Grandma’s fried rice

Grandma is very frugal. Every time she cooks rice, she saves the extra rice water (Old way to cook rice is to put rice in a pot with a lot of water, after boiling a while, take out the extra water, and cover the lid with small fire until it is well cooked). After the cooked rice is scooped out of the pot, regardless of whether the pot bottom is burnt or not, she pours the saved rice water back into the pot and simmers it on low heat to make "crispy rice porridge," which she eats without leaving a single grain. Even when leftovers become rancid and taste strange, she doesn't throw them away, but puts them in a pot, boils them, and eats them. Mom tells her not to eat rancid food for fear of getting sick, but she says, "Grain is hard to come by, and it's a shame to waste it. Wasting food will attract the hit from thunder and lightning."

When I was young, things were scarce, and children had virtually no snacks to eat. Only during holidays and birthdays could we buy a lollipop. Sometimes, before the Chinese New Year, popcorn maker would come by. Adults would teach children to take two or three pounds of rice to popcorn. The popcorn maker would put the rice in a black iron cylinder like a shell, cover it, rotate it on a rack with fire underneath for about ten minutes, put it in a burlap bag, step on the bag-wrapped iron cylinder, pull the lever with their hand, and with the children's screams, a sudden loud bump and a white cloud burst out of the bag, the popcorn would magically fill the bag, with the aroma wafting over. The children caught it in basins or buckets and happily ran home with it to eat.

  

But after the new year, we children had nothing to eat again. In those long days, we dreamed every day of delicious food. Grandma had a way of turning waste into treasure. There was no refrigerator at that time, food was kept in room temperature. If there were leftover rice that had gone bad, she wouldn't throw it away, but put a little oil in a pan, pour the leftover rice in, and slowly stir-fry it over low heat. Then add some salt and keep stirring. Slowly, the water in the rice evaporated, and the smell disappeared. She kept stirring for half an hour or up to an hour until the soft, white grains of rice turned into hard, brown, crispy grains in the pot, rolling around and making a "hissing" sound, giving off the aroma of crispy rice, similar to crispy rice porridge. She called these crispy grains "fried rice." After frying the rice, she served it in a small bowl, let it cool, and let me and two brothers to eat it. It was crispy and fragrant, and it was my favorite snack. Whenever Grandma fried rice, we eagerly waited in front of the pot, watching her stir-fry at a steady pace. Holding back the saliva that was about to flow, we hoped that the rice grains would turn into brown crispy grains quickly. As soon as they were done, we would immediately scoop up a small bowl, unable to wait for it to cool, and put it into my mouth. The taste was more fragrant than any snack bought in stores today.

Grandma's teeth have almost all fallen out, so she can't eat fried rice anymore. She just sits there kindly watching me eat mouthfuls of crispy rice grains.

Grandmother never fried good rice, only fry rancid rice. We sometimes hoped that the rice would be rancid so we could have fried rice. There was always not enough food to eat, and it was really rare to have rancid rice, so the days when we could eat fried rice were of course few, no more than once in three or four months.

 

Grandmother always said that she was getting old and wanted to go back to her hometown. She said that she had to throw her old bones on the land of her hometown before she could close her eyes. When the Cultural Revolution began, because the situation was too chaotic, my parents sent my younger brothers to my grandmother's place and let grandmother go back to her hometown.

After my grandmother left, I often imitated her and made "pot rice porridge" to eat, which tasted very fragrant. Sometimes I also used leftover rice to make fried rice like my grandmother did, but because of refrigerator, I used rice that had not rancid. Later, after graduating from university and starting work for a long time, I had two occasions where I had leftover food, and I fried the rice in a small pot in the collective dormitory building, which made the whole building smell delicious. Colleagues and friends around came over one by one, smelling the fragrance and wondering what delicious food I was making. They said they had never seen fried rice made like this before and wanted to try it. After eating it, everyone liked it very much and thought that it was really a good way to turn waste into treasure.

Wang Yaba and Master Zhang

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Wang Yaba was a well-known figure in Zhijiang Normal School. He was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn't speak. He often walked around the campus with a crutch. Few people knew his full name, where he was from, or whether he had any relatives. They only knew his surname was Wang, so they called him Wang Yaba. Yaba is 啞巴 in Chinese, means mute, or dumb.

It is said that Wang Yaba used to be a college student with major in architecture. After graduation, he worked for a construction company and quickly became a manager because of his outstanding work. At that time, he was handsome and had a promising future. He was particular about his dress and always wore a smart suit with shiny leather shoes and neatly combed hair.

In the 1950s, his company took on the project of building a building for Zhijiang Normal School, and he was in charge of the project. One time, he climbed onto the roof under construction to check on the work despite his smart attire. Unfortunately, he slipped and fell from the roof. Although he survived the accident, he became paralyzed from the waist down at around 30 years old.

Due to the work-related injury and the fact that he fell while working on the Zhijiang Normal School project, after consultation, Zhijiang Normal School took on the responsibility of supporting him for life. From then on, he became a special employee of the school.

His throat and tongue were severely damaged, so he could make sounds but couldn't speak. It also affected his swallowing, so he ate slowly. He had good hearing and could understand what others said. He could recognize characters and read letters and newspapers. Although he couldn't speak, his mind was very clear. As the saying goes, "A dumb person eating dumplings still knows the number."

