Place of youth for Su Youping

Author: Su Youping
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-08-01
Features: Cherish the courage of growing up, witness the power of youth, "Good Boy Tiger" shares the emotions along the way: from the overnight fame of "Little Tigers" to the fifth prince in Sisters of the Yellow River, to the currently filming Destiny in the Aegean, spanning fifteen years, transforming a naive boy into a mature man. Over the past 15 years, Su Youping has diligently recorded the most turbulent and obscure high school life in his life, honestly facing the bitter youth. Accompanying the book are more than 100 behind-the-scenes close-up photos and exquisite collectible posters. Be the first to read: Be Yourself, happiness is the most important! If I reflect on my current level of self-awareness, I might constantly ask myself why I took the college entrance exam? What does the college entrance exam represent? What is the purpose of studying? Thinking about these questions one after another, my college entrance exam scores wouldn’t be this good. Fortunately, I didn’t think too much, blindly listened to what others said, and focused solely on studying. This is actually not that bad. If there are too many doubts, you have to spend time first to overcome those psychological barriers. In the end, the conclusion I reached is to live for yourself, not for others. Why must I bear such great pressure? The results would be completely different today. It’s hard to say what decision is the best, after all, time only moves forward, and nothing can be repeated from the beginning. History has no "what if." Writing this, I suddenly remembered what I wrote in my graduation album during my senior year: "Be Yourself, happiness is the most important!" Isn’t that right? Life is just like this. This sentence is actually also a way I encourage another version of myself to be more open-minded and optimistic. My grades in freshman and sophomore years were very poor, always ranking at the bottom of the class. Since math and English were my strongest subjects in middle school, I didn’t think there was much difference between high school math and middle school math. I thought it would be easy to do well with just casual studying. However, my freshman math teacher didn’t follow the textbook. From the beginning, he taught logic, things like "if P then Q." I was very careless and missed the early lessons, so I couldn’t keep up with the later lessons and suffered great frustration, feeling very tense. Every time there was an exam, I had to ask classmates for help—borrowing notes, asking for key points, and asking how to solve problems. But usually, classmates didn’t pay much attention to me. At Jianzhong, everything revolved around academics, and everyone believed that good grades were the only measure of worth. They didn’t recognize my special status. In class, I didn’t have any close friends, and I didn’t actively try to make friends. I often missed classes due to extracurricular activities, and many people thought it was my own fault for not doing well in exams. That was a terrible loneliness—no one sympathized with me; instead, they treated me as an outsider or stared at me, waiting to see how I would end up. During one monthly exam, encouraged by Teacher Zhang Fengying, I ranked 21st in the class. When the results were announced, although I received praise from the teacher publicly, I accidentally heard a classmate in the back say, "If even Su Youping fails, it’s truly embarrassing. How will I face my parents?" This sentence deeply wounded me, and I realized. In the eyes of my classmates, the three characters "Su Youping" were synonymous with "someone who only loves to play and doesn’t study, useless." The fame of "Good Boy Tiger" was like tens of thousands of anvils tied to my waist. Unless I did well on the college entrance exam, I couldn’t break free from it for the rest of my life. At that time, a scene often flashed in my mind: when I was walking on the street, a mother pointed at me and said to her child, "You must never be like him. 'Good Boy Tiger' is just an attractive star who only knows how to play and doesn’t study, and won’t achieve anything in life!" This terrible shadow haunted me like a ghost. I made up my mind to study hard and only aimed to escape the shadow of this nightmare. I could say that I could let go of promotion and fame without hesitation. At that time, the company was about to release the album The Story of the Stars by "Little Tigers," while also filming album covers, recording, and appearing on programs. I strongly resisted these activities. I thought, I could give up all these activities and just study like my classmates. There was a classmate in my class, who is now in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National Taiwan University. Later, I learned that his personality was very "impulsive." During high school, I felt he looked down on me everywhere and didn’t like me. But the more he ignored me, the more I sometimes tried to please him. I even unconsciously imitated his walk, which was a bit slumped and carefree. Sometimes, I thought his handwriting was very good, so I would imitate his handwriting or style, taking him as a role model. On one hand, I really wanted to get close to him and be friends with him, looking for opportunities to talk to him during dismissal or when playing sports. On the other hand, I also treated him as an imaginary rival, which fueled my competitiveness. I refused to lose, and secretly used him as a benchmark, determined to