This is the 967th real person we tell
I am Yingzi, born in 1960s, born in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, and now lives in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The experience of our generation is one word: "suffering". When I was born, I encountered a "three-year natural disaster" and couldn't even eat enough. When it comes to school age, some people can't even afford to read books.
When I was in high school, I saw a female classmate wearing the same clothes for a long time, and her body was filled with a sour smell from time to time... Later I realized that her family was very poor, and she had no meals after eating, and she had no clothes to change at all.
On the first night of the college entrance examination, the hooligan broke into the girls' dormitory and climbed onto the top bed of my sleep... I was so shocked that I didn't close my eyes all night. The next day, I was so confused that I entered the examination room, which seriously affected my test results.
After graduating from university, he has only earned 56 yuan a month, and he has been earned for 6 consecutive years. Later, taking advantage of the craze for going abroad, I came to Germany to start a business with my husband. I invested 500 marks and made a net profit of 10,000 marks. I converted into RMB, which was more than the total salary I had worked in China for 10 years at that time...
(I was in the Carcassonne Castle in France)
In the early 1960s, I was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi. My father is an agricultural expert and my mother is a doctor. They are all intellectuals and state cadres, with fixed wages and good income.
When my mother was pregnant with me, she happened to catch up with the "three-year natural disaster". At that time, many people couldn't even eat enough. One day, she had surgery on the patient in the hospital with a big belly. After the surgery, she was exhausted.
At that time, my father took out all the belongings (food coupons), exchanged a few steamed buns, and sent them to her for food. Just as my mother was holding the steamed buns into her mouth, several boys in her teens suddenly broke in from outside, snatched away the steamed buns from her mother's hand, stuffed them into her mouth and swallowed them voraciously.
My mother was shocked at the time, and her father was very angry and almost rushed over and grabbed it back. But I couldn't bear it when I saw them eating their voracious look. Later, my father recalled: "How hungry were those little kids going to do this..."
So after I was born, my constitution was weak, congenital inadequate nutrition, and I was sick. Later, when I reached school age, I knew that my body was very important to a person, so I strengthened physical exercise and participated in various sports and competitions in the school. Slowly, the physical condition followed. After I went to junior high school, my academic performance was very good. Because of my frequent exercise, my learning efficiency is very high. What I have spent an hour learning is worth the effort of others.
I always feel that "learning cannot fight fatigue wars". Exercise is of great help to improve learning efficiency. Until now, I am in my 50s. Compared with my peers, people say that I am in good condition.
(My dear mother, a typical lady)
I studied in my children's school since I was a child. Until high school, my mother sent me to the ideal university in order to allow me to receive a better education and was admitted to my ideal university.
When I arrived in the county, I came into contact with many children from towns. I realized that there were still people living such a hard life.
There is a classmate in our class named Wang Lihua, who comes from the countryside. At school, she wore the same set of clothes for a long time and never changed them. She felt a sour smell from time to time.
At first we all found it strange, but later we found out that her family was very poor. After eating, there was no next meal and no change of clothes.
From then on, I have experienced the hardships of farmers and learned to be grateful and not complain.
After three years of high school, my academic performance has always been among the best. I hope to be admitted to a first-class university in China in the college entrance examination. The teacher also expects me. 0,000 Unexpectedly, something that happened during the college entrance examination almost rewritten my life trajectory.
(I am in German)
After the first day of the college entrance examination, that night, Wang Lihua and I returned to the student dormitory from the classroom. Other junior high school girls in the same room have gone home on holiday. In such a huge dormitory, there were only the two of us left. I was on the upper bunk and Wang Lihua slept on the lower bunk.
Because I experienced two exams during the day and the evening self-study class, I was exhausted and I immediately fell asleep as soon as I put my head on the pillow.
Sleeping until midnight, I was suddenly awakened by a loud and shrill shout. In the hazy, I felt that the bed was shaking violently. A heavy thing fell from the bed. Then, there was a rapid running sound.