However, his limbs didn't obey him. When walking, he needed to exert a lot of effort to swing one leg out like someone who had suffered from severe polio, shift his weight, and then swing the other leg. One hand was always holding a crutch to help him maintain his balance. His hand couldn't stretch straight and had a slight tremble, so he couldn't hold things properly. However, if someone asked, he would occasionally write his name or answer a question with his trembling hand. When he wanted to express something, he would open his mouth and say "Ah, Ah," while gesturing with one hand. If you guessed correctly what he was trying to say, he would smile, nod, and say "Ah, Ah." If you guessed wrong, he would shake his head.

The person who could understand him the most was Master Zhang. Master Zhang's full name was Zhang Yinshan, and he was from Henan. He was born in the early 20th century, about 20 years older than Wang Yaba. Although he was named "Yinshan"(Yin means silver, Shan means mountain) his family was very poor, so he didn't go to school. Due to financial pressure, when he was young, he became a soldier for the Nationalist government. Later, he worked as a handyman in Zhijiang Normal School.

Master Zhang was kind and easy to talk to. Whenever there was something that others couldn't or didn't want to do, people would go to him. There were no clear rules about who should take care of Wang Yaba or how he should be taken care of. The responsibility of taking care of him fell to Master Zhang. This included taking care of Wang Yaba's daily living, including helping him dress, bathe, wash clothes, and buy food at the canteen. Day after day, and year after year.

Despite being disabled, Wang Yaba pays great attention to his appearance. His hair is always combed to one side, and his clothes are always clean. He takes a bath every few days, but he needs the help of his assistant, Master Zhang, to do all of these. Master Zhang himself doesn't care much about his appearance. He has a tall figure with a slightly hunched back, fluffy hair, and deep wrinkles on his face. He always wears shabby work clothes, with a bunch of keys hanging from his waist that clinks as he walks. He looks like a hardworking laborer.

Wang Yaba subscribes to newspapers and reads them every day. He has poor eyesight and needs a magnifying glass to read. Since he cannot communicate with others, no one knows what kind of content he likes to read.

Eating out is his main hobby. Before the Cultural Revolution, Zhijiang Normal School was in the city, and he would go out to eat one or two times a week. Zhijiang city is not big. There are restaurants 200 meters away from the school gate and more in the city center, 500 meters away. However, he walks very slowly, and it may take him forty minutes to get there, while others only need ten minutes.

Not only does he eat, but he also drinks a few ounces of wine if the food is good. The bosses and waiters of the restaurants he frequents know him well and know what he likes to eat. If they mention a few dishes, such as stir-fried pork liver, spicy stir-fried meat, or deep-fried peanuts, he nods his head and they understand what he means. He slowly drinks and eats by himself. Since he has difficulty swallowing, he takes more than an hour to finish a meal. After finishing his meal, he picks his teeth slowly with a toothpick and then limps his way back.

Occasionally, he meets acquaintances on the road, and he will "ah ah ah" to "chat" with them. People near Zhijiang Normal School, all know him, and adults warn children not to bully him. If children try to make fun of him, he will wave his crutches to scare them. The children won't go too far, and they will run away after playing for a while. Wang Yaba will smile at their backs and let them go.

In the winter of 1965, Zhijiang Normal School moved to Wood Oil Hill, east of the airport, and was surrounded by fields and houses belong to Seven Li (7 Chinese miles = 3.5 Kilo meters) Bridge village, the location of the Japanese surrender memorial. Wang Yaba and Master Zhang also moved to Wood Oil Hill with the school.

The following year, the Cultural Revolution began. After overthrowing the leaders of the school, the Red Guards wanted to attack Wang Yaba for his past job as a manager, and labeled him as a "reactionary authority." That day, when they came to criticize him, Wang Yaba was really angry for the first time and protested loudly. The Red Guards wanted to hang a "reactionary authority" sign around his neck, but he refused. With trembling hands, Wang Yaba raised his cane to strike someone, but was knocked over by the Red Guards and tied up. He then began banging his head against the wall, causing blood to flow from his face and head. Later, Zhang, the master carpenter, intervened and pleaded for his release, and the Red Guards eventually untied him. Thanks to Zhang's comforting words, the steadfast Wang Yaba did not take his own life. He could endure his disability, but could not bear to lose his dignity.

The Red Guards ordered various groups to parade in public, and Master Zhang and Wang Yaba were among them. Because Master Zhang had once served as a soldier for the Nationalist Party, the Red Guards labeled him a "military thug," and Wang Yaba was labeled a "reactionary authority." It was probably thanks to Zhang's intervention that Wang Yaba was allowed to sit on a flat cart, pushed by Master Zhang, to participate in the parade.

Later, the Red Guards either had a change of heart or found no pleasure in harassing them, so they stopped bothering them.

Although their spirits were at peace, their lives were still very difficult. They received only one pound of planned meat and four ounces of oil per month, which was mostly kept in the cafeteria. The area around Wood Oil Hill was called Seven-Mile Bridge because it was seven miles (Chinese miles, 1 mile = 3.2 Chinese mile) from the city. It was surrounded by farmland and farmhouses, with no marketplaces, let alone restaurants.

Just when people thought that Wang Yaba's habit of going to restaurants was a thing of the past, they were surprised to find that on warm and sunny days, he would sometimes hobble with his cane across the abandoned Zhijiang Airport and walk to the city to eat at a restaurant. This distance normally took a person 45 minutes to walk, but Wang Yaba not only walked slowly, he also had to stop every few dozen meters to catch his breath, so he needed several times more time to walk this distance. No one ever calculated how long he took, but including the time to eat, a round trip would take about ten hours. People were afraid that he would collapse halfway and not be able to get home, but he always managed to walk back by himself. However, occasionally he would encounter heavy rain on the way back, and there was no shelter for miles around the airport, so he had to endure the rain and wind, return home completely drenched, and then be bedridden for several days.