surpass him one day. During the winter vacation of my third year, I started studying from the second day of the Lunar New Year, and my mood had stabilized. When the third semester of my third year started, the first simulation exam was held. After each major simulation exam, the school’s academic affairs office would post the ranking list of students, and everyone would eagerly gather to compare their scores. This time, I also went to see it. Although my study progress hadn’t fully caught up with the simulation exam’s pace, the results showed that I was in the top ten in the class. Just as I was looking, I heard some classmates from other classes whispering and looking for my name and score. Hehe, they were really unlucky—I did well, and there was no drama to watch. For a moment, I felt a sense of pride—I had proven it to them, right? This shattered all my classmates’ expectations, and my status in class was completely changed. Although one simulation exam wasn’t everything, the results gave me great confidence. I thought, the college entrance exam wasn’t as difficult as I imagined, and my classmates weren’t as formidable as I thought. Running away from pressure is useless—it only makes pressure stronger. Bravely face the pressure, I threw myself into it, studied my best, regardless of whether I could keep up with the exam pace. My classmate Lin Hengyu, who often visited record stores with me, always said, "In freshman and sophomore years, you were singing while we were slacking off. Actually, you didn’t lose to us at all." I thought those words were just his way of comforting me when my emotions were unstable. By the second semester of sophomore year, after gaining confidence in myself, I realized that maybe he was right. Everyone was at the starting line of the sprint—no one was particularly scary or outstanding. Some classmates would spend their entire day studying, rooted in the classroom. During the ten-minute break, they studied, and also studied before and after meals, studying with great discipline. This made those who watched feel like they were falling behind, and fear came with it. Classmates privately compared who spent more time studying. Otherwise, some classmates would say they didn’t study at home when they clearly did, claiming their situation was bad, they couldn’t finish their homework, or couldn’t keep up. Other classmates, when asked questions, would pretend not to know and even urge others not to study hard, saying, "An extra bit of time reading isn’t useful!" Then, they’d casually encourage them to go play sports. The teacher, hearing about this situation in class, repeatedly told us to treat students from other classes as rivals, not to fight among yourselves, and to make sure our class’s simulation exam scores were better than others. To put it clearly, my effort was very simple: I wanted to prove to everyone that I could also get into a good school. Beyond this, I didn’t think about anything else. Questions like whether studying was meaningful, which path to take in the future, or what my main interests were—all were irrelevant as long as I got into university. When I was promoted from freshman to sophomore year, I faced the choice of selecting groups. Like most classmates, I thought that choosing medical, agricultural, or science and engineering majors usually made people seem smarter. After the group selection form was issued, it had to be submitted within a week. It wasn’t until the seventh day that I realized the form was still stuck at the bottom of my drawer. The person collecting the forms kept urging me, saying it was mandatory to submit. So, I casually asked a few classmates who were generally on good terms with me, and they all chose the medical, agricultural, or science and engineering group, which is the third type, requiring one more subject than the first and second types. Because my grades were very good in middle school, I thought I was smart, and an extra subject wouldn’t matter. Full of ambition, I also chose the same group as everyone else. Now, thinking back, choosing the group was as reckless as filling out the college application form later. From the college entrance exam to when the score report arrived, there were ten to twenty days of completely empty mental space. Although I thought I did well on the exam, I still felt hazy and couldn’t see the path forward. After the score report arrived and I had the basic scores, I immediately went to the Computer Analysis Center to carefully estimate where I would be admitted. I found that the same scores could get me into different departments at National Taiwan University, National Chiao Tung University, and National Tsing Hua University. This didn’t mean I was seriously thinking about which direction to take in the future or which major to choose based on my interests. I was simply facing the college application form and mechanically considering the most perfect way to fill it out. Even if I could only get into a lower-scoring department, although it was less popular, as long as I could get into National Taiwan University, the title of "National Taiwan University student" would sound good to everyone, making them think I did well. That’s what mattered to me—I didn’t need to consider any other universities. In fact, the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Chiao Tung University and National Tsing Hua University was also very good, ranked higher than other departments at National Taiwan University. At that time, my life had no other goals—just the college entrance exam was the ultimate goal.