In the past few years, Huang Deng has visited the hometowns of more than 20 students, and before she was anxious about the way out of the second student, the home visit was an unexpected healing journey. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee).
Huang Deng, who has taught at Guangdong University of Finance for more than 10 years, always sees the shadows of dozens of families dragging behind him every time he looks at students from the podium.
Since 2017, she has been making time to visit students' homes. After the publication of "My Two Students", the pace of home visits did not stop, and in 2022, the scenes of more than 20 students' homes that I visited were replayed like a movie.
The whole home visit was at my own expense, and it happened to be a trip for a family of three, who had been to the southern town in the hot summer, the bleak northern village, and the Gaoligong Mountain in the southwest border.
In the previous book, Huang Lan was anxious about the student's way out, but the home visit was a healing journey. She began to wonder if her previous understanding of the second student was too simple and pessimistic?
In "My Second Student", Huang Lan outlines the group of students who were originally obscured in the public eye, based on long-term observation of 4,500 students and 10 years of follow-up visits. In 2019, when her class of 2015 graduated, the best way out was to get into a bus company in Guangzhou, most of them went to some small companies with unrecognizable names, and some people paid orders in bubble tea shops.
Over the past four years, the book has been reprinted in more than 20 editions, and it also provides a rare social sample for discussing educational equity and class mobility. Huang Deng feels that many people know that many people know about the depreciation of diplomas, the difficulty of employment for double-non-resident college students, and the discrimination of first academic qualifications, and he is just the one who pierced the window paper.
Media outlets large and small found yellow lights, many young people added her WeChat after the lecture, and some people left messages for her on social platforms, including students from many major universities. Most of them are confused, stuck, and pour out their dark hearts.
There is also some controversy behind the phenomenal discussion, fearing that the book reinforces the stereotype of the students of the second book. Huang denied it, because the students themselves accepted this label more than the outside world, "My students say 'we two students' all day long, and they talk more than me."
However, when a problem is raised, no solution can be given, and Huang Lan said, "This feeling is very bad."
At the beginning of February 2024, Guangzhou's return to the south had just dispersed, and at 8 o'clock in the morning, Huang Lantern received a reporter from Southern Weekly at the entrance of the community. She's busy, and it's hard time to get on. "As a teacher, you don't just want to write about it, and as a teacher, you certainly don't have to do anything. She said.
The book "Home Visit" is a new solution she has come up with during her journey. Seeing where the students came from, on the contrary, her worries were relieved a lot, "No matter how narrow the gap in society is, young individuals finally show their own initiative and sense of strength in different situations, and thus exude vigorous vitality and vitality." Huang Lan wrote.
"I was admitted to a second-class college, which is amazing"
Once I went to Zhanjiang and took an eight-hour train ride, and the smell in the car was very strong, like a green train in the past, and Huang Lan thought, "My students came out of such a group", and she herself was one of them.
Many students have parents who work outside the home, and it is not easy to keep up with their time at home. Luo Zaoliang is from Taishan, Guangdong, a seaside village near a fjord. One day he said, Mr. Huang, I am going home to harvest sweet potatoes, and Huang Deng quietly asked if he could go along. After hearing the news, Luo Zaoliang's mother was very happy, and his father also adjusted the time to go to sea.
Many students have parents who work outside the home, and it is not easy to keep up with their time at home. (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Luo Zaoliang in Huang Deng's impression is very weak, and he is timid when talking to the teacher. In the sweet potato field, he easily threw a bundle of fifty or sixty pounds of sweet potatoes onto the cart.
The students showed a completely different side from the school. Luo Zaoliang only took two hours to turn the duck that was still running on the ground into a dish, Huang Deng grew up in the countryside, never liked to kill chickens and ducks, because it was particularly troublesome to deal with the hair, to boil water to soak, and then use his fingers to cut the hair little by little. When Luo Zaoliang was seven or eight years old, he learned to work with his sister to clean up the ducks after his parents left home — how they caught the ducks in the chaotic flock, sharpened the knives, boiled water and slaughtered them, and his parents did not know.