Sometimes he went once a month, and sometimes once every month and a half, but he could not go in the winter. Every time he went, he was dressed neatly, with his hair neatly combed. It was not until the end of 1968, when Zhijiang Normal School moved back to the county town, that Wang Yaba no longer had to travel so far to go to a restaurant.

In the 1970s, Wang Yaba became increasingly weak and could no longer go out to eat. Occasionally, Master Zhang would go to the restaurant to buy his favorite dishes and bring them back for him to eat. Later, he could not even walk, and Zhang had to help him with his bodily functions. Around 1976, he passed away, and from then on, people no longer saw Wang Yaba hobbling along with his cane.

Wang Yaba lived to be over 50 years old, more than 20 of which were spent with a disability. Fortunately, he met Zhang, the master carpenter, and even more fortunate, he died before Zhang, which could be considered his good fortune. Zhang retired in the late 1970s at the age of over 70. He has a wife and an adopted daughter who treat him well in Zhijiang, and they live in harmony as a family. In the late 1970s, after he retired, he took his wife back to his hometown in Henan Province for the first and only time since joining the army. In the mid-1980s, Master Zhang passed away at the age of over 80.

Mom's Fairy Tales - Memories of the Past (5) Mr. Huang and His Moon Silkworms

Mr. Huang, Chuanjia was an "old friend" of mine in my childhood. "Old friend" not only means that our relationship was good, but also that he was the oldest among my friends at that time. I was just 8 years old, but he was in his 70s.

I met Mr. Huang when the Zhijiang Normal School moved to Mu You Po in Seven Mile Bridge, just when the Cultural Revolution began. We both lived in the American-style bungalows that were previously residency of members of the Flying Tigers – nickname of American Volunteer Group in World War II. He lived in the adjacent building to mine.

Mr. Huang had studied in Japan before and later became a biology teacher at Zhijiang Normal School. He was over 70 years old, but he still didn't want to retire. He had a kind and gentle expression, always smiling. He was short, less than 1.65 meters, with gray hair and a long beard. He dressed very casually, wore a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and always walked with a cane.

Whenever the weather was good, he would take a walk after dinner. Every time he went for a walk, he would invite some of the children to come along, and I was always happy to join. We followed Mr. Huang, who was hobbling along with his cane, and walked along the road beside the river.

There were tall and straight poplar trees on both sides of the road, and Mr. Huang would stop and check on them from time to time. We asked him why he liked poplar trees so much, and he told us that they were very useful because they could be used to raise Moon silkworms ((Actias selene Hubner).

Later, I found out from my father that Mr. Huang was the only Moon silkworm expert in China at that time. He had published academic articles on Moon silkworm research in national professional journals.

Mr. Huang's bedroom was filled with jars of Moon silkworm specimens: eggs, larvae, adult moths, pupae, and cocoons of all sizes. The books on his bookshelf were mostly about biology and Moon silkworm breeding. There were also shelves of chemicals, medicines, and dyes, as well as several alcohol burners, flasks, beakers, test tubes, and other laboratory equipment. The wall was hung with diagrams of the growth of Moon silkworms.

Every time we went for a walk, Mr. Huang would teach me some new knowledge, and I gradually became very familiar with Moon silkworms. Moon silkworms are wild silkworms that feed on mulberry leaves, poplar leaves, and other types of leaves. Poplar trees are the most common, and they are planted along the sides of the road nationwide, so silkworms can be raised anywhere.

The cocoons of wild Moon silkworms are several times larger than those of domestic silkworms, and are gray in color. The wild silkworms produce coarser silk than the domestic ones, but after steaming, drawing, and dyeing the silk with alcohol, various colors of silk can be obtained. The silk can be woven into silk cloth, ropes, and other textile materials. Mr. Huang said that Moon silkworm silk had many uses, but I don't remember them all. I do remember him saying that Moon silkworm silk was much stronger than domestic silkworm silk and was good for making parachutes because of its lightness and strong pull.

In the room, there was also a threshing bin, which was used by farmers in the past to harvest and manually thresh rice in the fields. It had a large open top and a small bottom, a square shape with each side about four feet long and over two feet high. When spring arrived, he taught me to put the cocoons collected from the previous autumn into the threshing drum, lining the bottom with old newspapers and covering the top with more newspapers. The Moon silkworm pupae inside the cocoons would transform into moths, break through the cocoon, fly out, mate, and lay eggs on the newspapers. The Moon silkworm eggs were as small as sesame seeds, densely packed in a layer of gray on the newspaper like a layer of sesame seeds.

He took out the newspapers with silkworm eggs and showed me how to cut them into one-inch squares and put them into a bag. When the weather was clear, we took the bag and went to the roadside. We used a large pin to attach the small paper squares to the newly sprouted leaves of poplar trees, with three or four pieces on one tree. After a few days, the trees on both sides of the seven-mile bridge were covered with newspapers carrying silkworm eggs.

Every day during our walks, we observed the silkworm eggs on the paper. After more than ten days, the little silkworms hatched and slowly climbed up the new branches covered in leaves, disappearing.

Mr. Huang kept a small number of silkworm eggs at home and, after they hatched, put them in a large glass jar, bringing tree leaves back to raise them up close and observe the growth of the Moon silkworm.

