Sister Ying looks very majestic. Grandma said that for those with round faces, it was written in the book that they should have faces like a full moon, or round faces like red apples. Big eyes with double eyelids, a scallion nose, and two deep dimples when smiling, like the mysterious vortex of Bermuda Triangle , swallowing up the hearts of many young people. As the production team leader, the daughter has not been assigned to do any heavy work. Her hands are slender and beautiful, and her skin is white and rosy, like a ripe white peach, which looks fragrant and sweet. Young men from all over the world privately recognized that she was the beauty of the team.
Sister Ying's personality is a bit inconsistent with her name and appearance. She is taciturn and introverted. She is not at all like the daughter of a cadre family like the production captain. Later, after watching the TV series "A Dream of Red Mansions", some people said: Sister Ying looks similar to Xue Baochai, but her personality belongs to Lin Daiyu. This view is recognized by the people in the village. When Sister Ying graduated from elementary school, an old fortune teller came to the village. After careful calculation, he told Captain Wang that your girl's life is really good. She will have to eat, get stamps and get money in less than an hour. The whole village also takes it for granted. God made her so beautiful, why would he treat her badly?
Most of the pretty girls have average grades. Sister Ying has never been quiet while studying. When doing homework in the classroom, one boy would lend her an eraser, and another boy would lend her notes. During recess, she would stand and play with her female classmates outside the classroom, and some boys would push and rub against her. After she entered the first grade of Guochang Middle School, boys often wrote notes to her. Sometimes when she came back from the classroom, she would find a note in the book on her desk. Especially Boss Qi, the son of the commune secretary Qi's family, is in the same grade as Sister Ying. In the class next door, he is a playboy who is famous for being unable to move his feet when he sees a pretty girl. During class breaks, I would lead a few people to the window of Sister Ying's classroom and hang around, shouting Sister Ying's name loudly, and laughing loudly. Sister Ying pretended not to hear and went to do their homework. After class every day, I have to wait at the door of the classroom and pester Sister Ying to chat with her. Sister Ying didn't like to lose her temper, so she tried to avoid him. For a while, Sister Ying was afraid of going to school. After the head teacher found out, he talked to Boss Qi and calmed down a bit, but Sister Ying's study was affected.
In July 1974, Sister Ying finally graduated from junior high school. That year, the production team was allocated a quota for normal students who came from the company to the company. At that time, people went to and from the company, that is, they went to the normal school in the county for two years. After graduation, the state did not guarantee distribution, so they had to return to the original local private school to teach. Their status as farmers remained unchanged, they were recorded work points and had meals. The state only gave them a few yuan a month in subsidies, but it was still a very desirable job. It's not easy for a brigade to have two quotas every year, and it's even harder for a production team to get one. Even if there are, there are many people who meet the requirements and the competition is fierce. Everyone on the team thinks that Sister Ying's father, who is the team leader, fought for this spot. Even if it wasn't, Sister Ying would certainly be the first choice.
It’s not easy to study in a normal school that goes from one society to another. Recommendations from the production team must be approved by the brigade, then reported to the commune and district for review and approval, and finally reported to the county for approval and notification. To pass five levels and kill six generals, you must not miss any level. This stage of the brigade was considered smooth, because when the brigade secretary came down from the team, he often ate at Sister Ying's house. Captain Wang would buy a pound of packets of grain roast every time, steam half a section of bacon, and treat her with good wine and meat. This time, Sister Ying and her father carried two big roosters in a hemp bag, and it was done with signatures and seals before they could even sit down and smoke a cigarette at the party secretary's house. Captain Wang walked more than ten kilometers that day to deliver the recommendation form to the commune. The commune secretary had met him during the meeting and was considered an acquaintance. He accepted the watch from him, but told him that Secretary Qi had gone to the district for a meeting and had to wait for him to come back to study. Captain Wang had to go home first. Two or three days passed, and they said there was no research. A week passed, and there was still no movement. I asked a relative in the commune to inquire about it, and found out that the recommendation form was in Secretary Qi's hand and had not been signed yet. As time passed, Sister Ying's family became panicked and they didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in Secretary Qi's gourd.Captain Wang went to the commune several times to look for him, but he couldn't find Secretary Qi.
