At the end of August 1959, it may be a clerical error by the person who registered the household registration, but my hukou book, which is only 7 years old, reflects that I am 8 years old and can read, and my father will be wrong and take me to Tangdu Primary School to get my name.
When I was a child, I did not have to go through Tangdu Street to Tangdu Primary School, but turned directly to the east before entering the street, first walked along Yanglonggou for about 50 meters, and then crossed Yanglonggou to go straight to the east for less than 100 meters, and then came to the south gate of Tangdu Primary School.
Although the south gate is not as big as the north gate, in history, it is the main gate. It was covered on three sides by a high fire-sealing wall, outside the door was an outer playground, and there were 6 classrooms next to the south road, and I later learned that this was the classroom of Tangdu Junior High School, where we also attended classes in the sixth grade. Inside the door, there is an open front walkway of an old-fashioned building. The two-story old-fashioned building sits west to east, with the main body of the building to the left of our entrance. I remember that the two rooms on the south side were libraries and reading rooms, and I participated in the sorting out of books when I was in the sixth grade, and there were also gao Hongdi and other students who also participated. Further ahead are three auditoriums, remember that there are pillars in the middle, and there is a platform in the west of the middle, where small and medium-sized meetings and activities of the school will be held.
The picture of Tangdu Old Street appears on the wall
Further north is the staircase leading upstairs, which is also on the left, and there seems to be a bathroom downstairs. Upstairs, I seem to have gone up once, it was a teacher's dormitory, and the entrance to the dormitory was a corridor. For some reason, I've often dreamed of doing it there for many years.
Further north is a walkway to the kitchen, the school's kitchen felt that the scale was still OK, the stove was larger, there were more than three eyes, there was a steaming box, and boiling water, always felt steaming. There is also a small door in the kitchen, facing north through the alley of Tangdu Street, through which school workers may have to enter and exit to fetch water. Outside the door is the home of my classmate Zhu Xiaofang, her father opened an umbrella repair shop in Hulu, her brother is two grades higher than us, the grades are very good, and he is the head of my little uncle's class. Classmate Chen Jianping also lives next door to her.
The kitchen is located in the northwest corner of the school, and to the south is also an alley, but it is relatively wide. Facing the school wall, two families still remember it. The head of a household was named Zhang Chunlin, who had joined the New Fourth Army in his early years, and usually heard him talk about "our commander of Millet"; there was also a family surnamed Wang, the son Xinrong was about the same age as me, the elder brother was called Xinmin, and the older sister was called Ao Yun, which was my grandmother's dry daughter.
There was still a row of classrooms on the east side of the kitchen, and I remember my first- and second-grade classrooms were there. Further east is the north gate of the school, and beyond the gate is a row of classrooms, where I was in the fourth and fifth grades.
The classroom is flanked by a wall, and the southern corner of the wall is the easternmost part of the school, which was originally a toilet, and later a toilet was built. Those two toilets I often do in my dreams. Further south and west, all classrooms, my sixth and third grade classrooms are on this one. The classrooms are connected to the south gate, and the entire school house is in the shape of a "mouth" with a playground in the middle.
There are also some cement ping-pong tables on the west side of the school's playground, and when we get out of class, even though it is only 15 minutes, we will grab the table and play table tennis for a while. Not far from the middle of the main building, there are two tall plane trees that bear fruit in the fall. Once I also happened to eat the fried sycamore fruit, it was really fragrant, and it felt that it was difficult to surpass its deliciousness!
On the west side of the playground, there seems to be a separate small building, and I don't remember what the role is. I felt that when I was a child, the playground was very large, and then I went in once or twice, and I felt much smaller.
The first time I went to Tangdu Elementary School was not when I started studying, but two or three years ago or earlier. Once, when I put out a square movie at Tangdu Elementary School, the adults in the family took me to see it. There is a scene in the movie where a big flat shoulder is waving, which may be exaggerated, or I may not be prepared, in short, I am scared. Went back to sleep with nightmares, fever, sweating profusely, and rolled onto the floor in front of the bed. Not only did my parents tell me this, but I still have some impressions in my memory.
On September 1 of that year, I became a first-grade student at Tangdu Primary School, in the same class as Qin Jianming, Wang Xingfa, and Wang Xiaohua. I went to class with Xiao Fen Zhou Zufen at the gate of Qiuzhi Hall, she was a year older than me, and we sat around a square table together. When I was a child, Huang Niwan's playmate Wang Xingfa was very happy to see me and beckoned me to sit with him. I don't want to, I want to sit with Xiao Fen, feel that she is more familiar, and also, can not leave her alone, she is not familiar with anyone.
There is a man named Liu Hongsheng, whose name is Little Rabbit, who is two years older than me and has always been very close to me. His family began to live in a bungalow on the east side of Qiuzhitang, and the vegetable garden fence behind the house was surrounded by thorn trees, and in the summer it was full of white flowers, and the leaves could be used to wash their hair; later, his family moved to HuangxiaoWan, where he lived in the easternmost of my family's 5 old houses. He and I have always been neighbors, often playing together and talking very well. He was one level higher than me, and after he finished reading a semester the book was still relatively new, so he gave it to me, and at that time the content of the book seemed to have not changed much, and the next level could still be used. My book was somehow badly broken, thanks to his book. This went on for two years.