In early June, when the silkworm grew to the size of domesticated silkworms and climbed all over the trees, we could see them again. Growing in the wild, the Moon silkworms are covered in long thorns to protect themselves. Their bodies are yellow-green and look scary. I was afraid to touch the Moon silkworms at first, but Mr. Huang told me that they don't bite humans. He caught the Moon silkworm with his hand and let it crawl on his palm, proving to me that Moon silkworms don't bite humans. Watching Mr. Huang catch Moon silkworms every day, I gradually overcame my fear. Later, I also tried to touch and catch Moon silkworms with my hands and let them crawl around.

Moon silkworms eat a lot and grow fast. They are very tough and not afraid of wind, sun, and rain. But they are afraid of birds because they eat them, especially during their larval stage. When they grow into adults, birds no longer dare to eat them. In autumn, the Moon silkworms can grow to be as thick as a finger and over three inches long. You can see them crawling on trees from afar. At that time, the white poplar trees on the roadside where we took walks were covered with them.

In late autumn, the Moon silkworms began to spin silk and make cocoons. We took a basket and caught some of them from the trees. Mr. Huang first put some wheat straw in the threshing bin and then put the Moon silkworms inside, covering them with newspapers on top. The Moon silkworms crawled between the wheat straw, found a suitable place, and began to spin silk and make cocoons.

After a few days, the wheat straw was covered in silkworm cocoons. We picked the cocoons and left some for next year's breeding while the rest were boiled in a pot. After boiling, we cut open the cocoons with scissors, removed the pupae inside, and drew out the silk to be dyed. Mr. Huang kept many dyed silks in his room, in various colors like red, green, yellow, and blue. It looked more like a kindergarten classroom than a bedroom. These silks could be woven into colorful fabrics.

Most of the silkworms were left on the trees, where they spun their cocoons. The following spring, they turned into moths and laid eggs on the trees, so we didn't need to order silkworm eggs from newspapers the next year. Huang hoped to raise silkworms on all the poplar trees by the roadsides across China. Raising silkworms in the wild requires little manpower and no silkworm houses. All that's needed is to collect cocoons and tools like ladders and baskets in the fall, and the harvest will be plentiful.

Huang lived until the early 1990s and passed away at the age of 100. If it weren't for his leg injury, he could have taken walks every day like he did at Seven Mile Bridge to visit his beloved silkworms, and he would have surely lived longer.

An old friend has left us. It's a pity that his dream of raising silkworms on all the poplar trees by the roadsides across China was not realized.

Mom's Fairy Tales - Memories of my childhood (4) Enlightenment Teacher Qin Shujie

When I was young, I attended kindergarten. At that time, kindergarten mainly focused on entertainment: singing songs, listening to stories, folding paper airplanes and rockets, building structures with sand, playing games, and so on. There wasn't much emphasis on learning to read or do arithmetic. My mother, who graduated from a normal school, understood the importance of early education. She started teaching me to recognize and write Chinese characters when I was five.

I remember sentences like 'Long live Chairman Mao!' and 'Long live the Communist Party!' She also taught me counting and basic addition and subtraction within 20. Usually, at night, as I lay on a small bed and my mother on a larger one, she would start teaching me to count, a little bit at a time. For example, counting to 20, but each time I would ask, 'And then what?' Before long, I was counting to 100. The same with addition and subtraction, starting with simple sums within 20, but I was always eager for my mother to teach me more, and soon I could do addition and subtraction within 100.

In the autumn of 1963, just after I turned six, my mother took me to apply for first grade at Zhi Jiang Normal School's attached primary school, also known as Lotus Pond Primary School. The exam was one-on-one, or rather one-on-two, one student and two teachers. The main subjects were color recognition, character recognition, counting, and addition and subtraction within 20. I don't remember the specifics of the exam, but I passed it all. However, I was eventually rejected because I was not yet seven years old.

My father was the principal of Zhi Jiang Normal School at the time, and the principal of the attached primary school, Zhu Xianjin, lived near our gymnasium, about fifty meters away. We would often run into each other. The school operated on principles, and my father didn't go out of his way to intervene, so I had to wait for another year. In the autumn of 1964, I took the exam again and was admitted, placed in Class 1C (first grade, class C). My homeroom teacher and Chinese teacher was Qin Shujie.

Teacher Qin was very young at the time, in her early thirties, slender, intellectual, gentle in speech, patient and meticulous. She perfectly matched the image of a teacher that I had in mind. She was like a caring mother, always smiling in class and very kind.

At the time, Teacher Qin's daughter, Wang Ping, was only one year old. Her husband was Teacher Wang Chengfu from Zhi Jiang No.1 Middle School, a teacher of art and music. They lived in the courtyard in front of Confucius Temple at our school, on the west side (not visible in the photo). Back then, we didn't know it was Confucius Temple, nobody told us. There were no ceremonies or rituals for Confucius.

 

Figure 1: Zhijiang Confucian temple

 

There was a simple adobe platform, used for performances as a stage and for meetings as a presiding platform. On both sides of the Confucius Temple were wooden bungalows, which can be seen in the picture. Teacher Qin lived in the middle house on the left. Class 1C's classroom was at the rear left of the Confucius Temple, and to the left, about 30 meters away, was the corridor leading out.

