I went to elementary school in 1967. As we all know, the unprecedented “Great Revolution” had already started, and all the order and concepts of Culture were in chaos. Unlike today’s children, who are taught to go to prestigious universities from the very beginning of their schooling, some of them even started to “run” at the “starting line” from kindergarten.
At that Time, I only know that the middle school graduation will face the mountains to the countryside, good luck, such as already have older brothers and sisters to the mountains to the countryside, or the Family‘s “only child”, you can stay in the city to work.
There is also a good place to go is to become a soldier, which at the time was the most popular, but not everyone has this opportunity, this way. There are also individuals with artistic talent who can work towards the literary and artistic groups.
I joined the Shanghai Huangpu District Workers’ Amateur Choir, although I was still a high school student who hadn’t graduated. I remember that at that time there were a lot of army cultural groups coming to recruit people for our choir, and those who were already “workers” were also actively applying.
At that time I was facing graduation, they asked me how to choose between going to the cultural and industrial group and going to university, and I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know how to answer, because at that time I didn’t really know what going to college meant to me. I remember when I was waiting for the results of the college entrance examination, I heard a technician from my father’s unit (who had gone to college) tell me that he could borrow eight books from the library at a time at the university, so I could borrow and read books as I pleased, which became a reason for me to go to college at that time.
I graduated from Shanghai Puguang High School in 1978, and if it wasn’t for the resumption of the college entrance examination, I would have already recognized the way out of the mountains and the countryside in my own mind, thinking that it was a natural thing to do. But facing graduation, the university began to enroll, we Puguang high school began a series of measures to prepare for the examination: began to 14 graduation classes from the whole year through the examination to divide two improvement classes, concentrating on excellent teachers to teach; and then later divided into the arts class, science class, to the university “blitz”.
Because I was still a student who loved to study, I followed the school’s arrangement and entered the rhythm of the college entrance examination. Due to the school’s timely action and effective measures, Puguang High School excelled in the Class of ’78 college entrance exams and ranked first in the Huangpu District of Shanghai in terms of the number of students going to college.
Many years later at a party, my then arts class teacher Zhang Zhengkang told me that my performance in a single subject (I don’t know if it was geography or politics, I can’t remember which subject, my brain has shown signs of degeneration) was also among the top in the district. Later I thought, if not for the good times, if I had gone to the countryside or employment, I might not have had this idea of going to university, and would certainly have missed my alma mater – the People’s University of China.
To be honest (don’t laugh at my ignorance), I didn’t even know there was such a school called Renmin University of China in Beijing until I filled out my college application. The first time I volunteered, the name of NPC was not on the list, maybe the central government had not yet decided to restore NPC.
When I filled out the supplemental volunteer, as a liberal arts student, the liberal arts schools in and around Shanghai had scraped all the places, and many of my classmates’ volunteer columns were empty, and then I found one called Renmin University of China for liberal arts students, and I filled it in.
I was accepted and came to Beijing from Shanghai. I remember when the school picked us up at the Beijing station and took Chang’an Street, passing by Tiananmen Square, I stared excitedly and longingly through the car window at the gate of the city that I had sung about countless times in songs.
The campus of the university I crashed into in a daze was not so beautiful, with neither a lake nor a tower. The campus is not so spacious, we live in the red first floor, a room can just fit into four bunk beds, the popularity of eight big boys to fill a cabin full of. The facilities are not so complete, the student canteen is far away from the west gate of the campus, while our dormitory and classrooms near the east gate, it takes 15 minutes to walk one way ……
All this is nothing, because NPC has my excellent teachers and classmates who have become my mentors and friends in Life. The most important thing is that I met my wife here who I love and have been with so far, don’t you think this is the most perfect gift from NPC?
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