The elementary school I attended was right next to Shoutaguchi. On the side of the highway (105 National Road), looking out from the school, there was a highway in front of them. On the right was the bus station, and on the left was the brick yard. The school gate was symbolic. It was made of three cedar trunks, two standing upright and the other one horizontal. They formed a portal frame that was the gate. There were no walls on both sides of the gate, so the isolated portal frame would make people feel like two withered trees standing there. However, there was a piece of wood on top. It was appropriate to say that it was like the pictographic word "door". The workers who made the door were really sloppy. They did not even peel the bark off the wood, making the "door" look too shabby. It inevitably reminded people of the gallows seen in movies. This "door" might have been built temporarily when the school was being built and was not intended to be used for a long time. As expected, the portal frame was tilted later and was pulled up and placed aside.
After entering the school's " gate," they saw a field on sandy soil. At the southern end of the field, there was a wooden house facing south. It was an old house of a local farmer. It was a two-story structure. The original owner of the house had moved out and changed it into an office for the primary school.
On the west side of the field, there was a row of simple rooms with bamboo tendons and mud walls that were classrooms. They were arranged in order from the first grade to the sixth grade. The roof of the classroom was covered with tiles and glass windows. Unlike the simple rooms where the copper miners lived, the roof was covered with straw and the windows were woven with bamboo sheets, so the classroom was bright. However, the broken glass had never been replaced (at least in the four years I was here).
The floor of the classroom was covered with yellow soil. It might not have been tamped, but it had already been stepped on and was full of potholes. If they did not sprinkle water when sweeping, the entire classroom would be gray and they would not be able to open their eyes. They would choke and cough. After sweeping the floor, their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears would be filled with dust. The students would sweep the floor like this, regardless of whether the dust affected their health or not. At that time, people were not too particular about it.
Behind this row of classrooms was the school's toilet. The toilet was also a wooden room. The one closest to the classroom was the men's toilet. The girls had to pass by the men's toilet to go to the toilet. The brick rectangular manure pit was inside the toilet. There was a wooden plank on top of the manure pit. However, due to the water level on the hillside, the manure pit was filled with water. When defecating, the manure splashed up and stuck to the buttocks. The manure overflowed from the side of the pool and flowed to the bottom of the wall behind the lower classroom. In the classroom near the toilet, the air was always smelly. The bushes on the hillside behind the classroom grew luxuriantly all year round. Perhaps it was because there was sufficient fertilizer and water.
When he first came to this school, there were not many students, and the toilets were not small. However, as the number of students increased, the toilets were not enough. When class ended, the toilet door was filled with people. The boys who could not wait any longer simply peed in the bushes, ignoring the girls and walking past them.
The children of the officials used paper to clean their poop. When there was not enough paper, they tore up the books and wiped their butts. Some local students used straw to wipe, while some students broke branches and brought them in to wipe. Sometimes, small ants or other small insects were hidden on the branches. Some students were accidentally bitten by the insects on the branches.
What was even more ridiculous was that a local teacher actually took the urinal from his home and placed it at the door of the classroom (third grade and below) to collect urine so that he could pick it up and water the vegetable garden. After the urinal was placed at the door, the boys would also take advantage of the convenience after class. As soon as they left the classroom, they would start to pee in the urinal. Of course, I was no exception.
One afternoon after school, the students in the classroom had yet to leave. At this time, I needed to pee, so I started to pee in the bucket at the door of the classroom. Suddenly, someone pulled my pants from behind. I thought that guy was joking. This was a common thing among boys, so I shouted,"Let go, I peed on my pants.""You're already so tall, aren't you afraid of being ugly?" I turned around and saw the female form teacher appear from behind. She usually stood here with the other boys to pee. But today, I was alone. I didn't know what to do. The form teacher shouted into the classroom," Look at him. Who asked him not to know how to be shy?”When the class teacher called out, the girls in the classroom, including those who hadn't left, looked at me. I was so embarrassed that my face was burning, and I wanted to find a mouse hole to hide in. The next day, the urinal at the door of the classroom was gone.
In fact, it is a traditional custom for the locals to place the urinal at the door or inside the house. When I went to the home of my classmates, I saw that they placed the urinal by the bedside of the room, causing the room to be filled with foul air. Those who were not used to it felt suffocated when they entered, but they did not feel anything bad. They still ate and slept inside (of course, this had already become history).
There was a small path behind the classroom that led to the top of the hill. On the top was a flat field where the field's weather observation station was located. The top of the slope was covered with small pine trees. Even if one stood behind the classroom, one would not be able to tell that the top of the slope was flat. The teacher would often bring the class to the top of the hill to play a game of throwing a handkerchief or the eagle catching the chickens, or tell stories, or often lead everyone to sing. Qiu Shaoyun, Huang Jiguang, Dong Cunrui, Zhao Yiman, Lei Feng, Yang Jingyu, Liu Hulan, and other heroic figures were heard there. Even now, he still remembered the words "Let's swing the double oars, the small boat pushing the waves..." that he learned on that platform. That song. Even though he was hungry at the time, he still sang loudly with the teacher,"Society is good, society is good…" "Dongfanghong, the sun rises, there is a prince in China. He works for the happiness of the people. Hu-er-ke-yo, he is the savior of the people…" The song filled me with longing for happiness. What is happiness? At that time, in my heart, the standard of happiness was to eat white rice, eat meat, and be satisfied with the suits, shorts, and white sneakers that the children of the government officials wore.(These so-called standards of happiness may sound insignificant now, but at that time, they could be the extravagant dreams of the children of poor families.)
Throughout elementary school, my grades were not good. I had never been like some books that said that poor children studied hard. On the contrary, poverty and hunger almost made me lose all interest in studying. I was always absent-minded in class and only thought about finding something to eat after class. I also thought about picking wild vegetables and fruits after school.
This was completely in line with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the moment, there was no way to survive, so it was impossible for him to study hard for a long-term goal. To put it bluntly, he was not a genius or a child prodigy. He would not think about a long-term goal in life when he was starving to death.
My physical education results were even worse. In physical education class, my face turned pale after running around the field. My eyes were blurry and I was covered in cold sweat. The physical education teacher said that I couldn't run because I lacked exercise. He didn't know that my weakness was due to my low blood sugar caused by long-term hunger. Every time I saw the grass on the ground, I wanted to pull it out and chew it. If I really did as the teacher said and ran another round, my little life would really be gone.
In those years, hunger haunted me almost every second. Sometimes, I was so hungry that I couldn't walk on the way home from school. Early in the summer, I came home from school at noon one day. Just as I walked to the brick kiln next to the school, I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. I knew that I couldn't walk anymore. I thought that I would just sit down and rest for a while. However, after sitting down, I couldn't stand up. I saw a few tomatoes planted in the fence beside me. There were small green tomatoes growing on them. I reached my hand in recklessly and grabbed a few to swallow.
The trouble was that after that time, every time he walked to the fence after school, he would break out in a cold sweat. His stomach seemed to have grown claws, and he could not wait to grab the tomatoes inside the fence to eat. What was the difference between the pain of hunger and drug addiction?
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。