明伢子飯後閑聊
有心靈感動時，記錄一點點感想，盡管缺乏使用文字的天賦，還是樂在其中。
我的父親去世到現在已經有三十多年了。父親非常愛我們，竭盡所能，溫暖而又充滿力量，真可謂父愛如山。我經常想起我和父親在一起的點點滴滴，他對我的教導，我年少時與他的爭吵，也常常夢見他，很多事情好像發生是不久以前，曆曆在目。
小時候，我母親經常給我講關於父親童年時的故事。父親1927年出生於湖南的一個小縣城，很小時，他的母親因病去世，不到三歲他的父親被害，他的叔叔，嬸嬸把他撫養成人。我們家所在地是紅色革命老區，三十年代打土豪，分田地運動非要恐怖。我祖父是個漆匠，也是當地紅色蘇維埃政權的小領導，他的的嶽父家比較富裕，屬於大戶人家，是共產黨打土豪＂掃地出門＂的專政對象。一天，土改隊在沒收他嶽父家的財產時，他對土改隊員說他嶽父母都是很好的人，是老實本分的地主，應該給他多留下一點東西。沒有想到，他這一求情則引發了殺身之禍，很快有人告訴他，土改隊內有人說他是叛徒要殺他，勸他到外麵去躲一躲。於是，他就到一個朋友家躲了起來。過了三天，他覺得事情可能過去了，就悄悄地回到家中。當天晚上，一個姓王的赤衛隊員帶了幾個人把他抓起來，帶到屋外，殺死在家門口的一棵大樟樹下。過了幾天，聽說這個姓王的人也被別人殺了。文革時，這件事給我父親帶來很多麻煩，他為此事走訪了許多了解此事的長輩索取證據，調查這個事件的真相，希望擺脫此事的糾纏。後來，我父親認為這是一個私下的仇殺事件，不了了之。
我父親的叔叔也是漆匠，家境不錯，自己沒有小孩。他對我父親很好，送他去上學。父親念完小學以後，就執意要跟他的一個好朋友去念了老書，而不去念中學，叔叔也管不了他。這樣，他念了一年老書，也就再也沒有上學了，他後來常提到此事，如果他當時去念了中學，上大學，可能前途就不同了。父親十五歲到附近的一家食品店當學徒，在那幹了幾年。1949年解放後，他通過考試，開始了他的會計生涯。我小時候，經常聽到父親講他參加會計培訓班的故事，他總是笑著告訴我們，他從來不做珠算作業，但是每次考試都是滿分。我念小學時也想學我的父親不做家庭作業，結果，這個方法對我不靈驗，我每次不複習，不做作業，考試成績都不好。
我父親聰明能幹，很喜歡讀書，工作能力強，他的珠算技術可以說是又快又準，在我們的縣裏也算是個名氣的老會計。小時候經常聽我母親講關於縣財政局派我父親去地區和省一級財政部門審查疑難錯帳的故事。他多次為我們縣財政局從上級財政部門找回來很多的錢。由於他的工作非常出色，二十多歲時就被提升到縣財政局農村部副科長，工資也很快升級到每月57塊。在中國五十年代的的小縣城，一個三十多歲的年輕人毎月工資57塊已經是很高了。
1958年大躍進運動席卷全國, 我們縣也開展了趕英超美，大煉鋼鐵的運動。我們家幾乎所有的鐵鍋，烤火用銅火盆，燒水壺等都被居委會拿去煉鋼鐵了。不久，政府要建農機廠，我們家祖傳的一棟有十三間房的屋子，被當地政府三天三晚給拆掉了，然後建起了工廠車間。我們家被迫搬遷到一個很小很矮的房子裏。一家六口在矮屋子住了很長一段時間。後來，又搬到老郵電局宿舍住了兩年。1962年左右，政府落實政策為一些被沒收的私人房地產平反，盡管，我們家解放前隻是一個小手工業漆匠，但縣政府認為我家太富裕不屬於平反對象。我父親對此不服氣，便寫了一個報告告狀到湖南省政府，結果省政府將我家房屋拆遷亊件判定為錯誤拆遷，推翻了縣政府的決定，並要求縣政府平反並給予賠償。