I was born in 19XX in a not rich village in Ningbo. My family was (and still is) not rich. My father works in a primary school of the village and my mother farms in the land almost everyday. As far as I could remember I could not have good food and nice clothes as other girls of my age when I was a small girl. So I could not say that I had a happy time in my childhood.
I was often in hospital during my childhood. One night in winter of 1982, I was having a high fever. My mother was quite scared and carried me to hospital in a hurry. It was bitterly cold that night. My mother carried me on her back and walked to hospital slowly. There were quite heavy snows on the ground, and my mother slipped and fell to the ground. I was hurt and began crying loudly. Still my mother tried her best and managed to reach the hospital in the end.
The doctor examined me and found that I got a severe illness. I had to stay in hospital for a long time. But the cost was very high and my mother did not have enough money for that. She tried to borrow some money from my relatives but no success, and my mother was very frustrated. Finally she had to sell the only pig that she had and used that money for the cost of my staying in hospital.
In the end I recovered and left the hospital, but my family had a very hard time afterwards. We had to tighten our belts for many months. My mother often mentions this case nowadays to remind me that I was really lucky to be saved from that sever illness.
I was not in good health until I went to the primary school in my village. I studied in this primary school for six years. Because my father was a teacher in that primary school, so I was very naughty and very dominating, but my studies were quite good. I was very proud of myself in sports and music while in primary school. Though I was often ill before the age of 7 years, I was a member of sport team in the primary school since I went to school. I was out on the school’s sport ground at 5:30 every morning, regardless of hot summer or cold winter. It was mainly because that my father was the teaching the sport course in my school. My father would not treat me differently, actually he was even strict to me in the training. I was also willing to accept his strictness, because I really loved sports games.
I could still remember vividly the sport game competition that I took when I was in the fourth grade. I got the gold medal in the girls’ high jump with the result of 1.15 meter, and I was the shortest among all the girls participated in the competition. The schoolmaster of my township primary school raised me to the sky happily. At that moment I was the center of all eyes and my happiness could not be expressed by words.
Though I was not tall among my classmates, I was the bodyguard of my girl classmates from primary school to junior high school. Due to my sporty character, it is difficult to find girlish from my personality. If any of my girl classmates was bullied by boys, I would come to help the girl, so the boys were quite afraid of me.
My studies at school were not as good as my sport performance. I would often rank second or third in my class. But I was very good at mathematics. And I was the member of my school’s Mathematics Olympic Team, but I did not get any prize in the provincial level or city level competition. I was not good at all at Chinese language learning, normally I could merely pass the examinations. Once at the Chinese language test in my third year of junior high school, I got a score of only 56, the second lowest in my class. The teacher was quite puzzled and all the eyes of my classmates focused on me. I was nearly fainted, that was my first time failing the examination in my studies.
After graduation from junior high school I went to a technical school in Xian, because my family could not afford to let me continue my studies in normal senior high school. My parents urged me to study mould design and manufacture, saying that this was a hot subject and easy to get better-paid salaries. As a 15 year old girl from the rural area, I did not know the outside world very well. So I agreed with my parents and went alone from Yuyao to Xian to live and study far away from my parents.
Staying alone in a poor and strange city with unfamiliar environment, I became mature quickly. I saw with my own eye for the first time the poor and simple living conditions in the northwestern part of China, which I could only see in TV before. I could see that the poor students in the northwestern part were having much harder time than me, and I should be thankful that my family is from the rich Chang Jiang River Delta. Without the pressure of university entrance examination, my study in Xian was quite easy and comfortable. I was always the first or second in the rank of studies in my class, seldom below the fifth. The four years study in Xian did not make deep impression in my mind. I did not go to the famous ancient places in Xian, for I did not get much money from my parents and I could not afford for the sight-seeing. The only places that I often went was those universities and colleges in Xian. I was told that Xian was the third in China with the number of universities and colleges, but for the economic development Xian was the lowest sixth in China.
Time passed fast. Suddenly one day I had to decide if I should continue my studies or graduate and start working. As my hometown was in great need of people knowing the plastic injection mould making, I did not continue my studies and started working in the society. I was full of hope and wanted to do my best in the rok after so many years of schooling.