This scene touched the yellow light, "Luo Zaoliang, you can cook so early, it doesn't matter if you can find a job or not." ”
She intuitively felt how the concrete and dense daily life outside of school has shaped a three-dimensional and rich person. For example, Wen Yu, who cut her grandmother's nails, He Jian, who stood in front of her grandfather's grave to mourn, and Jing Jun, who helped her grandfather who had a stroke, walked around the living room. Beyond the cross-section of the classroom, student growth hides more unseen scenes.
The traditional human ethics that have survived in the family structure that has not yet collapsed have entered the emotional structure of young people under the podium. "Intuitively, I can even judge that the reason why Liao Wenyu, He Jian, Li Zhangtao, and He Jingjun have more courage to stand on society comes from their deep emotional connection with their parents and grandparents. She wrote.
In their hometowns, students show a completely different side from school. (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Before the home visit, she thought that parents would be worried about the future of their second child. Unexpectedly, most of the parents were very proud, and relatives gathered for dinner to welcome the arrival of the teacher. Luo Zaoliang's mother is a foreign-married daughter from Sichuan, who works 16 hours a day, gets up at two or three in the morning, and sells tofu for a living. She told Huang Deng that after her son was admitted to college, she finally raised her eyebrows.
At her house, Huang Deng's most common phrase he heard from her was, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid."
Another student, He Jingjun's grandmother, used to quarrel with others, and was ridiculed for not having college students in the family within five generations.
"Their parents will think that my child is already very good, and he has been admitted to a second-class college, which is amazing. Huang Lan described to a reporter from Southern Weekly.
Li Zhangtao, who graduated in 2014, returned to Tengchong, Yunnan Province, and when he went to university, he wanted to visit the coastal city and went to the Guangdong University of Finance. When he graduated, there was originally a bank in Guangzhou asking for him, but Li Zhangtao did not adapt to the climate and returned to Yunnan. At first, his mother was not worth it for him, thinking that her son had gone to college in vain.
His father was engaged in a traditional woodworking workshop, and Li Zhangtao, who inherited his father's business, introduced the Internet sales model and helped the family business complete the transformation from logging to root carving. Huang Deng saw that Li Zhangtao was relaxed and calm when he got along with his family.
Huang Lan realized that in the past, the view of students' career paths on the Guangzhou campus was too simple, and it was limited to one-dimensional evaluation criteria such as "working and settling in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou" and "whether it is 985 or 211". Li Zhangtao, who returned to his hometown in Tengchong, is an example of this, where education has really injected vitality and hope into the family.
We all have a "two-book mentality"
In January 2024, in the cold winter of Beijing, in the afternoon, the sky was foggy, and in a theater in Nanyang Hutong, Dongcheng District, Huang Deng and media person Bai Yansong had a conversation about "Home Visit". Under the goose-yellow light, like a university lecture, the audience was almost full.
Every year, Bai Yansong selects 11 graduate students from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Renmin University of Chinese and Communication University of China to serve as their external supervisors. In the book list he has opened in the past few years, including books such as "My Two Students", "The Tragedy of the Countryman", "Won't You Return", and at the dialogue scene, Bai Yansong picked up a white A4 paper file, on which was the student's book review of "My Two Students".
The first page reads: Gently taking off the so-called halo of a prestigious school, I saw my own experience from the black outline, which belonged to the life of a small-town writer. Some people say, "It's kind, it's so kind, this feeling runs throughout", and some people say, "Mr. Bai's book is well chosen, which makes me even more anxious."
To Bai Yansong's surprise, students from the so-called "double first-class" universities saw more resonance than differences in this book, and even felt that they were writing about them. "As a teacher of reading book reviews, I actually sigh, and you will know more and more that you can't just teach them the so-called talent (ability), but first of all, soothing. ”
Huang Lan also found that the conflicts faced by young people are isomorphic, and students in so-called key universities are even more anxious, "They are always expected, they have always been in a good evaluation system, and they are always in front, so when the truth of society is revealed, those children are actually quite difficult." ”
Some time ago, a student of the Chinese Department of Sun Yat-sen University wrote a letter to Huang Deng, after entering the university, everyone around her was rolling grades and research, and she didn't know how to deal with herself. Huang Deng felt that this student had something firm in his heart, but he just needed external strength to confirm, so he wrote back and said that it was more important to stick to what he liked.