1964年，我們家得到了半個車間的賠償，大約有200多平方米，相當於老房的三分之一。這樣，我們家又搬回了老屋所在位置居住，由於這房子的另外一半是鍛工車間，所有，從早到晚都是機器響聲，震耳欲聾，有時候到半夜都無法入睡。雖然我們家得到了這應有的?償，但是父親也因此得罪了他的領導，被上級認為不服從領導，驕傲自滿，他的工作也從財政局調到縣商業局，從此斷了工作上發展前途。一直到他六十歲退休時，仍然是一個副科級，工資再也從沒上漲過。由於我們家房子的所在地是城市的主要街道旁，一些單位企業單位總是打它的主意。文革時，工廠造反派多次到我們家找麻煩，操家，後來，又強行占走我們四分之一的房子。1983年，父親迫於政府的壓力，房子最終還是以27,000元廉價賣給了縣物資局。此後，我們搬到父母單位一個不到60平方米的宿舍，居住環境很差。母親對我父親處理房產之事非常生氣，一直抱怨，倆人也經常為此事爭吵。
我父親是個和藹可親很好交流的人，但對我們兄弟姐妹要求很嚴格，每天早晨五六點點鍾，天還沒有亮，他就會把我們姐弟都叫起來，安排做不同的家務事，洗碗，掃地，讀書，帶我和哥哥到河邊去挑去水。有時候，星期天我們到附近酒廠拖酒糟渣回家燒飯用，或者幫媽媽去河邊洗衣服，做幹菜等。我們長大一點以後，家裏的一些重活都是我和哥哥的負責。我母親家務很忙，平時不太管我們，我們姐弟三人都怕我爸爸，隻要他在家，我們都表現很好。晚餐後，我們總是圍坐在一張方桌旁， 在暗淡煤油燈下做作業。我小時候貪玩，不愛學習，做作業總是心不在焉，成績不好。我爸爸晚上有時外出串門，每次隻要他一出門，我也很快出去找別的小朋友玩。每當我溜出家門時，總是聽到身後傳來我姐姐很大的聲音＂明伢子又出去玩去啦＂。爸爸有時候很生氣打我們，要我們跪在地上，我姐姐和哥哥都很聽話，他們會很快的老老實實的跪下來。而我倔強，不肯跪下，即使有時跪下後，也會很快的站起來，父親氣得麵紅耳赤，打得越厲害。有時候，母親會過來求情，勸說父親不要再打我。我慢慢長大以後，有一次聽爸爸對媽媽說小孩長大了，以後再也不打了。後來，他真的不打我們了，他也很少對我們發脾氣，有時候，我們讓他不高興時，他都是耐心的與我們交流，講道理。當我和姐姐一起回憶往事時，姐姐總是笑我說＂我們小時候挨打時，爸爸要我們脆下，我們都老老實實地跪下，你就是不跪，跪下去，又站起來，所以，挨打最多＂。
小時候，父親叫我們三姐弟學珠算，姐姐和哥哥都很認真，也學得很快，珠算的加減乘除都會。我長大一點後，父親也開始教我學珠算，可我一點興趣也沒有，而且不認真，注意力不集中，不管他怎樣教我也學不好，珠算的六百六十六的簡單加法老是算錯。父親很有耐心，仍然坐在我旁邊手把手的教我，偶爾，我也能加對一兩次六百六，這時父親會非常高興的表掦我。
1966年6月毛澤東發起了文化大革命，所有的學校開始停課鬧革命，運動一個接一個，許多的人都被紅衛兵造反派抓著批鬥，戴高帽子遊街。文革剛開始時，我父親沒受到衝擊，有一天，我們縣城舉行萬人大會，會後環城遊行，有幾千個被揪鬥的人戴高帽，掛牌遊街。我們家門正對馬路，是遊行隊伍的必經之路，我們都站在門口看熱鬧。我們突然發現我父親也被揪鬥，脖子上掛了一塊很大牌子，足有三尺長，二尺高，上麵寫著很大的字＂手工業資本家，階級異極分子XXX，父親帶著高度近視眼鏡，麵無表情，一臉無奈，一邊走一邊看著我們。