Buds and lads

By LIANG XIAOSHENG

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Buds and lads

By LIANG XIAOSHENG

W HEN the boy entered Grade Six, his teacher repeatedly advised his mother: “Be prepared, your son’s chances of going to a middle school, even a mediocre one, are slim.”

Other children in his class had the same opinion. They kept their distance from him, and called him “truant.”

Yes, he played hooky, regularly. The reasons were legion, but poverty predominated. His family could not afford the tuition and fees – or even a new schoolbag. He still lugged the same backpack since starting school five years earlier. It was now too small for him and, like his clothes, tattered and patched. This made him feel ashamed, and hypersensitive. Too often nobody meant to hurt him, but he took offense at certain remarks anyway, or even at a mere gesture or glance.

More than once, his mom chided him: “We’re obviously poor, but still you won’t swallow your pride. If I’d known that you’d never be happy, I wouldn’t have brought you into this world.”

One day the teacher announced in class: “Surprisingly, one of your classmates wrote of his envy of others wearing new shoes. What kind of mentality do you think this reveals?”

The class slipped into silence, and the boy’s head drooped as he stared at the toes poking out of his smudged shoes. His vision quickly blurred.

Mom’s words made him feel guilty, and the teacher’s resentful. He thought the only way to atone for his sins with his mom was to kill himself. And he hated his teacher, classmates, and the school as a whole.

He was gazing at the school from afar one day, in a daze, when a young couple on their honeymoon strolled by.

“Hey, that boy looks like one of the kids at my school,” said the husband. Before he could flee from them, however, the man had grabbed his arm. He knew the man: Mr. Liu, a counselor with the school’s Young Pioneers. Liu had founded the student journalists’association of which the boy had once been a member.

Liu introduced the boy to his wife in a solemn manner, saying: “I, on behalf of my wife as well, invite you to join us for a walk in the park. Well, will you grant your teacher this honor?”

He shook his head, tried to break away, then, before he knew it, nodded.

His compliance was rewarded with a cream popsicle. Though Liu bought one for himself and his wife, too, the boy preferred to construe it as a reward.

The three of them took seats by an ivy-covered fence in the park, pecking at their cream popsicles. Amid green leaves densely aligned in the manner of fish scales were scattered gleeful blooms of morning glory.

“You wrote a couple of nice reports as a journalist,” Liu said. It had been a long time since the boy had heard any commendation. Fighting back tears, he lowered his head.

After he finished the cream popsicle, he was told: “Teacher would like to know exactly what the buds of morning glory look like. Could you take a closer look for me?”

Though perplexed, he submitted to this command. When he returned from his observation minutes later, he told his teacher the buds were still tightly bound up and would have to unwind first in order to flower.

Liu grinned in approval. He went on to explain that this tight compaction was actually a form of self-protection, as a flower only opens once in its life. He said that the more petals a flower has, the bigger and more tightly packed the bud is. When it blooms, the petals unfurl layer by layer, giving the impression of doing so gingerly. Compared with the one chance flowers have, we humans are luckier. We have many opportunities to start over. If we fail in initial attempts, success can still crown our efforts as long as we don’t give up.

Liu recounted to the boy that he was from a poor farming family, had dropped out before finishing primary school, and made it to high school through self-study while taking care of the family’s pigs.

This was a lecture, the boy knew, but he felt no strong aversion. It was a kind he had never heard before.

Liu then changed the subject, talking about composition, saying he was to teach a writing class the following Monday. In a whisper, the boy confided his plan of not going to school anymore.

“Could you go for just one more day, for me? You can take a break tomorrow and work on a piece about the morning glory. If your parents ask you why you’re at home, tell them you have to do an assignment from the teacher.”

“No, you cannot do this,” Liu’s wife demurred. “Yes, I can,”he replied. “I will be present at the third class on Monday, and hope you can hand it in before the second class. I need it to do my analysis and review.”

How could a student reject such an earnest request from a teacher? He could find no reason to say no. The boy had never been so serious about an essay before. When Monday arrived, he summoned his courage, headed for the school, and handed in his assignment before the start of the first class.

He gave the piece the poetic title “Buds and Lads.” The flower of the lad’s life had gone through several openings, he wrote –the first cry at birth, the first babbling as a toddler, the first day at school, the completion of every school year, and the receipt of his first award...

Every bud dreams of opening and every child has his/ her pride and yearning for honor, he continued. If a child tumbles like a bud struggling to blossom, heap praise upon him/her; this is the water and sunshine needed for a child’s growth.

When Liu read these lines aloud in front of the class, the classroom sank into silence.

Months later, the boy went on to middle school. Years later he entered university. Years later he became a professor of classical literature. He is a friend of mine, a suave, generous guy.

Teacher Liu was his Anton Makarenko.

LIANG XIAOSHENG is a renowned contemporary writer and play wright. His works include, inter alia, A Snowstorm Is Coming Tonight and Confessions of a Red Guard.