Wang Lihua shouted loudly in a crying voice: "Catch the hooligan! Catch the hooligan!"
The teacher on duty rushed into the dormitory with a loud shout from Wang Lihua and turned on the light. And I covered my head with a pillow amid the shouting, trembling all over, and shrank into a ball.
It turned out that the hooligan pried open the door of the dormitory with a dagger, and then climbed up to the bedside where I could sleep. Wang Lihua, who was sleeping in the lower bunk, found him after being woken up by mosquitoes, so she screamed. Because Wang Lihua's screams were so shrill, it was like thunder rising in the middle of the night, which caught the hooligan off guard and fell off the bed from the halfway point.
The rogue left a dagger on the head of my bed and fell a slipper next to Wang Lihua's bed. After the teacher on duty took away the dagger and slippers, he comforted us and said, "It's okay, go to bed quickly." But after being frightened, how could we dare to sleep with confidence? Wang Lihua and I hugged each other and didn't sleep all night.
(I like to fly to different countries when I’m not busy)
The next day, we entered the examination room with a dizzy mind, and the test results can be imagined. Wang Lihua's reputation has failed. Although my grades have been admitted to the provincial key university scores, they have not met the standards of a first-class university in my dream.
That's it, I entered the college entrance examination , which I didn't fill in at all on .
Four years in college are a very happy and happy time. At that time, various literary trends were pouring into the university campus. I was extremely excited and absorbed all this crazily...
In 1985, after graduating from university, I was assigned to work at Jiangxi Education College. During the internship, my monthly salary was only 45 yuan, and I received it for one year. After becoming a regular, he earned 56 yuan a month and he received it for five or six years.
After working in the School of Education for 7 years, I had the plan to go abroad. But the Education College cannot reserve the establishment for me. In order to retain the staffing and go abroad, I applied to be a reporter at the newspaper and worked for 3 years.
During the days I worked in the newspaper, I worked very hard. I graduated from the Chinese Department and wrote many high-quality press releases with my beautiful writing skills.
But at the same time, my work pressure was also very high. During those days, my hair was falling a lot.
At that time, I often held a conference in the morning or afternoon in the province. As soon as I came back, I had to write a press release immediately and hand it over to the news department before getting off work. After the review of the manuscript by colleagues in the News Department, they had to take it to the printing factory overnight to print and they were reported the next morning.
(I like to go out for hiking on weekends or holidays)
After a while, people from the News Department found that my writing style was very good, and it was useless to just write a press release. So they arranged another task for me - all the big names and first-line stars who came to Jiangxi asked me to interview them.
with this glorious task in hand, I have interviewed countless celebrities. I have interviewed popular stars such as Song Zuying, Ni Ping, , Yang Lan, Li Shuangjiang, , Cai Guoqing, , etc., and I have had good friendships with some of them.
Unfortunately, smartphones were not popular at that time, and taking photos was not as casual as they are today. Each time I interview, I can only bring one photojournalist. At that time, film was used. After taking pictures, I had to wait until I returned to my unit and only then I could see the photos after they were washed out.
In 1994, just as my career was booming, my colleagues and friends all admired me more often, but at this time, I chose to leave my hometown and go to Germany to work hard to develop from scratch.
The reason is very simple. At that time, my husband graduated from the German major in the domestic and foreign language colleges. Later, he went to Germany to study and stayed there to work. My eldest daughter had just entered elementary school. Considering the children's education and the importance of family reunion, I took my daughter to Germany.
When I first arrived in Germany, language barriers became my biggest obstacle. My husband signed me up for a German class. The classmates in the class are all young people of seventeen or eighteen years old. They can speak at least one language - French, German or English. They talk and laugh together when get out of class is over.
(When I first arrived in Germany in 1994, I walked on the streets of Munich)
I only know nothing, and I don’t know how to communicate with my classmates. There are no Asians in the class, and I don’t even have a companion. I am like a "deaf and mute" and can’t say anything.
