我的高中語文課-講給兒子聽（圖）

兒子學校的英語課老師要我寫一個我高中時的故事。我就錄下這個故事。哈哈，新年快樂！

My high school time only lasted two years. It was from 1977 to 1979, right after the
Cultural Revolution ended in 1976. China had just restored the National College
Entrance Examination (NCEE), which made every high school student work
strenuously to learn and master the test subjects quickly. To pass the NCEE was
almost the sole objective for millions of young people to move on to better
lives of being educated in colleges and guaranteeing a good future after
graduation.

During this intense period, I had many unforgettable moments, but none compared to one
Chinese class with Mr. Shi.
 

(The above picture is from news.163.com)

Mr. Shi was in his late twenties, tall and shy. He was slightly thin and his belt seemed
not always tight enough so that he occasionally used his left forearm to nudge
up his belt while standing with an opened textbook in his right hand. When
commenting on student compositions in the class, Mr. Shi often got excited and
his shyness disappeared quickly like water seeps into dry sands. Chinese was
one of my favorite subjects, and my compositions were often chosen to be read
and commented on as good examples in front of the entire class.

It was one Chinese class on a winter day, Mr. Shi walked into the classroom with a stack
of composition notebooks. He put down all the notebooks on the table, and
announced that he would like to critique the homework from the last class. The
homework was to write about “My Days during the Spring Festival”. After making
a few general comments, he said: “I will read a few paragraphs from one of your
compositions.” He picked a composition notebook from the top of the stack. He
opened the notebook that he already marked and began to read:

“Firework smoke filled the cold air and formed silver clouds flowing above us under
bright moonlight. Stars shied away and the moon shined on buildings like
casting a thin layer of frost. It was the Chinese New Year’s Night, clear and
freezing... My friend and I ran back and forth on the crowded street, sweating
under the heavy winter coats.   After finishing our last firework,
overexcited and tired, we decided to go to a late night movie…”

Oh, My! He was reading my composition! I proudly whispered to my next seats, “Mr. Shi is
reading my work!”

After reading a few more paragraphs, Mr. Shi stopped, and he asked questions to the
class:”How was this composition, does it have a good opening?”

A few students raised hands and agreed that it was a good opening with a nice
description of the night. I smiled while listening to my fellow classmates.

“Do you notice any problem in the description?”

“Problem?” I scratched my head and could not think of any problems.

The classroom suddenly became so quiet that you could have heard a pin being
dropped.

“There was a big problem in this composition!” Mr. Shi raised his voice.

Everyone looked him with puzzled eyes.

“How many people know the lunar calendar? How is lunar calendar related to the moon?” Mr.
Shi seemed to have changed the subject.

“It takes about 28 days for the moon to circle around the earth once, which is a month.
And the lunar calendar is based on this fact.” One girl answered question.

“Excellent! When do you see the moon every day?” Mr. Shi kept asking.

“At night.” “No, I saw it during the day some days.” Mr. Shi got a few different answers. I
had no idea on the correct answer as the rest of the class.

“All right, all of your responses were partially correct. Here is the answer: In the first
day of a lunar month, the moon and the sun rise at the same time, then the moon
rises about 50 minutes later each day. On the fifteenth day of the month, the
moon rises after the sun sets.”  

Mr. Shi continued “The Chinese New Year’s Day is the first day of the first lunar
month, on that day, the moon sets before the night.” He paused, and then he
raised the composition notebook in his hands. “In this composition, the student
described ‘the bright moonlight’ in New Year’s Night in his writing, which is
incorrect and indicates this student does not have sufficient knowledge about
the nature and about the moon and lunar calendar. He made a common sense
mistake.”

I lowered my head and avoided eye contacts with Mr. Shi and those in the neighboring
seats. I felt heat on my face…

“I hope all of you to learn more, not just from the classroom but from the outside. Read
more books and learn from others, from your friends, from your parents and
grandparents. Learn from nature and observe nature and people carefully. Only
through continuous learning and careful observations, can you create ‘real’
stories.”

The last a few words struck me heavily. I did read a few more books than my classmates
did, but did I learn and observe the real world carefully? No, I did not. I
needed to work on it!

I did not remember how this class ended.

Time flies. A few years later, as a scientist working in the US, I sent Mr. Shi a Christmas
card with Santa and Rudolph under the moon. I quoted the following lyrics: “So…
to those of who do not believe in Santa, here’s the proof:  look out the
window Christmas Eve at the moonlight on your roof.” I added “NASA
scientists say the full moon will brighten the nights around this Christmas. No
lunar calendar is used here. Thank you Mr. Shi for teaching me composition!”

Mr. Shi replied with a Chinese New Year’s card picturing children setting off fireworks
under dark sky and scintillating stars…

 ?北美老農