2020 has passed quietly and changed many people. But for Wu Guichun, the change was unexpected and unprecedented.
Glacier Thought Bank Contributing Researcher | With Return
About 80 kilometers northwest of Wuhan, there is a county called Yingcheng.
In 2020, apart from the epidemic, the biggest news for Yingcheng County was the emergence of a famous person in his hometown, Wu Guichun.
01
Wu Guichun burst fire, just the beginning of the story
On June 4, 2020, the existing confirmed and suspected cases in Hubei province were all cleared. It was also in this stall that Wu Guichun was able to go south.
In 17 years, he probably left so late for the first time. Before arriving in Dongguan, he already knew that the shoe factory he had been working in for six years had stopped working because there were no orders, and the workers had nothing to do.
But he wanted to quit the house he had rented, get back his possessions that “might not be enough to pay for the trip,” and take his chances of finding a job.
Wu Guichun, like many Chinese, has been making a living, and his 2020 only started in June.
In the vast Chinese countryside, there are too many Wu Guichuns. They are still farmers, but no longer in the pastoral way of working at sunrise, but in the yearly cycle of going out in the first month and returning in the last month.
They are like migratory birds, only with more separation. In normal years, they may have to say goodbye to their wives and children on the sixth and seventh days of the year, and rush out to find food in order to feed their children and grandchildren who are waiting to be fed at home.
Only this year, many people were disrupted by the epidemic.
They came to the south, to the big city, only to find that the contractor had gone somewhere, and the factories and construction sites were quiet. They were suddenly like kites with broken strings, drifting with the wind.
Of course, they had no stable security, they did not even have a labor contract, just a simple sentence: how much money, willing to work.
However, Wu Guichun still underestimated the impact of the epidemic. He really could not find a job, he did not have the leisure to stay in the library to read books, after all, the economic strength does not allow.
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Wu Guichun left a message to the Dongguan library, “the book can be clear. The only book that can do no harm to a person is the book. (Photo / network)
On June 24, he used a crooked font like construction site steel, wrote a parting message to the Dongguan Library.
Fire.
The next story, the whole country knows. Lights, interviews, moving, inspirational, warm, caring …… Wu Guichun even made it to the CCTV set, “News 1+1” did an interview with him.
The old fellows were stunned, they never thought that this usually non-verbal, honest and quiet old Wu would one day appear on TV, with Bai Yansong reciting his words word for word.
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Wu Guichun was interviewed by CCTV News. (Photo/ CCTV News)
They all think Wu Guichun developed, think Wu Guichun must have earned a lot of money, think he has the rest of his life.
However, many people only read the beginning of this story, and did not follow the serious reading, not to mention thinking against.
In some people’s opinion, when Wu Guichun wrote a message in the library, and then was put on the Internet to vigorously promote, ushering in a wave of positive energy and inspiration, his mission has been completed, his story is over.
But this is just the beginning of a story. And it is quite an abstract beginning, what follows is the real earth, more worthy of being seen.
02
Returning to the construction site, Wu Guichun’s awake and lost
After Wu Guichun became popular, he was offered a greening maintenance job. But soon, in October, he resigned from there. “More than two thousand points, I also do not want to do, ready to go back to Wuhan to play temporary jobs. “
At this time, there are still some reporters interviewing him, “do not consider staying in Dongguan? “
“are more than two thousand, do not want to. “
December 3, no landing Wu Guichun, finally returned to Wuhan. Follow brother-in-law in the construction site work, wages daily, 200 to 300 yuan a day.
Round and round, Wu Guichun back to the drifting self.
Objectively speaking, I think Wu Guichun now also has some lost. For example, he feels that only working in the library can bring out his value. “For other jobs, I’m a 54-year-old unskilled migrant worker who is not competitive. Now it’s up to me to see if a library is willing to use me.”
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CCTV reported the story of Wu Guichun, a migrant reader in Dongguan (Photo/ CCTV News )
He further argued, “To write articles, I can’t compare with doctoral and master’s students, but doctoral and master’s students hired by libraries may not have as much influence as I do. A library with me in it is more likely to attract more people to the library to read books, and that is my value.”
Wu Guichun obviously has not understood that his value as a reader labeled as a migrant worker has actually been developed. The three major central media have all been out to promote the book, and the heat and positive vibes have already spread.
The story that follows is just Wu Guichun’s personal story.
If some people go to which library because Wu Guichun is there, then these so-called readers, in the end, are they going for the books or for the people?
The incentive value of “migrant workers reading” has actually been completed at the moment when the message of Dongguan library was exposed and reported. The output of Wu Guichun may not be sustainable if he is molded into a statue and placed in the library.
Now Wu Guichun, need to recognize this.
Wu Guichun is not a man without wisdom. He once said to his workmates, “All history is a personal interpretation of history, and you can’t find the absolute truth in history books.”
In fact, the life under the lens, it is also so ah.
03
Half a lifetime away, but still a middle-aged man with no place to rest
After the fire of Ding Zhen, I have been thinking about a question: Is it more meaningful for Ding Zhen to discover the new world, or for the world to discover Ding Zhen?
For Ding Zhen, he discovered that the world is not just brothers and ponies, that his mother can finally stop washing clothes by hand, and that there is a kind of childhood called compulsory education ……
For the outside world, we found out that in that corner of Sichuan, there is still a group of teenagers who ride horses, herd animals, roam in the meadows and snowy mountains, their eyes are clear, they don’t know 985, nor 996.
When these two “discoveries” collide, it is difficult to say who envies whom more, or each has its own envy.
However, in Wu Guichun, I found that this “discovery”, not only no win-win, but also constitute a two-way loss.
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CCTV news report raises a question: while working, while studying, and then what? (Photo/ CCTV News)
In terms of reputation, Wu Guichun was hired as the “spokesman of Dongguan workers’ bookstore for public welfare” and chosen as the “spokesman of Guangdong workers’ bookstore for public welfare”; but in reality, he still can’t find a job that satisfies him and makes him feel secure.
2020 has passed quietly and changed many people. But for Wu Guichun, this change was unexpected and unprecedented.
Before 2020, Wu Guichun has been working in Dongguan for 17 years. Counting down, from the age of 37.
In media reports, Wu Guichun has an only son, and has been paying for him to finish graduate school.
Wu Guichun’s life has been a rough one. In his hometown of Yingcheng, a man with less than an acre of land could not make ends meet.
When he was young, he went to work for the county material bureau, and as a result, the material department was abolished in 1993. Under the tide of the market economy, he opened a small restaurant, yellow, his wife also became an ex-wife.
When his son was less than ten years old, he was sent to the care of his ex-wife’s mother. He then began to go out and make a living.
As I write this, I suddenly realize again that Wu Guichun’s son is probably another typical Chinese story.
From Wu Guichun’s age and the information he revealed in the interview, his son is a post-90s child who grew up in the countryside, his parents divorced, and was placed in his grandmother’s home when he was less than 10 years old, becoming a left-behind child.
However, this child is competitive and lucky, in the case of almost zero family education, he successfully graduated from graduate school.
Now, is he working in the big city? Did he take the civil service exam or join a big factory? Does he have a place to put his youth?
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