When I was in the country, I was excellent in all aspects, but when I came here, I became the worst student. After a day of class, I didn't understand a single sentence. Very helpless and very helpless. Thinking of this, tears couldn't help but fall.
The key is that the tuition fee is extremely expensive, with more than 1,000 marks in three months, equivalent to more than 3,000 yuan of RMB 4,000. For us at that time, it was not a small amount. Before going abroad, my salary in China was only more than 80 yuan per month, and only more than 1,000 yuan a year.
During those days, we were always terrified in spending money.
At that time, my husband and I had just started their business in Germany, and the German government had strict regulations. The office is the office, and housing is the housing, and we cannot use housing as an office.
For the sake of the company's image and to save money, my husband and I rented a commercial and residential house in a very good area. The rent was about 2,000 marks, which was converted to nearly 6,000 yuan.
In the early stage of entrepreneurship, for half a year, the business volume was zero, and we only spent money but not made money. The daily expenses are more than my monthly salary in the country.
Every time we buy something, we have to convert it into RMB to see how much it costs to spend it. In our eyes, everything was expensive. Even a few cents of bread is more expensive than our domestic ones.
(I was with the model at the fashion show)
I was very anxious every day watching the money spend "waving" out. I often wake up involuntarily after falling asleep at night, full of anxiety.
In China, our brothers and sisters were all raised by nannies. Although they were not wealthy in that era, they were at least a group with food and clothing guaranteed. After coming to Germany, I felt the pressure of the economy and the value of money for the first time in my life.
I understand the mood of "Beijing drifting" that everyone is talking about now. At that time, we were wandering in Germany, with a dark look on our faces and staying away from our motherland and relatives, which was much more difficult than "drifting in Beijing".
The name of our company is with the words " Eurasian ". As the name suggests, of course it is to do Eurasian business. To be precise, it is to do trade between Germany and China. We position our company's products as textiles.
collects samples, visits customers, takes samples and verifies orders. But after spending more than half a year, I got nothing. The only gain is that we found that most German businessmen don’t understand China at all. In their eyes, Chinese textiles are not as good as Indian textiles.
Once, we were invited to hamburger to attend an exhibition, out of helping our Chinese compatriots, we spent 500 marks to buy a series of textile samples brought from China. These samples are varied, including various bamboo weavings, as well as various silk scarves .
We took those exquisite silk scarves samples and started a new round of negotiations. The result is frustrating: these exquisitely printed, high-quality silk scarves exported to the United States are considered too fancy by German businessmen and do not conform to the German color feeling and aesthetic matching. After a few months, I still haven't received a single order.
(I participated in the Guangzhou Export Commodity Fair in the mid-1990s)
In a blink of an eye, it is November, and there is more than a month before Christmas, which is a good time to do business. We rented a small pavilion at the Christmas market and wanted to sell the bamboo weaving that took up space and make money back. It would be even better if you could sell those silk scarves by the way!
I shook those scarves off and hung them all over the Christmas pavilion. There are all kinds of groceries inside and outside the pavilion.Those hand-woven bamboo weavings are extremely exquisite and exquisite, and each piece is a handicraft. The bamboo baskets of various sizes have different patterns and are delicately weaved, and have a charming luster under the light, making people love it.
I didn't know the purpose of bamboo baskets at that time. Because of the rush to take action, the price was set very low. A stack of exquisite bamboo baskets sold for only 15 marks. Silk scarves were very valuable in the eyes of Germans at that time. In the first few days of
, there were more people watching and few people buying. A week later, the turnover suddenly rose rapidly. There was a young man who came to me in one day and bought several stacks of bamboo baskets in a row. He told me that he had looked at the entire Christmas market and found that only I sell bamboo weaving.
These bamboo baskets are handmade products, which are cheap and good. They can be made into garbage cans, flower pots, and decorations placed on windowsills. Some bamboo baskets can also hold bread - they are of great use!