My first- and second-grade teacher was chu min, a young girl. She has some superficial freckles on her face, but she still looks feminine. She is very responsible at work and loves us. The students teased Wang Xiaohua, saying that Teacher Chu had hugged him. Wang Xiaohua did not admit it, but I believed it. Because once I went to school and walked in the hallway with Teacher Chu, she bent down, put her left hand on my shoulder, and walked to the door of the classroom when I entered the classroom. Fortunately, no one saw it, and I couldn't say it, for fear that my classmates would make fun of it. At a school-wide event in the second grade, I went on stage and recited a poem: "The stars in the sky, the crystals... "Because I was small, she hugged me up and down when I went up and down. She had a younger brother who followed her to school for some reason. Sometimes he would go to the door of the classroom and signal to her that someone was looking for her. There aren't too many things like that.
Later, I heard that she was married, and the school transferred a principal, and she married the principal, and she also became a brigade counselor. Later, I heard that she had followed the principal to which school in Saigo. Later, we often inquired, and there was no definite news of her. A group of our classmates wish her heartfelt blessings!
I always got good grades in elementary school, mainly because I listened carefully to class, never missed class, and did not spend much time else. When I was in the third grade, I was sick once, I had a fever at night, got up in the morning, and went to school without breakfast. My mother was not at ease and came to school to see me in the morning with breakfast. My class teacher at that time was Mr. Ding Hedi, a Hudian person, a good teacher who was dedicated and loved his students. After hearing this, she praised me in the classroom many times, which made me even more reluctant to miss class.
The fourth grade homeroom teacher is Teacher Sun Wenshan, a young man who is also a Lake Man, wearing glasses and looking very Sven. An arithmetic exam, I don't know who came out of the paper, was particularly difficult, and more than half of the classroom failed. I scored more than 80 points, which was the first place, and it was more than 10 points more than the second place.
The fifth-grade teacher was a kind old man named Jiang Huai, and everyone privately called him Old Man Jiang. Once, the girl Zhu Xiaofang mentioned earlier was used to talking behind her back, and even forgot the occasion, called him up in front of his face, and he raised his hand in anger, jokingly scaring and trying to beat her.
The sixth-grade Chinese teacher is named Zhao Jingcheng, and his composition education has helped us a lot. He asked us to read more extracurricular books, read good sentences and asked us to take them off, and then copy them on the blackboard for everyone to enjoy and copy together, and then try to use them when composing essays. In this cycle, everyone not only increased their knowledge, but also cultivated their interest in composition and improved their ability to write essays.
The homeroom teacher's name is Xie Hongpei, who is also a Hudian person. He managed the students at the same time, and managed the students obediently. He was not in good health at the time, and after a few months of rest at a time, a group of us boys and girls came to visit him at his house. His family lives in Hufu Houzhuangmen, Tangdu Primary School to there is about 8 miles away, we walked back on foot, a group of people playing and making trouble, the interest is very high. He also lived in Yicheng later, his daughter and son-in-law and my brother Heming were close, I also knew his situation, I always wanted to see him, because he was busy with mundane things, until his death and could not make the trip, very regrettable!
These years of elementary school were very important to me, it laid the foundation for my learning, cultivated my interest in learning and good habits. The education I received from my parents about self-denial and sincerity was deepened by my teachers and implemented in school education. In particular, in the sixth grade, the whole country vigorously carried out a huge learning Lei Feng activity. At that time, the three-year difficult period had passed, everyone felt that life was quite good, very satisfied, and very much looked forward to a good social atmosphere, and the central authorities wasted no time in putting forward the call to learn from Lei Feng. This activity has had a great impact on my life. I remember watching the movie "Lei Feng" at the Dingshan Workers Cinema, I fell into a long period of contemplation, and secretly resolved: In this life, I must be a person who is beneficial to the people and a person who is beneficial to society!
The successful education of primary school teachers also made me love the glorious, sacred and even romantic profession of teaching. I remember that it was a spring trip in the second and third grades, and everyone came to Shunqing Temple at the foot of Nanshan Mountain. I saw the trees next to the Zen room, the stream babbling, and during the noon break, some young teachers leaned on the big rocks in the stream to play the harmonica, some played the flute by the stream, and there were groups of male and female students around them. I thought how nice it would be for me to be a teacher in the future!
I began to keep a diary from the sixth grade of primary school, which is also the credit of Zhao Jingcheng's teacher. This habit has accompanied me for nearly half a century, although there are interruptions, but it has brought me many benefits, such as being able to record many small things in life, increasing the joy and memories of life, being able to reflect on some things every day, and cultivating the habit of thinking... Sometimes I don't keep a diary, not because it's useless, but because I'm lazy. I also kept 132 diary entries from elementary school, which I will not expand here.
When I became an adult, especially after reading the "Old News of the Sea" written by Xu Zhucheng, a newspaper from Yixing, I learned that my mother's third father-in-law, Uncle Zhou You, had always been the trustee of Tangdu Primary School, and his son Zhou Yongbao was Xu Zhucheng's classmate when he was studying at Tangdu Primary School. Xu Zhucheng was the editorial director of The Ta Kung Pao in Hong Kong, and the editor-in-chief of the Shanghai Ta Kung Pao after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. After the founding of New China, Xu Zhucheng served as the editor-in-chief of Wen Wei Po. Xu Zhucheng also wrote an inscription for Tangdu Primary School before his death: the word "Gangzheng" has always been at the entrance of the school, and I think it is not impossible for it to become the school motto.
(The author Qin Leming, who was the chairman of the Yixing Federation of Trade Unions, edited the "Zhou Ji Poetry Collection" and "Zhou Ji's Remains", etc., this article is excerpted from the author's long biographical literature "No Regrets in This Life", picture editor He Xiaobing)