Struggle Gives Me Strength: A Record of a Scholar's Growth from a Humble Background

Author: Xu Lan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: This is a modern record of a commoner's growth, compiled from the oral accounts of 17 graduates from the 2004 and 2005 classes of the Hongzhi Program at Hangzhou Changhe Senior High School. It gently narrates the family backgrounds, growth experiences, and simple yet insightful understandings of life, society, and the world held by these outstanding college freshmen. It is worth reading for adolescents in their formative years and their parents. Love Knocked on the Door of Tsinghua: Told by Liu Zhongming Compiled by Cao Xiaobo
When I learned I had been admitted to Tsinghua University, my eighty-seven-year-old grandmother, who lived fifteen miles away, rushed over. My grandmother had bound feet and walked with tiny steps. As she entered my home, she smiled brightly and handed me a red envelope, overjoyed. She said, "My daughter has nine sisters, and none of them has ever gone to university." My mother smiled joyfully beside her. Since my father passed away five years ago, my mother has endured hardships for me, and she had never been this happy before. My father passed away so suddenly. The night before he left, there was no sign of anything unusual, just as usual. My father was a vegetable farmer and had a habit: he wouldn’t sleep unless he had prepared the vegetables for the next day’s market. At 3 a.m. every day, he had to rush to the market to set up his stall. Before going to bed, he would clean the vegetables, remove any wilted leaves, tie them into bundles, and neatly arrange them on his small three-wheeled cart. My father was meticulous in his work, just like his character: simple, peaceful, self-reliant, and diligent. However, it seemed that it was never easy for a farmer to get rich through a few acres of land. But when my father was alive, our family wasn’t too poor. If the harvest was good, after deducting the cost of growing vegetables, we could earn around 6,000 to 7,000 yuan a year. That night, I finished my homework and helped my parents for a while. Of course, I couldn’t do much, just passing things and arranging the vegetables. My sister wasn’t at home; she was in the third grade and, in our rural area, third grade is very strict, requiring students to live at school. My mother said, "Zhongming, it’s time for you to go to sleep." The events I’ve described took place in this half-built frame house. To build this house, my father endured a lot of hardship. At that time, many villagers had already built new houses, so my father had to borrow and save to tear down the old thatched house and build this two-story brick house, accumulating debt in the process. Now, I think, my father’s sudden death was mostly due to the exhaustion of building the house, combined with his lack of good nutrition over the years, which had left him with chronic labor-related illnesses. My room was right next to the main hall. Originally, I would loudly say, "Father, I’m going to sleep." But that night, I forgot to say it. At around 2 or 3 a.m., my mother woke me up from my sleep. She said, "Your father isn’t doing well!" I got up half-asleep, watching my father with half-closed eyes. I couldn’t understand why he suddenly collapsed.