The Phase of Senior Primary School
Finishing the fourth year meant graduation from the junior primary school, and an enrollment examination would decide whether you could enter the senior grades, namely the fifth and sixth year. Several village schools had junior primary school graduates and would also take part in the enrollment examination, so the competition was quite fierce. I remember that one of the two could be enrolled, that is to say, the proportion was 50%. I passed the exam and got qualified to continue my study in the school, but the rumor spread out that I could not be enrolled without the shelter of Mr. Yuan Ping. Mr. Yuan was the director of teaching and I could not prove whether he helped me or not, and he never mentioned it before me. I felt someone said that out of envy, because a lot of pupils in my class lost the chance to continue their education in the school.
When I began the fifth year in the school I felt that I grew a lot. After school I helped parents on my own initiative, and during the winter and summer vacation I didn’t regard it a hard job to look after the millstone before the spring festival and work as a cowherd in the early morning respectively. I got used to getting up early and later formed the habit of reading the book for a while before breakfast. Father’s attitude toward me became much friendlier; my horror before him disappeared. He concentrated his attention on the three younger than me. In 1952, the first younger sister was born and the second younger sister in 1956 (Dequn Song, pet name Jin Er, and Xianghong Song, pet name Shui Er, respectively). There were 8 members in my family and I began to feel the burden of parents. Accordingly, I wanted to be a help to them.
In the fifth and sixth year, the class teacher didn’t line up the students according to our academic record and I didn’t know my position in the class. In the sixth year I was elected monitor of the class because of getting the most votes. As a monitor I could do rather little, because I was thin and short and afraid that I had no prestige to lead the class. I could not take part in a lot of extracurricular activities, which made me suffer some psychological barriers. I admired sports players and drummers and trumpeters who were in the drum corps. Especially when the sports meet was held in the county city, the drum corps were very lively, fanfare and drum sounding loudly, the rhythm I paid great attention to bonging repeatedly, becoming familiar to my ears and I thought that I could take part in the corps without any training. If only I could beat the small triangle bell although it was least conspicuous in it. It was unlucky that my dream had never come true.
Jinyu Primary School nowadays
In the fifth year, our monitor got an opportunity to join in a summer camp. He visited the Langshan (Wolf Mount) in the south suburb of Nantong, close to the bank of the Yangtze River and brought back a lot of photos, which were wonderfully beautiful in my eyes. He seemed three or four years older than me and stayed in the same grade for two or three times. In the sixth year, he was promoted to the brigade chief of the Young Pioneers of the whole school and I had the chance to be elected as monitor. However, I had never enjoyed such a chance to go to the summer camp, filled with a lot of complaints. In my hometown adults went on foot to Wolf Mount every year and burned incense before the Mahatma Bodhisattva on its top, back and forth about 60 kilometers, on the same day return. My parents went there too, sometimes along with uncles and aunts. When they came back they were talking merrily about the sightseeing. Bigger children were brought with them, first my big brother and then elder sister. I hoped to grow up and could also visit the famous temple with them, but when the time was up I still could not go there with them because I lived in the school and began to read the junior middle school. How I wished I could see Wolf Mount with my own eyes.
During the senor primary school, I never thought of going to the junior middle school. This was because: first, it was hard to pass the examination and there were few boys and girls in Jinyu who were the junior middle school students; second, there was no such school in Jinyu, so you had to go to Jinsha, Xiting, or Erjia (14, 30 and 14 Chinese li away respectively) and board and lodgingwould cost a lot besides other school expenses. Accordingly, quite a lot of parents didn’t allow their children to take part in the enrollment examination and directly asked them to come home to do the physical labor. In my family, big brother and elder sister discontinued studying after four and two years in the school respectively. I graduated from the senior primary school and already more advanced than them and I didn’t dare to think of going on studying, although I admired the primary middle school students who came back by steamship on weekends. To my surprise, father agreed that I could take the enroll exam and he let me decide where to go by myself. I had been to Jinsha, and I wanted to go where I had never been, so I went to Erjia, to the east of Jinyu, to attend the examination. Most of the students in my class wanted to study in Jinsha, esp. liked the County Middle School, only three of us registered for the Erjia Middle School, one of us called Yunfa Diao, whose elder brother worked in a factory of Erjia. One teacher went there with us and we lived and ate in the factory so that Yunfa’s brother took care of us. It was the first time that I saw such a big factory to make edible oil from beans.
On the day when successful candidates were published I went to Erjia and saw that Yunfa Diao was on the list and I failed in the admission exam. But at the end of the list there were five names, mine being the fifth one, who could replace those who didn’t come to school to register in time. It was almost unlikely to wait and enjoy such a good thing and I came back, very disappointed. I had to admit the fact: the son of a peasant continued farming, and I must admit the fate.
Nearby was pasted an enrollment ad of the Erjia Private Junior Middle School, which said those who wanted to go to the Private School could register and would be enrolled according to the scores achieved in the enrollment examination of the Erjia Middle School. Since I was among the waiting list of the enrollment of Erjia Middle School, I felt it no problem to go to the Private Middle School. When I came home I told parents the sad news and the enrollment of the Private School as well. I didn’t have any pressure and got ready to do physical labor. To my second surprise, father decided to let me go to the Private Middle School after consulting with the other two parents of my classmates. Father thought that I was thin and short and not suitable to do any labor. In addition, my scores were very close to the standard of the enrollment of the Erjia Middle School and I could be among the top students in the Private School. So after the graduation of the primary school in 1958, I began to study in the Erjia Private Middle School in the autumn.
During the whole phase of the primary school the teacher I showed the greatest respect to was Mr. Yuan Ping. I was a son of a peasant, and his being partial to me came from the deep emotion between a teacher and a student, without any reward. As a teacher, he or she likes some of his or her students and establish a life-long friendship, which is fair and reasonable. A teacher who has occupational ethics should be very strict with those students and do nothing that could make other students in the class bored of. Favoritism is not a derogatory term and teachers are not advised to be partial to some students and to hold different attitudes toward others. I was strongly opposed to those teachers who were partial to the students whose parents had privilege in return for getting some interest for themselves. In my career of teaching I have had a lot of favorites, not all of them had high scores. The emotion between teachers and students being bidirectional, the students you liked may not appreciate your kindness and those you don’t care much might remember you forever. My memory of Mr. Yuan will never disappear. Each time I returned to my hometown I went to see him. There were no precious presents between us and both of us had never been on the same table to have a dinner. Those who were on the same table with me having dinner together were numerous and there were good wine and delicacies, plus Kara OK, beautiful music and flatteries filled with the ears. All those disappeared long ago. The whole life of Mr. Yuan was not easy. As a director of a primary school he couldn’t avoid being attacked during the Cultural Revolution. After the so-called revolution he came back to the position and soon he was lying in bed with illness. When he was seriously ill I went to his home to see him and was told that his cervical vertebra proliferation oppressed his nerve and produced paralysis, which could not recover after the operation by a famous doctor in a Shanghai hospital. He died in his early sixties. Writing those words above expressed my sincere missing.
Finished: Oct. 15 of 2008 in Melbourne
Proofreading: Jan. 27, 2012, Chicago
Upload online: Aug. 3, 2023, Xuzhou
