Author：Yuanxiu Wang (Yulin Mei's daughter)

( The article was chosen from the author's first book written in 2014 when she was studying at Lux Middle School in the USA as a 12-year-old sixth grader )

Chapter II: Happy and Sad School Life

In 1949, the War in Xiuqin’s hometown ended. After a few years, she went to school. Many happy and sad things happened in her school days.

In the year of 1952, Xiuqin reached school age. One day, Tuanshan Elementary School sent her family a letter to inform her of going to school, but she didn’t want to go. She wanted to continue playing with her friends at home day after day. She wanted everything to be the same as before.

The first day of school finally came. “No! No! I don’t want to go to school!” Xiuqin screamed and shouted. She covered her head with a blanket, crawling in bed. Her father yelled at her angrily and threw the blanket on the ground. Xiuqin was scared and had to go to school.

There were about 30 students in Xiuqin's class. Because she was the smallest and youngest, she was usually bullied by others. She was unhappy and tried to find a way to make them go away. One day, several boys were bullying her again. She immediately went to tell her elder sister in the higher grade. Her sister stood up for her, and the boys ran away as fast as they could. Since that time, her classmates stopped bullying her.

 Over time, Xiuqin got used to the school life. When Xiuqin was a second grader, not so long after the new semester began, a river in her hometown was beginning to overflow. So, her schoolmates, her teachers and she all took part in building a dam to protect the people. Everybody grabbed a shovel, and began digging, laying piles of soil on top of the ground. Xiuqin did a lot of work. When the dam was completed, she felt the success from saving her city from a flood.

Xiuqin's favorite teacher was a math teacher, Mr. Sheng. Mr. Sheng was born in a very wealthy family owning lots of land, so the school didn’t like him. At that time, very few people were wealthy in China and most of the poor people didn’t like wealthy people. Xiuqin liked him because he was nice to the students, and his classes were interesting and fun. Xiuqin's least favorite teacher was Mrs. Jiang, a music teacher. Mrs. Jiang was mean to students. Later, it was turned out that she was an agent from Taiwan. She stayed here to spy on people to find out top secrets.

Xiuqin's favorite subject was Math. When she graduated from the elementary school, she got 98% in the final math test. Her least favorite was Russian. That time, the 2nd language of China wasn’t English but Russian. Now, Xiuqin can barely speak Russian anymore.

Time flied. In 1957, Xiuqin graduated from Tuanshan Elementary School and went to the 4th Middle School, which was one of the best middle schools in Changchun. At that time, students had to get a high score to go to a good middle school.

        In a sports meeting of her middle school, Xiuqin attended a running race. As the whistle blew, she and other athletes started running. She was sure that she was going to win. Her legs carried her as fast as they could. The breeze blew her hair up into the air. She smiled, running as fast as the wind. But, things did not go so well as she thought. Unfortunately, she wandered off, into an inner lane. She didn’t notice, and kept on running. The crowd did, but nobody told her. When she got to the end, she realized she was the 1st person to pass the finishing line! She was so excited because she thought she was going to get the 1st prize-- a pen that she always wanted. However, suddenly, she heard the coaches and the teachers yelling, “You got into the wrong lane!” Her mind was questioning her: “What? I did that? How could it be ...... ”  But, the truth was the truth. Finally, Xiuqin got the 2nd prize, and the 2nd person who got finished won the 1st prize. Although she got a notebook for the 2nd prize instead of the pretty pen, she was still very happy. Xiuqin was good at running, but now her leg bones are having some problems. Whenever she walked too much, her legs hurt very badly.

During that times, school life was tough, and there were many sad and hard problems.There were no pens like today. Every school day, Xiuqin had to bring an ink bottle with her. Before writing, she had to wet the tip of the pen with ink. When the weather became very cold, the ink inside the bottle would freeze on the way to school, so in order to use the pen at school, she warmed the ink with her tiny cold hands as soon as she got to school. After the ink ice melted, her hands had became frozen and she almost couldn’t feel them anymore.

In 1960, Xiuqin went to EconomyJunior College, and she liked math and wanted to be an accountant. The picture was taken in 2014 in Princeton.