 

 

Figure 2: Inside the Confucian temple

At that time, on the left side as you entered, there was a wooden platform with a horizontal plaque that read 'Exemplar for All Generations.' (Note: The Confucius Temple is now separated from the Lotus Pond. It is a provincially protected cultural relic unit, and you need to buy a ticket to enter.) When the weather was cold, the school held meetings inside the Confucius Temple. At that time, apart from the horizontal plaque, the walls were adorned with old and unclear paintings, and it seemed quite empty. Below the horizontal plaque, a wooden platform was set up for use as a podium during meetings. I often daydreamed, gazing at the peculiar and mysterious carvings and paintings on the beams above the Confucius Temple - it was very mystical. And then there was that horizontal plaque; as a first-grader, I basically didn't recognize it and didn't understand its meaning, but I felt it was very ancient. When it was warm, the school held meetings on the courtyard terrace in front of the Confucius Temple. On one side of the courtyard terrace, there were three osmanthus trees. They bloomed around the 15th of the eighth lunar month, which was just about early September on the Gregorian calendar, not long after the school year started. The entire courtyard terrace was filled with the rich fragrance of osmanthus flowers. If you sat under the trees during the meeting, it was truly a sensory delight, intoxicating people like a sip of wine. The cement platform outside the Confucius Temple was also often used as a performance stage for the school's propaganda team. Teacher Xiao Xianhe, a member of the school's propaganda team, lived in a house diagonally across from Teacher Qin, near the stage. I was once recruited into the propaganda team by Teacher Xiao, along with two other classmates, to perform a skit about building the Xiangqian Railway for the laborers. This courtyard terrace was the center of the school back then. Teacher Qin's daughter, Wang Ping, was born in 1963. When we enrolled, she was only one year old and couldn't talk yet, nor could she walk steadily. During meetings, Teacher Qin placed her daughter in a cradle, sat in the corridor near the door, and gently rocked the cradle while listening to the reports

In addition to language and arithmetic classes, I have a vivid memory of handicrafts. The teacher would give us pre-drawn cardboard, which we would cut along the dotted lines and assemble. Sometimes we'd use a needle and thread. There would be a handle, and with a pull, the animal would move. It was my favorite class, but it only happened once or twice a week.

I don't remember exactly how Teacher Qin taught, but I still remember most of what she taught, which indicates she was a good teacher. For example, there were lessons on 'Selling Vegetables', 'Planting Melons and Getting Melons', 'The Swallow Returns', 'It's Raining', 'The Tall Deer and the Goat', 'The Little Cat and the Lamb', 'The Lying Child', 'The Crow and the Squirrel', 'Don't Walk From Here', 'Three Passes on the Yellow Earth Slope', and others. Apart from the good textbook, it was also because Teacher Qin was a good teacher. Otherwise, I wouldn't have such a strong memory.

When I brought home a perfect score (I don't remember if it was in language or arithmetic) for the first time, I was filled with excitement and felt very proud. Both my mother and Teacher Qin used an encouraging teaching style, giving a lot of positive praise. This helped me build confidence from an early age, which played a significant role in maintaining my interest in learning for a long time.

In the summer of 1965, for some unknown reason, the higher-ups decided to swap the locations of Zhi Jiang Normal School in the city and Zhi Jiang No.2 Middle School in Seven Mile Wood Oil Hill. This laborious move kept my father busy, and he couldn't take care of us. It wasn't until the end of October that we moved to Wood Oil Hill. However, many teachers and their families, especially those with children, were unwilling to move and chose to stay in the city. After all, it was only 2.1 miles away (3.5 km, 7 Chinese miles), and teachers only needed to go when they had classes. Only about half of those who moved had children.

Still, there were more than ten families with children. My father quickly established a new Zhi Jiang Attached Primary School (renaming the one in the city back to Lotus Pond Primary School), with just graduated normal school students as teachers. There were two males and two females, and the teacher who taught me was named Pu Guixian. Since there weren't many school children from the area, they started admitting rural children from Seven Mile. At the time, one commune had only one primary school, and not many rural children, especially girls, went to school. Now there's a primary school at the entrance, with very low fees (seems to be only a few yuan for textbooks), so many people came. Among them, there were more girls, and they were of various ages. I was nine at the time, but the oldest girl in the class was already fourteen, taller than me. She worked in the fields all year round and was quite strong.

One time, for some reason, she got angry and knocked me down. I got up, and she knocked me down again. That was the only time I was knocked down in public, and I didn't dare to say a word.

Soon after, the Cultural Revolution began. Schools were closed, and many teachers were criticized. Some committed suicide, some were sent back to their hometowns, and some retired in fear. Others didn't return to the city. In short, there were even fewer school children than before.

The attached primary school struggled to survive until the spring of 1967, when it was announced to be dissolved. Some of the school's equipment was taken over by the Seven Mile Brigade, and they established Seven Mile Primary School at their brigade headquarters. The four teachers also went there to teach for a while.

In any case, going to Seven Mile Primary School also required walking about one miles. My parents thought it would be better for me to go back to Lotus Pond Primary School. It was a bit farther, but the quality was much better. Not only the quality of the teachers, but also the quality of the students.

 

I'm glad to be back at my alma mater, now renamed Red Guard Elementary School. Even though I have to walk about 7 kilometers back and forth every day, I feel very happy. When asked which class I wanted to join, I chose Teacher Qin's Class Four, because my memories of Lotus Pond Elementary School are largely intertwined with memories of Teacher Qin. This time, the classroom is in the front wing of the courtyard terrace, towards the left, and Teacher Qin's house is in the left wing. The distance between the classroom and Teacher Qin's room is probably only about 30 meters.

It's been almost two years. Although the classmates are still the same people, we were all first graders back then, still very naive. Now we're in fourth grade, and we're ten years old. They are all very familiar with each other, having formed close relationships, while I, being new, don't really stand out. Also, after spending a long time with kids from the countryside, I've picked up some rural habits. For instance, I was still using a pencil at that time because all the rural students used pencils, while the city students had all switched to pens long ago. So when I took out my pencil, everyone looked at me as if it was something very strange. Fortunately, I'm a relatively independent person and didn't feel psychologically uneasy about it. I continued using my pencil until fifth grade when my parents finally bought me a pen.

