meat", emailing seven schools to cry poverty, writing the ups and downs of bankruptcy, "can you give some scholarships". Then go to the school's official website, and send emails to 5-10 teachers in turn to the direction of research, asking "would you like to help find a teaching assistant". At this time, crying poor does not work, you have to emphasize how good you are, match the teacher's research direction, and enter the group to work.

He wrote an email to a professor in the field of semiconductor ADCs, and the only thing that stuck in his resume was that he had taken two signal processing courses, which emphasized that he had a solid foundation and profound achievements. It doesn't matter if he hasn't done the competition project, his roommate did, he probably understood the process, and he used it directly during the interview, just like reading a paper and only looking at the abstract, citations and conclusions. More than 50 emails, five sent a day, spent two or three hours revising the wording, sometimes dizzy, inevitably made a fuss - when copying and pasting names on the official website of the University of Rochester, the two professors leaned together, did not notice that the copy was wrong, "and then the professors ignored me."

He is looking for a part-time job on the boss direct employment, with the "good villain is a 985 books" dry online tutor, make up primary school mathematics on weekends, the hourly salary is 100 yuan, if you teach in English, the lesson fee can be 50% more, although the drop in the bucket, but the course is simple, the most difficult to equation, closed eyes can be spoken, lesson preparation only takes dozens of minutes, "I quite enjoy the feeling of being a good teacher." I have also done Amazon purchasing, and the remuneration is also better than nothing.

Eventually, he found a way to make money in a Chinese restaurant in the United States. Cheeky played a role again, one day after eating at a Chinese restaurant, he felt that the taste was good, and directly asked "can students be recruited here", and the boss readily agreed. "You can do anything without money," he said.

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Unpleasant things happen all the time. An eldest brother came in and thought the table was not clean, but this was wiped by a part-time person last night, He Ye lowered his head and said "I'm sorry", did not justify, and quickly wiped it again. Later, the eldest brother ordered and chose "mixed vegetables", the eldest brother is a regular customer, likes onions and carrots, and the other waiters all default, but He Ye didn't know, and finally brought green beans, broccoli, etc., the eldest brother's face immediately changed, unpleasantly pulled away the stool, "Laozi won't eat it", and went out directly. He Ye was very confused, a little aggrieved, and worriedly thought "what if he doesn't come in the future", and the boss comforted him that he had a problem with seeing a familiar customer for the first time, don't worry.

A white man came to order food, and after several rounds of fighting, the other party angrily shouted "you are not fucking listening to me" and asked him to call the manager, and finally figured it out. The other party ordered "dry roasted green beans", only said that he wanted "dry roasted beans", He Ye repeated "dry roasted soybeans, mung beans, or green beans?" "Several cycles, each saying his own thing.

But in general, He Ye enjoys this job, "no way, there are too many gives, and the hourly salary can have more than 20 knives." He knows very well that he wants money, "what is it to be a grandson." When someone didn't tip before, he wouldn't "endure" like his colleagues, but directly asked, "Is there anything I didn't do well?" ", the other party put on a "you did a good job, but I'm poor" trick, he couldn't bear to swallow his anger, directly sarcastic "Don't come to service next time you don't have money." Face is not worth much, once drove a hitchhiker before, more than 200 knives to classmates to send to Orlando, he would help carry bags to open the door, "if you give 500 knives, step on me to get out of the car."

On the first day of working in the restaurant, He Ye earned more than 200 knives, cash, and the dollar he held in his hand had a real feeling, and he was dizzy with excitement. He calculated that if he worked two days and saved money, he would be able to make up for a month's food expenses. It was also from this time that everything was moving for the better. Within a few days, the massive number of emails finally heard back after countless rejection letters, and a professor was willing to help him find TA, and the next year he could be converted to RA (research assistant, who also has a salary to pay tuition). The professor's five doctoral students will graduate four this year, which is equivalent to the "pit" being completely empty, "It took six years to graduate one doctor, and I walked four at once, and the once-in-a-century grand occasion happened to meet me." Good luck finally favored him.

The salary © piled on the table to admire He Ye

I'd rather be a kid without a story

After returning to China, Chen Jie inquired everywhere, even called the mayor's hotline, and finally learned that she could participate in this year's college entrance examination as a social candidate, regardless of her results, at least there was a way out. My friends from high school are almost seniors, good friends in the UK are continuing their studies, and some people have already gone to work, only she has gone around in circles, and it seems that she has returned to the original point - the college entrance examination.