The first company that I worked in was for a company specialized in plastic injection mould design and plastic product design. I was amazed by everything I saw and met in my work. I was specially proud that I was the only girl working in the design department of the company. So I started my routine work from 8:am till 5:00pm everyday. There was no more examinations, no more naughty games among the classmates, instead what I met was high pressure and competition in the work. I tried to learn everything I met in my work, for I knew that this was a good environment for me to learn working experience. Plastic injection mould design is a job full of challenges, with different parts we have to design different moulds, and even with the same part there are many ways to design the mould to get the same part.
Generally speaking, technical work is very boring. I only like the challenges in the technical fields, not the technical work itself. For an active person like me to sit in front of PC for many hours a day, this is too boring and suffering. I changed a lot after one year work in the company. I was no longer talkative. It became difficult to see if I was happy or angry. I did not know if it was the technical work that changed me or it was the social environment that changed me so much. Later on I realized that the reason for me to have that technical job was only for a living, I did not find any interests in the work. If one works for a living and not for fun, this work is just as suffering and boring as it could be.
An old engineer one day said to me that a technical person from facing the machines everyday to facing the people one day, it is a great progress to this person, because as a human being we have to face people and deal with people. His saying is really reflected my thinking. So I decided that I would work for the future career that would interest me…
I seldom go back to my home, even though my home is in Xiao Chao Er, very close to Ningbo. I go back home only two or three times a year, the same frequency as when I was in Xian. The only one I miss in my home is my mother. Though my father is a teacher, he never sets example for others.
As far as I could remember, my younger brother and I have never got the love from our father. I do not know how I should describe my father in this paper. To other people my father might be a very good man and kind man. He would lend anything he has to other people, even those things that are expensive and he does not use himself often. If the things are broken after lent to others, he would never ask the borrower to repair or compensate for the lost of the value. He is very responsible for his work as a teacher. He pays all his attention to his students, much more than his care for my brother and me. Sometimes I wonder if my brother and I are really his children. He never helps my mother in the farmland work, letting my mother work at fields in all weathers, whether rainy or windy. But if other people (like our relatives or neighbors) need help, he will offer the help without any problem. My father used to drink a lot when he was young, and he would often got drunk and made our family in a mess and quarrelling between my mother and my father due to this was like a routine case. I really could not make good comments about my father. Let other people to comment him in the future.
My mother is a typical woman from the countryside. She is frugal and hard-working. She pays all her attention to the home. Though she did not have much education, she has common sense and knows the importance of knowledge. My mother has a life-long sorrow due to her father’s neglect of education for girls. Because of her father, my mother did not get enough education and this made her life very hard later. Therefore my mother has paid all her attention to the studies of my brother and me. She never allowed me to do house work. Her only demand from me is that I should be good at studies. I could not understand my mother’s care and demand when I was young. I knew that my mother was very strict to me in my studies and my study was for my mother and for not having hitting from my mother. I could remember one winder night I could not solve a geometry homework. My mother forced me to ask for help from a boy living in the next village. It was snowing and the wind was blowing very hard that night, and my mother hugged my in her shoulder and went along with me for more than half an hour. I really could not understand why we should suffer so much just for homework at that time. As far as I could remember, my mother has never bought clothes for herself. Though she is 50 years of age now, she still wears the clothes made for her weddings. She made up her mind early this year that she would make new clothes for her 50 years birthday, but by now the birthday was over for two months and the new clothes was not made yet…Though I do not have much communication with my mother, I could feel the care and attention she always has for my brother and me. This is great mother-love. This is pure love. I feel very happy that I could have this love whenever needed.
I am very proud of my younger brother. He is good at almost everything even from childhood. Besides good at studies, he is also good at sports, handcraft, painting, music, etc.. He is very sensible as a child. He could understand the parents and never picky at food and clothes. He is always the focus of the school, the pride of the class, and the proud of the school. He was the number one in the whole township when he got into junior high school. Because he got quite many awards in sports and studies while in the primary school, he was accepted by the key junior high school in Yuyao. But due to the high cost and poor family, he gave up the chance of studying in Yuyao and continued his junior high school studies in Xiao Chao Er township. Now he is studying in Zhejiang Zhenhai Senior High School, a state-level key school. He entered Zhejiang Zhenhai Senior High School without the need of examination, due to his excellent performance in routine studies and sports games. My brother and I are always in good terms, and our parents are quire happy to see this.
This is my family and my home. It is not rich but full of smiles and hopes. I believe that with the efforts by my brother and me, our family and home will be more happy and nice in the future.