(I introduced the product to customers at the German fashion fair)
It seemed that the floodgates suddenly opened, and there were endless people coming to buy bamboo weaving. When I asked, the feedback information was consistent with the young man: In this whole Christmas market, I am the only one selling bamboo weaving.
After understanding this, I immediately adjusted my sales strategy - classify various bamboo weavings, price them separately, and price them by piece. In this way, the price invisibly increased several times. Despite this, it still cannot stop the customers' enthusiasm for purchasing - who makes my stuff unique?
is not only that. Those silk scarves that German businessmen thought "the color feels wrong" were also unexpectedly popular. Those who have carefully compared the prices, especially some old women, have found a new world. They not only buy them by themselves, but also call on friends in groups, as if they have picked up big bargains.
I will never take the opportunity to talk to everyone who comes to buy things. Especially for customers who buy silk scarves, they ask them for their feelings and opinions on the color of the product, and accumulate very valuable first-hand information on . You know, before that, we knew nothing about the purchasing psychology and color feelings of German customers.
My sales are booming. Once the final settlement of is settled, the purchase price and rent are out, and the net profit of 10,000 marks will be made! Converting it into RMB is more than my total salary for 10 years in China! The information and experience accumulated by
in the Christmas market has greatly helped us. The following year, our silk products finally successfully entered Kowhof, one of Germany's largest supermarket chains.
(When you should enjoy life, you must know how to retreat bravely)
Because of business reasons, I have dealt with German businessmen and rich people, and entered their life circle to observe them up close.
German rich people are generally very low-key and restrained. They rarely show off their wealth, are reluctant to show up in public, and are even more reluctant to give speeches everywhere, promoting and promoting their life philosophy and journey to get rich.
I was invited to visit some rich German homes. Some houses of rich families are very ordinary from the outside, but when they come in, they are very tasteful and unique. They can be said to be "low-key, luxurious and connotated".
tells a short story. My girlfriend’s neighbor is a wealthy business owner. This wealthy neighbor has a hobby of collecting sports car . Among them, there is a very cool and high-end red Porsche sports car.
One day, my girlfriend saw two identical red Porsche sports cars parked side by side in her neighbor's garage. She couldn't help but be curious. When she asked over, the rich neighbor kept explaining to her as if she had done something wrong. This was a gift he gave to his wife a few years ago on his wife's 50th birthday. The reason why I bought two of them at the same time is that he also likes the latest assembly in the car.In order to avoid being too arrogant, they chose almost the same license plate number, so that after being a neighbor for 5 years, my girlfriend did not find that he had two identical high-end sports cars in his house...
is so low-key that it is amazing!
(A glass of beer, sit for the afternoon, this is the way many Germans enjoy their time)
I have been in Germany for more than 20 years and found that there are few deep courtyards in Germany, and there are few walls in residential areas, and there are no gates. This is related to Germany's good social security and citizens' sense of equality.
They have no strong distinction between the rich and the civilian class. In addition, in Germany, the wealthy class prefers to live in small towns and does not necessarily have to squeeze their heads into big cities.
In 2001, in my seventh year in Germany, I was invited to teach Chinese at the German Arts and Science College and become a teacher.
At the beginning, I was worried that I couldn't be busy. But then I thought about it and only attended two classes a week, so I could freely control my time and it did not affect my business, so I agreed.
and I think this is a great thing. I am happy to deal with young students and give me the opportunity to learn about German education at a distance.
From elementary school to high school, compulsory education is basically implemented in Germany. Most German families are not keen on sending their children to private schools. In addition to charging some tuition and miscellaneous fees every semester, universities no longer charge additional tuition fees.
There is no college entrance examination in Germany, and students apply to college based on their high school graduation results. It is very difficult to pass the German high school graduation exam. North Rhineland, where I am, has implemented unified question-setting tests in the past few years, which is actually equivalent to the domestic college entrance examination.