She often heard people say to her in a tone of regret and concern, "You shouldn't go to England, you should study in China", probably feeling that the million was spent in vain. But she doesn't regret the "detour" of the past two years, she knows that something has quietly changed. She used to think that life is graduation, marriage, and childbirth, and only after going abroad did she realize for the first time that women can choose freely, and she was often anxious about wearing a size M or L body in domestic women's clothing, and when she came here, she found that she could wear a lot of XS, and her classmates in the UK would tell her loudly, "You can also call this fat?" How normal. If you stay in China at the beginning, "you may feel that if you can't get into the undergraduate program, your life will be over." Now, she has no such obsession, and her goal is to be admitted to a junior college this year, choose a major that is easier to find a job, and be an ordinary person.

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After the accident, Zheng Linglu has always been very guilty of her parents, she is only a freshman, she can't do anything, she also regrets a little, if she didn't go abroad, "keeping millions of families at least life will be better."

Referring to her mother, she said intermittently with a little crying, "People in their 50s, who have worked hard for decades, have all come to naught at once, there is no way, it is really difficult to cross this threshold." "Last year, my mother started her business again, and sometimes she sent a dozen messages, and after almost a day there was no reply. Her parents don't know her living status, and her expenses are underreported, "they all think that they can live well with more than 1,000 knives a month, but the rent in California is often at this price."

She remembered that when she applied for Meiben, she had to write personal statements and experiences, such as "prove that she has leadership" and "the deepest thing in her memory", she couldn't write it, and cried to her mother, "Why haven't I lived for eighteen years?" The mother smiled, "That's because you're so happy, so there's nothing bumpy." Finally, she wrote the cliché story of "coming to the United States for the first time, how to study and adapt hard". Just a year later, the bubble burst, "I'd rather be a child without a story forever, at least my parents won't have these things to happen to."

She is now considering working directly after graduation in the future, saving enough money to go to graduate school, "only when you have money can you have the confidence to choose, and I don't want to burden them anymore."

Perhaps, cutting off supply is not a completely bad thing for them. In many Western countries, some local students rely on student loans provided by banks for undergraduate studies, and then work to pay back after graduation. As for Zheng Linglu's idea of relying on herself to go to graduate school, maybe it should have been so. As Rachel, a rich girl in the first episode of Friends, cuts all of her father's credit cards, friends hug her and congratulate her, and Monica says to her, "Welcome to the real world." It sucks, but you're gonna love it.” (Welcome to the real world, it sucks, but you'll love it.) ）

She eventually got that part-time job as an office assistant, and now it's been almost a year and a half, and she's already familiar with it, earning nearly 2,000 knives more a month, living more and more prosperously, buying organic vegetables freely and traveling with friends occasionally. At the end of the recent semester, she basically chaired about 16 meetings on academic integrity every day, "very tired, but that's probably the reason for giving more money."

He Ye has become completely obsessed with the feeling of earning and saving money. The first $1,000 was unbelievable, as if I could really support myself, "At that time, I felt that everything was not as safe as these 1,000 knives." For him, this means 3 months' food expenses. Since his part-time job, he has only lived with cash, going home every day, first putting the salary code he got on the table, feeling the refreshing feeling brought by the cash pile, hiding the money when he is finished, stuffing a hundred in his clothes, a hundred in his wallet, throwing fifty in the box of the fascial gun, writing it down on the memorandum, "in case the home is stolen one day", and then regularly going to the bank to deposit money, empty the memorandum, and then start a new cycle.

Although his father sold the factory that had been losing money, the benefits of the other factories were still unclear, and if anything happened later, at least he could cope with the risks. He has little thought of his life. On the way to the restaurant, you can see the bright asphalt roads and continuous shade trees, the low houses scattered across the large plain, and sometimes you can see the purple-red sky after work. He also enjoys cooking for himself, and recently, he is researching how to make oil-absorbing vegetables into delicious fat-reducing healthy dishes through short videos.

◦ All characters in the article are pseudonyms.

Author | Liao Yubin Editor | Jing Xinyu Produced | Tencent News Gu Yu Studio

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