Huang Deng found that most of the parents of second-year students were proud of their children and felt that it was already great to be admitted to the undergraduate. (Photo provided by the interviewee)
As of 2023, there are 2,820 colleges and universities in China, including more than 1,200 colleges and universities, and more than 1,500 higher vocational colleges, while there are less than 150 so-called "double first-class" universities, accounting for less than 10%.
In the nearly two-hour dialogue, the two teachers reflected on meritocracy, and believed that people with superior social resources should become wrenches to provide more room for error for young people. "In an impassable road that forces everyone to only go to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Qingbei, each of us can be one or Qingbei, but we are all two ourselves and two mentality. Bai Yansong said.
A female student from Sun Yat-sen University sitting in the audience agreed very much, "In fact, I have always had a two-book mentality, including when I went to this school, my parents always felt that you were not good enough, you were nothing, this mentality has always made me judge and examine myself......" She felt painful and hopeless, because "there will always be better and higher requirements".
In the question session, when someone reported his home, he introduced himself as "one of the 20 schools that are always competing for the national TOP10 list". A boy sitting in the front row asked himself how he could be extraordinary as an ordinary second-class student. And Bai Yansong's answer to him was, "Before you didn't say that you were a second classmate, we didn't have any definition, you are a young man with very fluent expression."
Almost all of the audience were college students, and no matter how much Huang Deng and Bai Yansong emphasized the removal of academic worship, the tearing off of labels, and how young people gained inner strength, the sense of anxiety always permeated the black and oppressive theater.
I didn't know how to do it
Although many students asked her for answers, Huang Lan understood that she was living a different era than theirs.
In the early nineties of the last century, Huang Deng was studying at Yueyang University, and her best friend was at Peking University. She paid attention to the dynamics of Beijing's intellectual circles, and the great debate on the humanistic spirit in the 90s, believing that it was closely related to herself.
In 1997, Huang Deng was laid off from the Hunan Dongting Ramie Textile Printing and Dyeing Factory and became a car stopper in the workshop. When life fell into a trough, the master in the workshop would say to Huang Deng, go find a relationship, your eyes are not good, and you are a college student who put it in the workshop to block the car. She lives in a single dormitory, and when she eats, the masters will give her a few pieces of fish and meat.
As a laid-off female worker, she reviewed for a month and was admitted to Wuhan University as a graduate student, and later as a doctoral student at Sun Yat-sen University.
The enlightenment ideas of the 80s deeply influenced Huang Deng, and when she was admitted to graduate school, she read Qian Liqun's "Thirty Years of Modern Literature" and found that literary history can be flesh and blood, "You will feel that academics are very beautiful, not that I went to graduate school in order to change my fate, but I think this thing is worth pursuing."
I applied for Wuhan University because I heard very early on that the famous educator Liu Daoyu had drastically reformed the education system and management model of modern colleges and universities, which planted the seeds of "education promotes fairness" in Huang Deng's heart.
In the summer of 2003, Huang Deng was in the first year of her doctoral study in the Department of Chinese at Sun Yat-sen University, and because of the illness of her two supervisors, she was in a very poor state, and wrote the never-published long-form essay "Details". After writing, Huang Deng was depressed and wanted to find someone to chat with, but she found Huang Daren, the principal at the time, on a whim. Without making an appointment, I met Principal Huang directly and chatted for nearly 20 minutes.
At that time, Huang Deng was still using a BP machine, she briefly introduced herself, whose student she was, wrote a book, and asked the school if she could help publish it. Principal Huang promised to take a look. Later, in 2004, in the 80th anniversary celebration of CUHK, part of the contents of "Details" was included in the "Selected Essays of College Students" published by the Youth League Committee of CUHK. To this day, she doesn't know if Principal Huang did it intentionally.