The difference is that students usually have half of their scores and half of their scores in the unified examination, which avoids "one-time business". Students will not lose the opportunity to continue their studies because of failing an exam.
(German kindergarten, after children draw or play, they must pack up their things and put them back in their original place)
Generally speaking, as long as they can get a pass transcript after high school, they can apply to go to college. , but the diplomas of German universities are not easy to "mix" and the elimination rate is very high. Statistics of show that the elimination rate of some universities is as high as 50%.
Germany does not have the so-called "Ivy League" and is not very keen on university rankings. Of course, there seems to be some changes in recent years.
Every university in Germany has its own strengths and its own leading major. Each university has its own merits. When applying to a school, students consider more about whether the school’s major is suitable for them, rather than just the name or reputation of the university.
If you want to send your child to Germany for further studies, you must try to learn more about this and do more homework in advance.
What makes me most proud is that in the more than 10 years of teaching in the school of liberal arts and sciences, many students have developed a strong interest in Chinese under my influence.
After going to college, some of them chose Chinese majors and seized the opportunity to study in Chinese universities. After graduation, they went to Chinese companies for internships. Some even found Chinese girls to get married and settled in big cities such as Shanghai.
Recently, due to the epidemic, one of my favorite students took their wife and children and just returned to Germany from Shanghai. His wife is from Shanghai, and their children's Chinese is very good. He wanted to meet me and invite me to dinner. I am both happy and proud.
(a municipal building in a small cultural city in Germany, with a long history)
As a descendant of Yan and Huang, although I am in a foreign land, I can still promote Chinese culture through my mother tongue education and contribute my own warmth and heat. Over the years, I have sent several sons-in-law to Chinese girls - excellent German boys. Some of them have been in China for a long time and still fall in love with China. They are happy and don’t want to come back.
In 2009, after working hard in the business world for 15 years, my husband and I decided to rest. We didn’t want to be so tired, so we handed over the business to our partners in Germany.
Germans attach great importance to family affection, family, and the enjoyment of life. When we first arrived in Germany, we found that they were always slow and were very strange: Why are they so undesirable and so unscrupulous?
However, after living here for a long time, I found that I was gradually deeply influenced by this value. My husband and I are relatively calm people. We don’t have much desire for wealth. Just earn enough, just don’t be hungry. When it is time to enjoy it, you must know how to retreat bravely.
Since I handed over my business, I am now in a semi-retired state. When you have time to write, ask a few friends to hike in the surrounding towns on weekends to enjoy life; occasionally fly to other countries for travel, or meet some important friends.
In recent years, I have published many literary works in Chinese literary magazines such as "Chinese Writers" and " October ". The novella collection "The Different Sun" was selected into the "New World Overseas Chinese Female Writers Series". The film adapted from the novel of the same name was released in the United States and shortlisted for several international film festivals.
(I am searching for my hometown in a foreign land)
In the past few years, I have also always paid attention to the development of China.
I remember when I first arrived in Germany, German society generally did not pay much attention to China. Some ordinary people still have the understanding of China in the last century. The news media occasionally mentions China, and most of them are negative reports. I was very angry when I saw it.
In recent years, with the development of China's economy, the two countries have more and more exchanges and exchanges from the government to the people, and Germany has paid more and more attention to China.
As far as I know, many German companies are now taking root in China. In Taicang, Jiangsu, they built a large park, where basically German companies gathered...
I never forget that I am a descendant of Yan and Huang. On the road of life, no matter whether I am proud or frustrated, I always face it with a positive, upward and sunny attitude. Roll up the complaints and dissatisfaction, straighten out the omissions and misunderstandings, fold the grievances and grievances and grievances, put them in flat, pack them up, and pack them home - this is my lifelong philosophy.
Only when people do not forget their original intentions can they gain a successful career and live a happy life!
[Oral: Yingzi]
[Editor: Gu Hanshan]
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