At that time, all primary schools in the country were teaching the Three Old Articles. As a Chinese teacher, Teacher Qin also talked about some things other than Mao Zedong's quotations. Red Guard Elementary School still insisted on teaching some cultural knowledge. I remember arithmetic class being taught quite a bit, but they politicized the questions. For example, an applied problem might be like this: 'Poor farmer Zhang Dabo planted three mu of land owned by landlord Wang Bopi. Faced with a drought and working hard for a year, he harvested xxx jin of grain. However, the ruthless Wang Bopi took 75% of it. How many jin of grain does Zhang Dabo have left in the end?'

Red Guard Elementary School was relatively calm. Primary school students were still too young and not of the age to join the Red Guards. So things like the Confucius Temple, as well as the steles at Lotus Pond, were preserved.

In fifth grade, Class C was disbanded, and I was assigned to Class A. Teacher Qin no longer taught us, and the classroom was moved to a bungalow by the city wall, over 100 meters away from the courtyard terrace. The new class teacher was Teacher Yao Cuizhen.

Teacher Qin's husband, Teacher Wang Chengfu, was in his thirties at the time, not tall, but optimistic and cheerful. He was probably originally a teacher at Zhijiang No.1 Middle School, and later became the art and music teacher at Zhijiang Middle School after it was established, highly talented in many fields. He accompanied performances at the school, designed layouts and drew illustrations for the wall newspaper. He was also good at ping pong and was a member of the Zhijiang Middle School Teachers' Table Tennis Team, participating in competitions multiple times. One time, after he came out of a competition in the school auditorium, he probably lost, and a teacher teased him, saying he played terribly. He jokingly and seriously replied, "Even if I'm terrible, I'm still on the school team. Why didn't they select you for the school team?" leaving that teacher speechless.

Teacher Wang was very wise and kind-hearted. However, at some point, he contracted tuberculosis. Despite this, his optimism and mental state were completely unlike the morbidity usually associated with tuberculosis patients. A rare talent, and an unusually broad-minded person. It's no wonder Teacher Qin took a liking to him and married him despite his tuberculosis. They had a total of three children, in addition to Wang Ping, two boys. At that time, tuberculosis was incurable, but with proper care, it was possible to live for more than ten or even twenty years.

Fate seemed jealous of such talent, and Teacher Wang probably passed away in the early 1980s. If he could have lived a few more years, he might have been cured. Probably by the late 1980s or early 1990s, tuberculosis had become treatable.

Because Teacher Wang had tuberculosis, and Teacher Qin spent a lot of time with him, and he was thin, I always mistakenly thought that she also had tuberculosis. This impression was so deep that when I returned to China for the first time in 2006 and hosted a banquet for my former teachers, as long as they were in Zhijiang and I could contact them, I invited all the teachers who had taught me. But I actually thought Teacher Qin had already passed away, and no one reminded me at the time, so I didn't invite Teacher Qin.

Around 2011, when I returned to Zhijiang to visit my family, I went to visit Teacher Yao Cuizhen. We bought tickets together and revisited the site of the Confucius Temple. The Confucius Temple had been renovated. The table on the courtyard terrace was gone, replaced with steps. It should have originally been steps, then turned into a table, and now it's changed back. The people have gone, and the osmanthus trees are also gone. But the past still feels like it was just yesterday.

 

Figure 3: Now, at the Confucius Temple, the cement platform is gone, only the steps remain.

 

Maybe in 2013 or 2014, when I returned to China to visit my relatives and talked about Teacher Qin with someone, I learned that she was still alive and had never had tuberculosis. I felt deeply guilty, immediately found out where she lived, and went to visit her.

At that time, she lived upstairs in a two-story wooden building on Dongzi Lane. She was already 80 years old, but her mind was still clear, and she could take care of herself. I apologized for not visiting her for decades after graduation. She was very happy to see me, and we reminisced about some of my childhood memories.

Since then, it's been another 8 or 9 years. Recently, I heard that she now lives with her eldest daughter, Wang Ping. She doesn't need a hearing aid and doesn't use a mobile phone anymore. After getting Wang Ping's phone number, I called her and learned that Teacher Qin is now 90 years old. She had a few falls in recent years, breaking some bones, and now has metal supports and can no longer walk alone. However, she can still move around at home, and her mind is still clear. When Wang Ping handed her the phone, she was very happy and repeatedly said, "Thank you for remembering me!"

Wang Ping is also 59 years old this year, and like her mother, she taught at Lotus Pond Elementary School for a lifetime and has already retired.

I am relieved that Teacher Qin can enjoy good health and longevity. People tend to remember their high school teachers and overlook the foundational teachers in the first grade. A person's confidence needs to be established in the first grade. Children who receive encouragement from their teachers from an early age are more likely to develop confidence. Teacher Qin is such a teacher who is good at encouraging children, and I am fortunate to have met such an enlightening teacher.

Lotus Pond Elementary School has undergone tremendous changes. Many of the old wooden buildings are gone. Only the lotus pond, the stone monument by the pond, and the well are still there. The independent Confucius Temple and the courtyard in front of it have been protected as cultural relics. They have become nostalgic scenery for me, a repository of my yearning.

 

 

Mom's Fairy Tales - Memories of my childhood (3) A Belated Thank You

 In the early 1960s, my mother enrolled me in Zhijiang Kindergarten.

