The Golden Sorcerer Years - 02 / Teenage Past

Weekend afternoons were delightful. Warm sunshine floods the balcony, and there is a faint scent of mint in the air – a hint of freshness in laziness. My mother washed the dishes in the kitchen, and my grandmother sat leisurely in the dining chair and continued to talk to us about the things of our childhood. "I was very young and couldn't remember many things. The story of my mother's wrapping of feet and her failure to participate in the northern retreat was told to me later by my little aunt. I suddenly realized, and asked about what happened later. Grandma smiled and squinted at me, "Don't worry, listen to me slowly." ”

I've been busy at home like that. It wasn't until 1952, one day at the age of 13, that a literate gentleman surnamed Chen knocked on my door and told me to attend a literacy class. Mr. Chen is a cultured person in the village and actively participates in the village's literacy work. I was very happy, and my mother was very happy, so she let me go to the literacy class to recognize words. Along with me, I was able to read and write with a few friends of similar age, all of whom lived not far from my house. Literacy classes do not have a fixed time and venue, and a class can be long or short, mostly half an hour, with no teaching materials and no tuition fees. Whenever Mr. Chen was free, he knocked on the door door to call us to class. 有时在邻居家教学，随便找块木板在‬上面写字；学校空闲时就在教室里上课。

I cherished this opportunity to read, so I was extra serious in class, and when I came home, I asked my sister to teach me to read. Mr. Chen saw that I was studying well and took me to Tanggou to take the exam. That was the first time I went to the district, and we walked six miles to Tanggou. The test is to recognize and write, are some common words, I can recognize, write, get a full score. Mr. Chen was very happy, praised me for learning well, and my heart was also beautiful.

Literacy classes went on and off for more than a year, and the exams were over. When I saw that many children around me went to Anle Primary School, read and played together, I was very envious, so I proposed to my mother to go to primary school. My mother began to struggle a little, because my sister had already gone to Tanggou to study in the sixth grade, far from home, and brought food at other people's homes at noon, and there was no time to help the family. She was afraid that the family's farm work would not be busy, but seeing my determined eyes, my mother reluctantly agreed and asked me to continue to help the family with housework after school. I said yes, so I transferred to the second semester of the second grade of elementary school.

When I first entered elementary school, there were only four grades in the school, one class per grade, and there were about 20 people in one class. The school has only two classrooms: one classroom for the first and second grades, and another classroom for the third and fourth grades. The desk used by the students is to build a wooden board on the mud pier, the wooden board is brought from their own home, there are also schools, the length is different, uneven, everyone will lie on such a desk to listen to the class and write. Later, when I reached the third and fourth grades, the school conditions were better, and the new tile house was built, the classrooms were more spacious and more spacious, the windows were larger and brighter, and the tables were replaced by four-legged wooden tables.

In the first six months of entering the school, the teachers used a compound class, and the first and second grades were crammed into a classroom and sat on both sides. The teacher first lectures the first grade class, assigns the students to write homework, and then rubs the board book to talk about the second grade class, and so on alternately. In the two grades, there was only one teacher, Mr. Zhu Er, and he taught Chinese and mathematics, and he taught them very well in his memory, and everyone also studied very seriously.

Although I did not go to the first grade, I had a little foundation in literacy classes, and I was able to pass the language, and I did not learn mathematics, so I had a hard time learning. I remember once, before going to bed, my sister tested me to add and subtract, and I could barely answer the simple at the beginning, and the difficult questions in the back squeaked. My sister asked several times, but I didn't speak. My mother, who slept at the head of the bed, asked me why I didn't answer, but I still didn't answer, and my mother was so angry that I kicked me a few times with my foot, and I was embarrassed and helpless for a while, so I secretly decided that I must learn mathematics well.

A year later, my sister graduated from high school and failed to be admitted to Tanggou Middle School, so she went home to work as a farmer. The two of us got along day and night, and the sisterhood deepened. This year, zhang fen, the sister-in-law of the cousin, helped my sister introduce the object, his name is Sun Yue, Xuyi old shopman, working in the Henan Shangqiu Military Hospital. His mother was impressed with him and agreed to the marriage. Soon, the sister went to Shangqiu, Henan, and after getting married in the army, she joined the army.

After finishing elementary school, I took the entrance examination. There are many candidates, from the surrounding small shop market town and Zhao Dazhuang, Lufang, Liu Wei, Chen Wei and other places, and those who have been admitted to the fifth grade of Zhou Wei Primary School (formerly Anle Primary School) are admitted. I was lucky enough to get in.

After entering the fifth grade, a class expanded to more than fifty people, and the number of students around me suddenly increased. The school building has been upgraded again, and the tables are better than before. The course adds both natural and geographical. Chinese was taught by Teacher Chen Aihua, who was very kind and taught very well. At that time, there were also top students in the class, and Wang Sanzhu had good grades and ranked among the top every time. My grades have always been in the middle. There are no physical education classes in the school, and the games of jumping rope and kicking shuttlecocks are the most attractive to us girls. Fancy kicking shuttlecock is my specialty, big jump, small jump, cross-legged jump are not a problem; by the high hours, learning is intense, playing less. In the past two years of study, I have gotten along well with my classmates and have always had a very good relationship.

From elementary school to high school, I always kept the agreement with my mother and helped the family work in my spare time. I get up early in the morning to mow the grass and feed the cattle and make breakfast; when I come home from school at noon, I am still busy inside and out; after school in the afternoon, I go to the fields to do farm work, and then hurry up to make dinner. Reading, farming and housework became the main themes of my time.

After graduating from high school, I was not admitted to Tanggou Middle School and worked at home for more than a year. In 1957, the families of Zhuangzi and Weili in the west began to form a mutual aid group, and I joined in, cutting corn and beans with everyone. Everyone helps each other and works together. My mother was a member of the mutual aid group at the time, but whenever there was a call, she took the lead in responding positively to the implementation. During that time, my mother was often busy with the work of the mutual aid group and often went to meetings, so the affairs of the family mainly fell on my shoulders.

In 1958, I had another turning point in my life. My mother heard that there was a job recruitment notice in Shuyang County, so she asked me to apply for the exam. I went to register with several classmates in the village, and several people walked together to Shuyang County, more than forty miles away. The content of the exam is Chinese and mathematics, which is not difficult for me. I felt good on my own. Less than a month later, I received an acceptance letter from Xuyi County and was overjoyed, even though I didn't know the word Xuyi. Lu Lilan, Yang Xiufang, and He Zengfang, who were east of my house, also received the notice, so we met and set off together.

Before leaving, my mother helped me pack my luggage, while quietly wiping away the tear marks in the corners of my eyes, and told me to take care of myself. When the eldest lady and the little aunt heard the news, they rushed to my house, took my hand reluctantly, and sent me all the way to the mouth of the village. With the affection for my hometown and the blessings of my relatives, I frequently looked back at the land that gave birth to me and raised me, and waved goodbye to the relatives and friends who came to see me off. After the four of us walked to Shuyang County, the bus to Xuyi was already waiting there. 一切是那么令人兴奋，我们就这样离开了家乡，去往一个全‬然陌生的地方，踏上了去远方的行程。