**10,000 Fans Incentive Plan
In the past two years, "Kong Yiji Literature" has exploded, and more and more college students have become blue-collar workers, working in factories and doing manual work. The difficulty of finding a job has led to questions about the significance of higher education, and the question of whether reading is useful or not has once again sparked widespread discussion.
Although "education changes destiny" is no longer a popular narrative, we have observed that there are still some young people who are desperate to get a seat on a university campus.
Zhou Zhou, a girl from Guizhou who was born in 1995, dropped out of junior high school, worked as an assembly line worker, worked as a foot-washing girl, experienced a failed marriage, and became a single mother at the age of less than 20. Going to college has always been her dream. Last September, when she stepped into the graduate classroom, this dream that was 10 years long overdue finally came true.
Here's Zhou's story.
I dropped out of junior high school and worked as a factory girl in Shenzhen
My name is Zhou Zhou, I am 28 years old, and I am from Xishui County, Zunyi City, Guizhou Province.
I remember when I was a child, my family was very poor. Although compulsory education began as early as 2006, in some remote mountainous areas, the policy is not in place, and reading is still a luxury.
My parents were farmers all their lives. In order for my brother and I to study, they helped people dig wells, carry coffins, and go to deserted mountains to find herbs and mushrooms, and they were willing to do anything. In the countryside, preference for sons is the norm, but my parents treated my younger brother and me equally, and my father would even proudly say to the villagers, who said that girls are useless in studying? Girls are no worse than boys, and they can repay the country by reading good books.
Just when we were full of infinite hope for the future, the news of dropping out of school caught us off guard.
I will always remember that day, when my father, who never showed his vulnerability in front of us, hung his head, rubbed his hands, and told my brother and me that there was really no money in the family, and only one person could go to school.
That year, I was in the second year of junior high school, and my younger brother was in the first year of junior high school, and the family suffered one accident after another: the farmland planted with corn and potatoes was drugged, and the hard work of the whole year was in vain; My mother accidentally cut her hand with a sickle while mowing the grass, and she was seriously injured and disabled.
My mother wiped her tears and told us that in order to let my brother and I go to school, my father begged all over the people, knelt and knelt, and knocked his head, but he still couldn't borrow money. In the end, Dad said, Dad has no ability, I'm sorry for the two of you, whoever has the highest score in the final exam will continue to study.
In that final exam, I was two points lower than my brother. No matter how much regret and unwillingness I have in my heart, I can only accept it.
Before the winter vacation was over, I went to work in a garment factory in Shenzhen. While packing in the staff dormitory, I found that my younger brother had stuffed my textbooks into my suitcase and left a note that read: "Sister, don't give up studying." ”
When my younger brother was a child, he wrote in his notebook, "I hope my sister will study hard" and that life in a garment factory is monotonous. I work 14 hours a day, barely see the sun, have one day off a month, and earn 1500 a month. Although the work of the assembly line is not tiring, it is easy to be numb, and it is to work as soon as you wake up every day, and life is like a pool of stagnant water.
At that time, I was particularly envious of the clerks in the factory, who only had to work 10 hours a day, did not have to work night shifts, had four days off a month, and had a salary similar to ours, but the clerks all required a junior high school degree and could use a computer.
The factory recruits clerks to go through the internal recommendation mechanism, and the intermediary uncle who brought me to the factory is my fellow countryman, I gave him a good cigarette, and he told me that the salary of a clerk who can operate a basic computer is 1800, if he can speak Cantonese, the salary can be 2000, and if he can speak simple English, the salary can be 2500.
I suddenly had a fighting spirit. I don't understand Cantonese, but I was the representative of the English class in my class when I was in school, and it shouldn't be difficult to pick up English now.
Uncle agent helped me a lot. He took me to the bookstore to buy second-hand books, helped me choose the right books for computer learning, and lent me his cassette player to give me his son's English books and tapes from elementary school to junior high school.