Before the recommendation list for reading came, the matchmaker hired by Secretary Qi’s family came to propose marriage to his eldest son Qi. It turns out that after Boss Qi returned home after graduating from junior high school, he struggled in front of his parents every day to marry Sister Ying, urging them to hire a matchmaker to propose marriage. As luck would have it, Secretary Qi agreed to his son's request after seeing Sister Ying's recommendation form. When Sister Ying heard that it was Boss Qi, she was reluctant at first. Let her parents tell the matchmaker that she is still young and should wait until she finishes normal school before considering marriage. The matchmaker said, Secretary Qi’s family knows that you want to go to school. Secretary Qi’s family also wants to make a decision first and then talk about marriage after graduation. She also told Sister Ying that Boss Qi would also recommend someone to go to normal school, so the relationship was settled, and luckily she had someone to take care of her. Don't agree in a hurry, you and your family should discuss it first, and I'll come back in two days to get my reply. The matchmaker dropped the words and left. Captain Wang and his wife kept telling Sister Ying how powerful they were, using both soft and hard tactics. Sister Ying reluctantly agreed after two days of ideological struggle. Because she knew very well in her heart: If she didn’t agree, she would definitely not be able to get into the normal school. Read the book first and then talk. Even if Boss Qi is just a piece of shit, now she has to swallow it.
Time flies, and two years have passed by in a flash. After graduating from the normal school, Sister Ying returned to teach at the brigade private school, and lived a life of ringing bells, eating, and stamping to get money. The school has only two duplex classes, one for grades 1, 2 and 3, and one for grades 4 and 5. It turned out that there was an old teacher named Yuan, and together with her, there were two teachers. Teacher Yuan takes math and physical education, and she takes Chinese, music and art from first grade to fifth grade. There are only about ten or twenty students in each level. In each class, I would first lecture to this grade for more than ten minutes, and then arrange for students to do homework. Then I would lecture to another grade for more than ten minutes, and then arrange for them to do homework. The class was like a revolving lantern. Only physical education and music classes are attended by the entire class. Some dolls are naughty and difficult to control, but they don’t dare to fall to the ground. Because the teacher couldn't help but use the pointer to whip the students who were causing trouble in class. Not only would the parents not blame the students, they would also say that the teacher taught well. At that time, simple rural people still believed that once a teacher is a lifelong father. Strictness is love, lenience is harm. Students like Sister Ying's music class the most. They say that Sister Ying's singing is better than the thrush's call, unlike Teacher Yuan, who opens her mouth like an old bird. Although it is tiring to attend classes all day long, it is still much easier than earning work points with your back turned to the earth. Not to mention the monthly subsidy of a few dollars, it is enviable to not be exposed to the sun and rain.
The only inconvenient thing is that the school is more than ten miles away from home, and there are all the winding trails in the mountains. Sister Ying only dares to go home in broad daylight on weekends. Normally after class, she would visit nearby students' homes to help them with their homework. She would also go to counsel those who had conflicts, and help those who had difficulties. Sister Ying is not only a good teacher, but also a generous person. Parents and students like her very much and treat her as one of their own relatives. During the holidays, parents would ask their students to carry a handful of bacon, a handful of glutinous rice cakes, and a handful of beans as gifts to Sister Ying. If Sister Ying refused to accept them, some parents would bring them to her in person, which made the parents angry, so she had to accept them. If there were big things or small things in that house, she would try her best to return them. The days went by in an ordinary way, and if that incident hadn't happened, they might have gone on in an ordinary way.
