English Speaking -- An Echo Only from Commitment
—— The Experience of Learning and Practicing Spoken English
by a Laosanjie Graduate (English Version)
《英语口语--一个只面对执着的回音》英文本连载2:
PART ONE
From the "Pig-sty" English to “Foreign Teacher’s Class”
At about the end of 1968, I graduated from Fudan University Affiliated High school and settled at the Luodian People’s Commune in Baoshan County, a farthest northern area of Shanghai. After two years “Fighting against the Sky and Struggling with the Earth”, I was "selected" as a swineherd by villagers to raise all sows and pigs which were possessed by the collective.
In those years, such saying as "Going to school is useless", "Learning English is nothing" were widely believed and spread in the society. English, as “Garbage of Feudalism, Capitalism and Revisionism" had been swept into junkyard. And English study had been abolished from all primary and secondary education in the country. But in my mind, it had never been given up. From the "old paper heap" at home I dug out some English books and took them to the countryside. Whenever there was spare time after feeding the pigs, I’d like to sit by the pig shed, reading English books while squawking of the animals could be heard up and down all around. But I didn't realize that this would have brought me big trouble later on.
One day, the cadres from brigade headed by the Party Branch Secretary came to my village for a “site production examination”. When passing by my pig shed, the party head happened to see I was bowing in reading something, so he came up and asked: "what are you looking at?" Since nowhere to cover it up, I showed my English book to him and said: "I am reviewing English."
He suddenly dragged the book to his front with face falling down. "What? English?! How could you dare to exercise such Feng-Zi-Xiu while receiving re-education in countryside?" Saying this, he angrily threw the book to the ground and went away. I knew something was going to happen.
Sure enough, after a few days at the “all brigade members’ meeting”, the party head made a harsh comment on this occasion: "now, in our brigade, we’ve found some individual intellectual youth failed to take the re-education, in missing the Feng-Zi-Xiu, still read English books while working. How come! This is serious and can’t be tolerated. The village leaders concerned must take measures to fix it …”
However, I was not scared but kept on reviewing my “foreign garbage” under the table. My fellow villagers also felt sympathy with me, ignoring the party head’s threatening. Three years later, they further elected me as the Political Chief of the village production team, so that a "swineherd" turned to be a "village official". Two years later, my performance was finally recognized by the brigade, and I was transferred to the Shanghai Normal University (now as the East China Normal University) for teacher’s training, that laying a foundation for my entering the university two years after.
(to be continued)