Huang Deng, born in 1974, graduated from the Department of Chinese of Sun Yat-sen University with a doctorate, served as the dean and professor of the School of Finance and New Media of Guangdong University of Finance, and is currently teaching at Shenzhen Polytechnic University, and is the author of non-fiction works such as "My Second Student". (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Huang Lan considers himself an ignorant person. Her life trajectory is full of luck and drama in the eyes of others, "messing around to find a job, entering a second-class college, not having much academic future in the first place, and ending up being known by others through non-fiction writing." She is used to doing whatever comes to her mind, "don't think too clearly about everything".
"Many times when others are going to hit you when you do things, at this time you don't trust others, you have to be ignorant, don't be easily influenced by other people's opinions...... In reality, I have observed a lot of people who are ignorant and dare to do things, and in the end they really did it. Huang Lan told a reporter from Southern Weekend.
The first non-fiction article that brought her into the public eye was "The Rural Picture in the Eyes of a Rural Daughter-in-law" on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2016, which is about the changes of three generations of Huang Deng's husband's family, involving hidden details of human feelings, "equivalent to shaking out all the things in his family in ignorance".
Afterwards, a colleague asked Huang Deng, are you so bold that you are not afraid of being divorced? Some people said that after reading it, they understood their husband and his family better.
In fact, Huang Lan wrote this article, and her husband was supportive. When asked by Southern Weekly, Ms. Huang's husband, Yang Shenggang, explained that it was just a representation of the situation of a Chinese peasant family. "When you connect with your daily life in a very watery and milky way, a lot of the things in our hearts will be removed. Huang Lan said.
Compared with knowledge and theory, Huang Lan is more perceptive to concrete life. When writing essays, she always feels a barrier when she uses Western theoretical terms to explain literary phenomena or texts.
Perhaps it has something to do with her experience along the way, although she has long since left the factory that made her desperate, she "always has an inexplicable melancholy and concern in her heart". Wang Lixin, a worker in the same workshop at that time, was one of the few undergraduates in the factory, and after Huang Deng was admitted to the graduate school, he was also laid off, and looked at Huang Deng with calm and envious eyes and said, "Your choice is right."
Later, I heard the news of Wang Lixin, he had passed away, worked in a very irregular company, unfortunately fell into an economic dispute, and was trapped in a house and stoned to death with bricks.
Huang Deng saw Wang Lixin's old father once, that year, when the oranges were harvested, and when they were cheap to two cents a pound, his father pulled a cart of oranges from his hometown to the factory to sell them cheaply, Wang Lixin stood aside, met acquaintances and colleagues, and was a little flattering and embarrassed.
In the dead of night, she will still think of the girl named Xiaoyu, who also graduated from college, always busy on the carding machine in the workshop, sweating profusely, and after marrying her lazy husband, she picked up the burden of the family's life.
After a long time, Huang Lan found that she could not identify with the posture and position of the too elitist. "It wasn't until today that I understood why I couldn't face the so-called academic problems in a way that was commensurate with my classmates. Huang Lan wrote.
Compared with knowledge and theory, Huang Lan is more perceptive to concrete life. (Photo provided by the interviewee)
"Today's children don't dare to go wrong"
In a media group interview, several reporters were young women, and the topic extended to the current young people who are reluctant to have children, Huang Lan categorically said that they should get married, at least have children, and the sooner the better.
Later, she talked about this issue with Fan Xiaozhe, the editor in charge of "My Second Student" and "Home Visit", and Huang Lan explained that she felt that childbirth was an unavoidable and complex issue that people could experience and experience, and she believed that people need to be linked to reality in order to grow.
"If you change to someone else, we will be disgusted, you know? The aura is different, if you change it to a yellow light, everyone thinks that she is too sincere, you can clearly feel that she is very eager to think about you, you don't feel disgusted, and you are even willing to think very seriously about what she says. Fan Xiaozhe told Southern Weekend.