It was a cold late night. As usual, Sister Ying finished preparing her lessons under the kerosene lamp, washed up and got ready to rest. At this time, she seemed to hear the sound of a door. Knocks on the door in the middle of the night began to appear occasionally not long after she arrived. At first, she was too scared to make a sound when she heard them. Later, she found that as long as she pretended not to hear them and ignored them, the knocks would disappear in the darkness of the night. Later I heard that young people living in the local village came to knock on the sound secretly, and some even made bets on eating and drinking, so I stopped paying attention to it, and added a few drum beats in the night when the frogs were all over the place. The knocking on the door tonight was different. The knocking became more urgent and harder, making her heart tremble. She could only ask who it was and mustered up the courage to open the door.As soon as the door was opened a crack, a drunken young man burst in, muttering that he was from the village next door and he liked Sister Ying so much that he came to the village to have a drink tonight and broke up to see her. As he spoke, he started to move his hands and feet, which scared Sister Ying and hid behind her. When she was forced to the corner of the room and had no way to retreat, Sister Ying didn't know the strength coming from her, so she slapped the young man with a big slap, causing him to stagger, and she took the opportunity to rush out the door. When she called the parents near the school to go back together, the man had disappeared. This time it really scared Sister Ying. After the parents found out, they asked older girls to keep her company at night.
After hearing this, the Qi family came to Sister Ying's house again to urge the marriage. After graduation, he came to his home several times to mention it, but Sister Ying rejected her for various reasons. After this happened, Sister Ying's parents were worried that something would happen again, and they couldn't explain anything to the Qi family. He also advised Sister Ying in turn. The Qi family also said that after getting married, they arranged for Sister Ying to serve as a substitute teacher at the public elementary school in their hometown, just like their son, with fewer classes and a higher salary. Sister Ying was still frightened when she thought about what happened that night, and seeing her parents' hard work, she had no choice but to agree. On the day of her wedding, even though it was during the summer vacation, after hearing the news, the parents took their students across the mountains and ridges to see her off. Some little girls even held her hands and cried. It was already 1978, and she still had her own plans in mind. She would take the exam while studying for a teacher's college and take the allotted exams.
After Sister Ying got married, she went to the commune primary school as a substitute teacher when school started. This is a small school with more than ten teachers. Sister Ying teaches fifth grade primary school, with six periods of mathematics, six periods of Chinese, and two periods of music every week. The tasks in class are not heavy, just miscellaneous. There is a lot of time to prepare for lessons every day, and Secretary Qi's family is half of the household, and her mother-in-law is a farmer. After school, she has to help her mother-in-law farm, feed pigs and do housework, which is more tiring than teaching a private school at home. She could only find time to read and review in the evening. She doesn't go when others ask her to play mahjong. Neighbors all praised her for being good in front of her mother-in-law, saying that it was so difficult to find a wife from the Ba family in this day and age. Her mother-in-law was also very proud and said: Our Lao Qi family can't find a good wife. But when her mother-in-law knew that she had to study for the exam, she firmly opposed it. He said that no matter what kind of test you want to take, you must pass me first. I will have a grandson next year, so I will complete this task first. As soon as she comes home every day, her mother-in-law will arrange to chop pigweed and do laundry to keep her busy. At eight or nine o'clock in the evening, even if Boss Qi was playing mahjong at someone else's house, her mother-in-law would come to her door to urge her son to go home and sleep. As long as Sister Ying replies, her mother-in-law will use her "number one shrew" skills to make a fuss. He also pointed at Sister Ying's nose and said: Without the Qi family, you would not have the good life you have today. In front of the mother-in-law, who is recognized as the number one among the "three shrews" by everyone on the street, the showy Ying sister is there to cook. Boss Qi would not give her any support. He could only admit that he was unlucky and could not express his sufferings. He could only shed a lot of tears in his heart.