At that time, the factory was not strictly controlled, and I wore headphones to listen to English tapes every day when I worked, and I even listened to English when I slept. After washing up after work, I went to the Internet café and learned how to operate the computer for two hours according to the content of the book.
Four months after the letter given to Zhou Zhou by the agent uncle, a week before the recruitment was terminated, I was recommended by the uncle to go for an interview, only to find that the job that I felt out of reach before was really not as difficult as I imagined. The so-called "English", as long as you can understand the English email, the content of the email is mostly very simple, and it is a problem with the fixed delivery date of the goods. As for computer operation, I can use word typesetting and excel to do **.
After the work started, my salary was also ** year by year. In the fourth year of entering the factory, my salary reached the highest level of 4,000 yuan for a clerk, and listening to tapes to learn English has become my daily habit. Later, I replaced the tape with a Walkman, ** many English songs and English speech programs, and my broken spoken language became fluent little by little, and I didn't have to read subtitles anymore to watch American dramas.
Because I am good at English, I often go on business trips with the factory manager. Our factory makes export clothing**, customers are foreign distributors, my task is to introduce products, and help the factory director translate daily conversations. I have become more proficient in my work, and I have gained a lot of sense of accomplishment.
"Cannibalistic" marriages
When I was 18 years old, I was of marriageable age.
When I came home for the Chinese New Year, my mother began to help me go on a blind date. Ten years ago, young people were less reluctant to marry than they are now, and as I watched my peers in my hometown start families one after another, I felt like I should move on to the next stage of my life.
I gladly accepted my mother's blind date arrangement, and chose the best person to marry, this person is my ex-husband, and it is also my nightmare.
My ex-husband is five years older than me, good-looking, and a native of Guiyang. He graduated from junior college, his family is in the catering business in Guangzhou, and he has two houses in Guangzhou. At that time, many people felt that it was my blessing that I married him.
Our local tradition is that after marriage, the woman should follow her husband to live in his city. So I submitted my resignation to the leader, and after the wedding, I went to Guangzhou with my ex-husband and in-laws.
When they arrived in Guangzhou, their husbands and in-laws gradually showed their true colors. They treat me like a nanny at home, I need to serve the family's food and drink, and no matter what I do, they can always pick out what is not satisfying. I offered to find a job, and they tried every means to thwart me: Doesn't my daughter-in-law take care of her in-laws? You don't cook, what does your husband eat when he's off work? You're all married, aren't you trying to get pregnant?
My ex-husband has a bad habit of domestic violence, and every time I quarrel, he will beat me and humiliate me for having a low education and no education. My in-laws never stood in the way, and even pressed me when we were fighting, not letting me resist. Later, I learned that my ex-husband was willing to marry me, but he only liked my appearance and my parents were honest and kind, and they didn't want a bride price.
I wanted to run away, but I didn't have any money on me, and the savings I had saved from my previous job had already been taken by my ex-husband. I called the police, but at that time the domestic violence did not even care to the police.
To make matters worse, I was pregnant. At that time, I was young and immature, and I didn't know how to deal with this messy life. I didn't dare to tell my parents, for fear of making my parents' already difficult life worse, so I had to swallow the bitter water in my stomach, and secretly hoped in my heart, will they be good to me if I give birth to a child?
As a result, my ex-husband cheated on me when I was eight months pregnant. After giving birth, my in-laws couldn't wait to sweep me out of the house, and I didn't even want my grandson, because I didn't want to delay my ex-husband to find the next one.
I hugged the baby and went back to my parents' house in disgrace. It was the darkest moment in my life, I had no education, no job, no savings, and I became a single mother at the age of less than 20.
And the bad luck is not over at this point. Shortly after I got home, in July 2014, my father died of a cerebral hemorrhage – he was still working in the fields in the morning and was gone in the afternoon.
Restart your life
As the eldest daughter in the family, I didn't even have time to grieve in the face of my father's sudden death.