Huang Deng grew up in a family of teachers, and his father was an ordinary rural teacher. As she pondered the title of her new book, she recalled a scene from the past, when her father said to her, "Let's go, you follow me on a home visit"—which became the origin of the book's title, "Home Visits."
At that time, the students in my father's class came to her house first thing during the holidays, and my mother took out the best ingredients in the house to make fried yellow eel with noodles and fried chicken with chili. Sometimes I met my parents on the ridge, and my father always talked to them.
At the end of the 1980s, when someone in the town sold safes and building materials, he became rich overnight, and a cousin spent 120,000 yuan to build a good house. Huang Deng was very embarrassed to hear it, and felt that his father was "hollow". Later, his uncle's son took drugs and the family was ruined.
After being admitted to graduate school, once my father called on the yellow light and went to visit the home together at night. The reason was that a student was about to drop out of school, sitting in the hall of a mud house, and the student's parents said that others had earned a lot of money by working part-time. The father of the yellow light persuaded that your child has a future and that he should not be delayed.
To this day, Huang Deng feels that his father has a simple understanding of education. She believes that the purpose of education is not to give a student a diploma, put a label on him, and send him to an assembly-line society, regardless of his sighs, sorrows, and joys.
Yellow light with students. (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Huang Deng's son is 16 years old, and he sometimes doesn't like Huang Deng to explain big things to others, thinking that it is too preachy, and others don't like it. It's like how Huang Lantern felt about his father back then.
Huang Deng thinks that he rarely has a "chicken baby", and his son grew up in a relaxed educational atmosphere, but one day walking on the road, he suddenly said that now he just can't choose the wrong one, and once he is wrong, it will be very troublesome.
"Today's children don't dare to make mistakes, and society doesn't tolerate them. Huang said that this happens to be her observation of young people in the past few years. "Today's children work very hard and desperately to settle themselves, but it is very difficult to settle down. Unlike when we were ignorant and chaotic, as long as you follow the steps, the tide will push you away. For example, if you are going to get married, it is cheap to buy a house, and your salary can afford it anyway, as long as you are not picky...... You will feel as if young people nowadays have a lot of ropes on their bodies, one rope here, one rope there. ”
In such an evaluation system, my son's test results are not good, and he may feel uncomfortable. The yellow light relieved him, "It's okay, you just have to try, it's okay if you fail." ”
Approaching the age of 50, Huang Deng said that she has become calmer, she can't help but be anxious when students can't find a job in the past, and now she is more willing to explore a little solution as a teacher and a good friend, "At least when you are uncomfortable and anxious, you see that there are other possibilities in life."
Not long ago, Huang Deng went to the hospital to see a doctor, the nurse was an intern, and when the blood was drawn, she couldn't find the blood vessel after several stitches. The family members on the side were anxious and wanted to be replaced. Huang Lan comforted the nurse, don't be nervous, you always have to learn. The young nurse relaxed, slowly found her senses, and successfully completed the blood draw.
On the day of the interview, the topic turned to anxiety and powerlessness for students. Huang Deng took the Southern Weekend reporter to a Cantonese restaurant near her home, and ate chicken soup and cured meat platter in coconut shells, she sighed, "Eat well and sleep well are the most important things." ”
"If there is a thing that you love"
Mo Yuansheng, who graduated from F College in 2019, works for a technology magazine in Guangzhou, dealing with words. After graduating, he went through graduate school entrance examinations, went to education and training institutions, and went around and around to find this desirable job.
The call with the Southern Weekly reporter was on a weekday afternoon, Mo Yuansheng has little work pressure, simple interpersonal relationships, he likes to write, and when he was in college, Huang Deng often took them shopping and listening to lectures. Once eating salty pancakes at an old shop near Beijing Road, Mo Yuansheng sighed that it was so delicious, and he didn't know when he would be able to eat it next time. Huang Deng said, it's okay, when she wants to eat, she brings it to class.
Huang Lantern took Mo Yuansheng and his classmates to a literary seminar on science fiction, which was attended by many professors and students from major universities. Huang Lan suggested that the discussion should not be limited to professors, but also between students, and Mo Yuansheng also spoke about his own views.