In the spring of the next year, Sister Ying gave birth to a fat girl, and she had no time to review. But when it was time for the high school entrance examination in 1979, she still signed up, thinking that even if she didn't pass the exam, she could just take a look at the questions. Of course, the result was not unexpected at all. Sister Ying naturally did not win the exams of those fresh graduates, but only fell into the mountains. After knowing the result, Boss Qi scoffed at her: You studied a lot of books at the normal school in junior high school, and you still want to compare with the fresh graduates who are now studying formally. It's just a daydream. Despite this, she still refused to give up and persisted in taking the exam. When she took the exam the next year, her second child was just one month old, and the result was still the same. It is said that Sister Ying later took the exam twice. The older she got, the more children she had, and the wider the gap, so she had to give up.
Later, Sister Ying's fate drifted with the tide of history. As more and more people graduate from normal schools, the number of substitute teachers in public primary schools begins to decrease. The eldest son Qi was left in her family, and she was reduced first. Secretary Qi arranged for her to go to the Baini private school run by a nearby village. By 1982, the ranks of private teachers were being reorganized, and the commune reported Sister Ying's name. However, someone wrote to the district to report that she had given birth to a child, and she was not included in the official roster of private teachers, nor did she receive a certificate.By then she was indeed the mother of three children. Due to Secretary Qi's status, Baini Private School continued to ask Sister Ying to take classes after she was dismissed, but at this time she was already a private teacher. Later, the private school teachers were reorganized several times, and Sister Ying was always turned away because of the incident. Seeing that some people who became private school teachers many years later than her were gradually becoming full-time teachers, she felt as if a five-flavor bottle had been knocked over, and she felt indescribably sad. It seems that I am destined to be a member of the people for the rest of my life. Unexpectedly, Sister Ying's minimum vision was shattered in 2000. This year, the state issued a policy that all registered and qualified private teachers who pass the examination will be transferred to public teachers, and those who fail will be dismissed and sent home. At this time, Secretary Qi has retired, and Sister Ying and Boss Qi have no choice but to go home and work in the fields. I never expected that after decades of hard work, I would "go back to before liberation overnight."
After Sister Ying returned home, someone in the village opened a private school and invited Sister Ying to attend classes. However, due to her age and knowledge, she could not keep up with the pace of modern teaching. She only attended the school for one semester. The parents had great objections, and she was declined in the second semester.
When I saw Sister Ying again, it was already the autumn of 2020. That time when I went to the countryside and passed by her door, I saw a gray-haired rural woman teaching seven or eight children of different sizes how to read. The children were sitting on a small bench, and the old woman was holding a bamboo whip in her hand. 4. Standing in front of the dolls, she read in Mandarin with a strong local accent: "Mao, the hair of a hairy dog", "Feet, the nose is very footy"... She taught her carefully word by word, and the children read casually while turning their heads to look at the passers-by on the road. The village official who accompanied me told me: This old woman is called Sister Ying. It is said that she studied in a normal school and worked as a teacher. She was later fired because of family planning issues. She treasured a normal school graduation certificate with Chairman Mao's quotations printed on it, and she would show it off to others who came to her home. He's seen it too, it's true. Her family has a lot of children, 3 boys and 3 girls. The sons all go out to work, and the girls are not far away from each other. They have more than ten grandchildren, all of whom she helps take care of. In addition, there are people from other families in the village, so her home is like a small kindergarten. You see, there is a small steel pipe hanging on the door of her house. When Sister Ying calls her grandchildren to class every day, she hits it with a hammer. When the children hear the sound, they run out of the house and sit down to listen to her reading. She was also living a happy life. The best thing is that she never participated in the petitions of those private school teachers. According to her, she graduated from a regular normal school and is not the same type as those people.
Looking at the current Miss Ying, there is no trace of the "First Miss" in the past. I thought to myself: If her father had not been the captain and had not had the opportunity to go to the normal school where the company went, would she have been like a few junior high school classmates whose grades were not as good as hers, who repeated their studies for two years and got into the normal school where they were assigned! There are really no ifs in life, only results. Fate sometimes smiles gently at you, but maybe it turns into the deepest cruelty when it turns against you. I won't bother her anymore, just let her live in her own happiness.