My younger brother has just been admitted to university, and his tuition and living expenses have not yet been settled; The mother is disabled and unable to work, and also suffers from uremia, and the monthly medical expenses are high; There is also a child waiting to be fed at home. The weight of the burden fell on my shoulders at once.
The younger brother is very sensible, and immediately said that he would stop studying and would go out to work to support the whole family. But I'm categorically against it. I know very well how difficult it is for him to be admitted to one of the top universities in Guizhou, and I don't want to see him regret it for life, let alone see him repeat my old path.
I found the old photos of Zhou Zhou and my younger brother and asked him if he had any suitable job opportunities to introduce to me, it doesn't matter if he is tired or tired, as long as he can make more money.
The next day, my uncle sent a message and asked me if I would like to go to Dongguan to be a foot bath technician?
At that time, Dongguan's foot bath industry was notorious, and everyone thought that going to Dongguan to do foot massage was equivalent to being a lady, and I was very resistant. But my uncle repeatedly assured me that the club he recommended me to go to was very formal. Out of trust in him and practical considerations, I struggled for a long time and agreed.
In this way, I became a foot bath technician with a monthly salary of 6500. I told myself that even if I entered this industry, I had to keep the bottom line and make money cleanly. I got up early every day and worked greedily at night, saving money and sending most of the money I earned to my mother back home.
At the beginning of 2017, the ex-husband proposed that he wanted his son back. The child was 3 years old at the time, and he was old enough to start kindergarten. Considering the problem of the child going to school in the future, I agreed with my ex-husband to take the child to Guangzhou, and at the same time asked my ex-husband to compensate me 100,000 yuan as belated maintenance and return my savings. The ex-husband agreed. My financial pressure has been reduced by half, and I finally don't have to struggle to make ends meet.
Zhou Zhou accompanied his mother to do dialysis in June of the following year, and his younger brother graduated from college and was ready to go to Shenzhen to find a job.
My younger brother is very studious, and even after graduation, he still keeps reading every day. It's been a long time since I've read a book, but looking at the silhouette of him reading quietly, my book addiction was hooked up all of a sudden, and I thought of the scene when we were children reciting books together.
Of the professional books my brother brought, the only ones I could read were his English books. I thought I had forgotten all about not learning English for so long, but when I picked up the book, I found that I was no stranger to it. I knew most of the words, and I could even pronounce some of the sentences.
My brother was amazed that I could read his university English. He asked me if I had been learning English. I said that I haven't studied deliberately in the past few years, but I just like to watch foreign movies and TV series, and I also retain the habit of listening to English songs.
The younger brother was very excited: "Sister, do you want to continue your studies and improve your education?" ”
Due to the information barrier, before this, I didn't know that there was a way to improve my academic qualifications. My heart shuddered. I asked my brother uncertainly, can I really continue studying? I'm married, I've had children, I only have a primary school education, I'm just a foot washing girl who presses someone else's feet, can I really do it?
Seeing my brother's affirmative gaze, I felt like I had won the lottery, and I was so ecstatic that I didn't know what to do.
My younger brother analyzed with me that the self-examination has the highest gold content, so I first used one and a half years to take the college entrance examination, and then two years to take the undergraduate examination. He said that my foundation is poor, and it is better to sign up for an online course, and in less than four years, I can have a bachelor's degree.
My brother asked me, sister, can you persevere? Reading is not a simple task. I laughed at him for underestimating me. Can reading be as difficult as I have all these years? And he forgot that I used to be a very good reader.
My brother helped me sign up for an online course. Before going to work in Shenzhen, he hugged me, and he still said: "Sister, don't give up studying." ”
After a long and hard study, I finally went ashore
Soon after my brother left, I decided to quit my job and prepare for the exam.
The work of a foot bath technician is too intense to take care of my studies, and I have some savings in the past few years, plus compensation from my ex-husband, which is enough to support me to study.
I confidently told my friends and colleagues that I was going to quit my job and go to university. Most people think it's incredible, thinking that it's very irrational for me to quit studying naked when I'm old, and it's the right thing to make more money while I'm young.