Huang Deng also went to Mo Yuansheng's home, in Neihan Village, Lidong Town, Yunan County, Yunfu City. One night, when it was dark all around, Huang Deng and her husband Yang Shenggang chatted with Mo Yuansheng on the rooftop and talked about literature. During the day in the village, Huang Lantern holds a digital camera and walks around, recording the remains of the village.
At that time, Mo Yuansheng said that in the past, he would connect the electric light to the rooftop, look at the moon and stars, accompanied by the sound of the wind, write alone, and dream of becoming a writer in the future. "This is the most specific and emotional description of a dream of any student I have. Huang Lan wrote in the book.
For Mo Yuansheng, the meaning of writing is that "you may forget the dishes you ate yesterday, but words can make you really return to the memories of more than ten years ago", even if you can't become an excellent writer, you are willing to keep writing.
Huang Lan felt that this made Mo Yuansheng always have a definite anchor point in his heart.
In the process of raising her son, she felt that everyone has something they are born to love, but they have been neglected or have not been able to develop their potential. My son has been very fond of cars since he couldn't speak. In his eyes, the car seems to have life, and when he hears the roar of the engine, he will be very excited, and it feels like the car is shaking off its arms and saying "I'm coming".
Teaching at Shenzhen Polytechnic, she once visited the girls' dormitory, and there was a girl who was stringing beads, quiet and determined. The girl gave a bracelet to the yellow light, which she usually sells on the Internet for ten or twenty yuan a piece. Huang Lan suggested that she sell it a little more expensive.
Huang Deng has a student, in his thirties, who joined a bank in Zhanjiang after graduation, he likes to dance, and works as a dance instructor in his spare time, which has a good income supplement. Last year, he called Huang and said that his employer wanted to promote him, but he was worried that he would be too busy with socializing to take care of his family and have no time to dance.
He didn't know how to choose. Huang Lan also faced the same choice, because she didn't want to do administrative work, she left Guangdong University of Finance. In the end, the student thought twice and decided that it was more important to maintain the current life and do what he liked.
"If there is something that he loves very much, it will give people a sense of strength in many times, and he will also know what is more important when he is faced with choices and temptations. She said.
Now after work, Mo Yuan will watch the video of the yellow light attending the event and giving a speech, "It turns out that someone is speaking for us...... I will feel that the whole person is full of strength, the future is still very good, and there are still many opportunities."
Not long ago, my cousin, who was still drinking tea together a few years ago, died of a sudden cardiovascular emergency, only in his forties, and the children left behind were still very young. Mo Yuansheng's father worked hard to support the family, and his health was not good after he graduated. Mo Yuansheng still loves literature, but now he feels that before he becomes a writer, it is also a meaningful life to be able to contribute to the needs of those around him.
After the publication of "Going to Visit Home", Huang Deng sent a copy to Mo Yuansheng, signed and written, wishing him to realize his dream as soon as possible. In private, she would also say, eat well, fall in love, and enjoy playing.
After receiving the manuscript, Mo Yuansheng, who rarely lost sleep, tossed and turned for a night. He felt that the content was a little too close to him, as if a secret had been discovered. Later, he thought that he wanted to be a writer just to write about something socially meaningful and to let strangers know that his story was also valuable.
Mo Yuansheng has always kept a secret in his heart. When he was in college, he printed out the essays he had written since high school, a thick stack of A4 paper. He wanted to write a book since he was a child, and it was the first time he saw what he had written printed in a paper version, and it was very fulfilling. Later, he gave this "book" to Huang Deng, originally wanting to give her a "look", but he didn't make it clear. After a few months, there was no news of the return of the book.
Later, he received a book written by Huang Deng, and Mo Yuansheng felt like a gift from each other, "She has already returned the book she wrote to me."
(At the request of the interviewee, Mo Yuansheng is a pseudonym in the article)
Southern Weekly reporter Fu Ziyang and Southern Weekly intern Dong Jiadi
Editor-in-charge: Li Muyan