Compared to neighboring county kindergartens, Zhijiang County Kindergarten had the best facilities. The teachers were all graduates of formal preschool education, and the school was located in the original American-run nursery. The campus was large, the walls were high, and the equipment was good. The garden was beautiful, with unique rockeries and lawns everywhere. It was the favorite choice of parents who valued education.

Every morning, when parents brought their children to kindergarten, we would always see Teacher Li Fusong, who had a kind and friendly smile, greet everyone with a cheerful "good morning."

Teacher Li was about fifty years old, short and plump, with fair and clean skin. She had graduated from a preschool education program and had been engaged in early childhood education for most of her life. At the time, she was the head of Zhijiang Kindergarten. She lived alone in the school and considered it her home. She was an expert in early childhood education and a highly respected leader loved by teachers, parents, and children. Everyone said that she dedicated her entire life to early childhood education. As a woman, sacrificing love and marriage for her career was unimaginable.

Judging by her age, Teacher Li was probably born in the late Qing Dynasty or the early Republican period. She grew up in a society still deeply rooted in the feudal concept of valuing males over females, in a turbulent era. Educated women like her were incredibly rare. Finding someone with mutual understanding was not easy. Of course, the true reasons were known only to her. But she was indeed someone who loved children and worked tirelessly for early childhood education.

Although Teacher Li didn't directly teach me, we saw her every day. Sometimes she would be talking with the other teachers, sometimes checking on the lunch preparations in the kitchen, and sometimes helping out in the classrooms. Her presence was always felt in the kindergarten. She treated us like her own grandchildren. She greeted everyone with joy, patting heads, pinching cheeks, and giving us encouraging pats on the shoulder. Her face always exuded infinite tenderness. The children were always happy to see her and listen to her stories. The kindergarten felt like a warm home, and Teacher Li was the beloved grandmother.

After leaving kindergarten, I went to primary school, experienced the Cultural Revolution, went to middle school, participated in the 'Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement,' attended university, graduated, and started working. I rarely saw Teacher Li again. But whenever I thought of kindergarten, Teacher Li's face and smile would appear in my mind. I heard that she also faced some challenges during the Cultural Revolution, and I wonder how she managed to get through those times. All I know is that after the Cultural Revolution, she returned to lead the kindergarten again.

Around the 1980s, not long after I graduated from university, I went home to visit my parents. One day, while walking down the street, I saw an elderly person who looked a lot like Teacher Li. I hurriedly took a few steps and caught up with her. Seeing her, I happily called out, "Teacher Li, hello!" Teacher Li was still the same, just with completely white hair. When she turned around and smiled at me, I quickly said, "I'm Le Wei. I was your student in kindergarten. Do you remember?" Teacher Li, as friendly and amiable as before, said, "How could I forget? I knew you went on to university. With students like you, we're also happy!" I told her that I had to thank her. She modestly said she hadn't done much, just a preschool teacher.

Because I had other matters to attend to, I hastily said goodbye to Teacher Li. After returning to my workplace, when I thought about this encounter, I felt more and more guilty. After going to middle school, I still often visited my primary school teachers. After going to university, every time I went home, I would visit my high school teachers, and occasionally I would also visit my primary school teachers. But since leaving kindergarten, I had never visited my kindergarten teachers. Thinking about when we were still learning to walk, holding their hands, starting to speak, they were the ones who told us fairy tales and played games with us. Besides our parents, they were the most trusted people in our 'beginning of life.' But after leaving kindergarten, although I often thought of them, I never went to visit them. I felt truly ashamed. I picked up a pen and wrote a letter to Teacher Li, thanking her for her education and care, which gave me a happy childhood and set a solid first step on my life's journey. I also expressed my apologies for not visiting my teachers for many years.

Teacher Li quickly replied to my letter. She said that after I greeted her on the street that day, she was very happy and couldn't sleep all night from the excitement. To think that a child from over twenty years ago still remembered her, and even thanked her, filled her heart with sweetness and immense happiness. Seeing students she had taught succeed was the greatest wish of a teacher. To receive gratitude from the students she had taught, there was nothing more touching for her. All the hardship and fatigue throughout her life was more than worth it.

After reading Teacher Li's letter, I was also deeply moved. Yes, a student's 'thank you' is a lifelong hope for teachers, the best affirmation of their work. However, we often forget to say it, or find it difficult to express. I feel very fortunate that at the beginning of my life, I received Teacher Li's care. That day when I met Teacher Li on the street, it gave me the opportunity to say 'hello' to her, to reflect on myself, and to write her a letter saying 'thank you.'

About two years later, my mother wrote to inform me that Teacher Li had passed away. While grieving for the loss of such a good teacher, I also felt a slight comfort. Before Teacher Li's passing, I had let her know that I still remembered her and was very thankful for her.

Teacher Li has left, taking with her the deep gratitude of the children. What she left behind is her kind smile and her selfless love for the children.

Mom's Fairy Tales - Memories of my childhood (2) Grandpa's 'Nine-Nine Song'

After the Winter Solstice, we enter the period known as 'Ninety-Nine' in the lunar calendar. It spans from around December 22nd in the Gregorian calendar to March 13th of the following year. Every nine days constitute one 'nine', totaling eighty-one days. It's the coldest period of the year. There's a saying: 'Endure three heatwaves in summer, three nines in winter.' This describes enduring extreme heat and cold with determined perseverance. It's because the three heatwaves are the hottest, and the three nines are the coldest. It's also the most important time for Chinese people to celebrate festivals. Within this period, there's the New Year, Spring Festival, and Lantern Festival. After a year of hard work, it's important to reward oneself. After 'Ninety-Nine', it's time for the busy spring farming season of the new year.