Only my brother and uncle supported me. The younger brother said, "Sister, be yourself, I have me at home." The uncle said, "What do other people think, what does it have to do with you?" If I had listened to them, I would still be farming."
In order to save rent, I quit my job and returned to my hometown to prepare for the exam.
My younger brother was worried that I would not be able to study science, so he enrolled me in the Chinese language and literature major, which did not require mathematics. At first, I thought very simply, isn't liberal arts just rote memorization, what's so difficult? When I started studying, I realized that for me, who dropped out of junior high school, those obscure terms in professional classes were like heavenly books, and I could neither understand nor remember. Someone else has finished a unit, and I have just finished the first section.
I can only use stupid methods, check the explanations of those terms one by one, copy them more than a dozen times, find the time period with the best memory to memorize the important and difficult points, and ask and answer myself in my head every day. When I couldn't remember, I also broke down, smashed my pen and book on the ground, pulled my hair like crazy, and when my mood stabilized, I picked up my things and continued to learn, and the cycle continued.
I showed the perseverance I had when I learned English in the factory, and I studied without sleep or food, and there was almost no social and entertainment in my life. Gradually, I felt that my impetuous heart sank, from the beginning of reading a book irritable and cranky, I couldn't help but play with my mobile phone to brush **, and then I could read and read all day, and I still felt unfinished.
Information on the self-study exam At the end of 2021, I was 26 years old and successfully passed the ** self-examination and got my bachelor's degree certificate. Once the goal of one stage is completed, I have to think about what to do next. Recalling the surprise of hearing that I could continue my studies, I suddenly realized that what I wanted was not only my academic qualifications, but also to go back to school and go to university in the true sense of the word!
I was anxious to check the information, can self-admitted undergraduate students study full-time graduate students? After getting a positive answer, the idea of going to graduate school grew wildly in my heart. I didn't hesitate to give it a try, go to study if I was admitted, and look for a job if I didn't get in.
At the suggestion of my younger brother, I applied for a graduate degree in a second-class university in Guizhou. The postgraduate program is more in-depth and specialized, which requires not only a solid basic knowledge, but also the ability to conduct in-depth academic research in the professional field.
I threw myself into a new round of crazy study again. It is no exaggeration to say that throughout 2022, the papers of the four professional courses are almost rotted by me, and I even have to take the test papers to read the wrong questions when I go to the toilet.
In December of that year, I took the national unified postgraduate examination; In April of the following year, I passed the school re-examination; In July, I received my acceptance letter; In September, I officially enrolled in graduate school and put on the coveted "cheongsam".
Zhou Zhou was successfully admitted to graduate school.
After I decided to be admitted to graduate school, my mother accompanied me to my father's grave to announce the good news. My mother shed tears of relief, telling all the hardships along the way, I watched the paper ashes drift to the sky with the wind, and my heart was full of emotion
The dream of being abandoned at the age of 14 has finally come true after 14 years of going around and around.
Some people may say that it is useless to study, and it is still difficult to find a job after graduating from graduate school. But for me, being admitted to graduate school brought me more than just a diploma, but also valuable confidence.
Zhou Zhou entered the university classroom for the first time at the age of 28, I have been an innocent and ignorant factory girl, a foot washing girl who has been despised by others, an unqualified single mother, and a tragic marriage, and now I can return to school with my own efforts, which is a proof and a self-help. I finally got rid of the quagmire of low self-esteem and self-abandonment, and put my life on the right track, living an ordinary but hopeful life like most people.
Zhou Zhou first ate the stone pot rice in the university cafeteria to introduce myself on the first day of school, and I stood on the podium and shivered nervously. But when I said, "Hello everyone, my name is Zhou Zhou, I am 28 years old, and I am very happy to be able to study in the same class with you", I believe from the bottom of my heart that the chapter of my life will be rewritten from this moment.