Every 'Ninety-Nine', I would think of Grandpa's 'Ninety-Nine Song'. About thirty years ago, when Grandpa was in his seventies, he came from his old home by Dongting Lake to celebrate New Year with us. He had worked in the fields his whole life, his robust physique and the weathered wrinkles on his face bore witness to the hardships he had endured.

Grandpa wasn't good with words, but he often spoke sayings that we city kids had never heard before. Like 'Sow during Grain Rain, be busy planting', and 'Eat from the garden during Minor Heat, Eat from the fields during Greater Heat'. He'd see us kids all excited before Spring Festival, eagerly anticipating all the meat we'd get to eat, and he'd mutter to himself, 'The adults look forward to planting crops, the kids look forward to the New Year.' But what left the deepest impression on me was his 'Nine-Nine Song'.

Whenever we finished dinner, Grandpa and I would sit by the hearth at home, cover ourselves with a small quilt, basking in the warmth of the charcoal fire. Grandpa would gently close his eyes, singing his 'Nine-Nine Song' with deep concentration, a song he had probably sung his whole life. Immediately, scenes of rural life unfolded before my eyes with his soft singing, like scenes from a movie:

One nine, two nine is nine, put arms in sleeve;

Three nine is twenty-seven, the eaves not dripping in front of the house;

Four nine is thirty-six, slaughter pigs and smoke the cured meat;

Five nine is forty-five, every family beats the New Year drums;

Six nine is fifty-four, the wind feels like prickles;

Seven nine is sixty-three, travelers take off clothes;

Eight nine is seventy-two, the young herdsman blows the grasshopper;

Nine nine eighty-One, straw raincoat and bamboo hat.

At that time, it was during the Cultural Revolution. For a child like me, who hardly saw any meat for ten days, that alluring 'cured meat' sparked endless imagination. I had only heard the drums of revolutionary model operas, and I truly yearned for the festive scenes of 'every family beating the New Year drums'. I often fell asleep on Grandpa's lap without realizing it, leaving long drool trails, dreaming sweet dreams: munching on delicious cured meat, laughing and running with my little friends amidst the dense drumming of the New Year...

Grandpa passed away a long time ago, but his song remains in my heart. No matter where I am, every time 'Ninety-Nine' comes around, that rich rural sentiment, that intoxicating family affection in the 'Ninety-Nine Song' always resonates in my heart: '... Thirty-Two, the eaves not dripping in front of the house. Thirty-Six, slaughter pigs and smoke the cured meat. Forty-Five, every family beats the New Year drums ...'

The hometown cured meat that never gets tiresome, the hometown New Year drums that one can never tire of hearing.

Mom's Fairy Tales - Memories of my childhood (1) The cat on the ceiling

It was a time of scarcity. I was just two years old, and we lived in a wooden house in Qianyang. We didn't have toys, and there wasn't much to eat, often going to bed hungry.

Every few months, a tall, skinny young man would come to our house. My mom asked me to call him 'Dad'. Whenever he saw me, he would lift me up and hoist me above his head. He'd take me for rides on his bike around the compound, and we'd go for walks hand in hand. When the pomelos ripened in autumn, he'd take me to the orchard and chat with the old man overseeing it. Before leaving, the old man would always pluck the largest pomelo for me.

But after 'Dad' disappeared for a few months, I always missed him. It was usually just Grandma, Mom, and me at home. Whether it was because I wasn't getting enough to eat or I was too weak to run around, I was always a well-behaved child who listened to my mom. I'd always take a nap on time. Whenever I woke up, there would be a little cookie by my pillow.

Mom said there was a cat living on the ceiling. Every night, while we were asleep, it would sneak into the store and steal a cookie. If it saw me napping obediently, it would come down and place a cookie by my pillow. Sometimes, if I didn't want to nap, Mom would say, 'Cats don't like children who don't take naps. If you don't sleep, it won't give you a cookie.' So, I would obediently go to sleep.

Thinking about how precious these cookies were, I was always reluctant to eat them. Every time, I'd nibble slowly, savoring each bite. I'd start with the outer edge and work my way in. It could take me up to half an hour to finish one, and that was the happiest time of my day.

One day, after waking from my nap, I saw no cookies by my pillow. Standing by the bed, Mom said that the cat on the ceiling had been discovered stealing cookies the day before, but it didn't manage to steal any. Its leg got injured in the process. I panicked and wanted to climb up the ladder to the ceiling to see the poor cat. But Mom said it was sleeping, and I would disturb it if I went up. For several days in a row, I kept clamoring to go up and see the cat. Mom said it was recuperating and didn't want to be disturbed.

After a few days, I saw cookies by my pillow again after waking from my nap. Mom told me the cat's injury had healed, so it could go steal cookies for me again. Only then did I feel relieved.

'Dad' never came back, and I didn't dare to ask.

Over a year later, we had to move to Zhijiang, which was very far away. When everything was loaded onto the car, I suddenly remembered the cat on the ceiling and wanted to bring it along. Mom said the cat was old, used to living here, and didn't want to move. With tears in my eyes, I reluctantly followed Mom and moved away.

I always missed that cat I'd never actually seen. It wasn't until one day that I finally realized there was never a cat on the ceiling. It was a story Mom made up. She always taught me not to lie, but she lied to me.

At the age of 18, Mom finally told me that the person who came to see me every few months was my biological father. He had been labeled as a rightist, sent to labor on a rightist farm, and later starved to death there. Although I had long suspected, my heart still wept.

Until Mom passed away, I never exposed her lie. Because I felt it was a fairy tale she wove for me, a beautiful one.