我們都非常驚訝，很難接受眼前所看到的一切，我們爸爸這麽好的老實人怎麽也成了壞人昵？遊行結束後，父親很快就回到家裏，我們都看他，他很氣憤地說＂娘買X的，真拐＂。姐姐一直都在傷心難過的哭，爸爸帶著苦笑問我們是否看見他掛牌遊街？並且，安慰我們這不要緊，這麽多人都被揪鬥掛牌遊街。不久後，父親被關在單位不準回家了，每天寫反省。有一天，哥哥釣到一隻很大的腳魚，母親燒了一大碗腳魚肉湯送給爸爸吃，他邊吃邊說真好吃。後來，父親就被送到離縣城很遠的五七幹校勞動改造，很少回家。他在那裏呆了三年之久，有一天，他終於被解放了，回到了原單位工作。但是，好景不長，接著，他就被勸退回家，沒有了工作。
父親回家後，就開始和我母親一起彈棉花養家糊口，後來又在街道紙箱廠做了二年會計。那時棉花機是人力的，一個腳要不停地上下踩動踏板來帶動機器，踩上20分鍾就會是滿頭大汗，是非常艱苦的勞動。我爸爸喜歡鑽研，所有彈花機的故障都是他自己維修保養，他還買了一個舊的馬達，自己設計，把彈花機改裝成電動的，並且還自己做了一個電扇安裝在機器後麵，這樣大大的減輕了我母親彈棉花勞動強度。1976文革結束以後，國家的政策又發生了變化，為很多被勸退的國家幹部平反，父親也恢複了原來的職務，被安排到鄉鎮企業局工作直到退休。
文革期間的知識青年上山下鄉是當時許多家庭的惡夢。姐姐16歲初中畢業後就下放到農村，一呆就是八年，由於父親是批鬥對象，每次有機會招工回城時，姐姐都被拒之門外，理由是我們家的政審不合格。哥哥高中畢業後，也隨之下放到當地農場，不過他運氣比較好，呆了不到三年就進了一家工廠當電工。我應該說是最幸運的，按照當時的政策，如果一家有三個孩子，兩個小孩下放農村後，第三個孩子就可以留城。因此，我高中畢業後就沒有下放到農村。那時候，許多的年輕人都沒有工作，即使想找一臨時工做都很困難，尤其是像我們這樣家庭政審不能過關的子女。所以，我每天無所事事，到處玩，打藍球，遊泳，有時候參加訓練比賽，偶爾幫助媽媽彈棉花。我在家裏閑著 也是父親很頭疼的一件事情，他希望我以後能自食其力，想找關係讓我去學木模工，結果也沒有找到師傅帶。他總是耐心的勸我不要總把時間浪費在玩上麵，要學好數理化，特別是數學和英語，他常說有了英語，你以後可以到國外去留學，學習計算機。父親的話對我來就是耳邊風，好像天方夜譚。什麽是計算機，我連聽都沒有聽說過。不管父親怎麽講，我還是照樣每天玩。有時候，父親把我講煩了，我就對他說我連一個工作都找不到，怎麽可能去留學呢？學英語有什麽用？這時父親總是說你以看吧，到底要不要有知識。
1976毛澤東去世，中國結束了10年文化大革命浩劫，第二年七月宣布恢複大學招生高考製度。我去找朋友們玩時，他們都對我說不去玩了，要複習功課，準備參加高考。過了一段時間，我也有了去參加高考的想法，但是，我真是一點信心都沒有。因為，我從念小學到高中，從來沒有認真學習過，每天都是政治學習，搞勞動，挖防空洞，況且，高中畢業已經有四年多，學校教的那點點數理化也忘得差不多了。不過，我最終還是決定去碰碰運氣。父親聽到我要參加高考，非常高興，他到處為我找複習題目，那時候，沒有複印機，所以的材料都要手抄寫，他花了大量的時間，有時抄寫複習資料一直到深夜。記得我和朋友去教委填寫報考學校誌願時，剛要出門，我父親把我叫住了，他對我說你的體育很好，你報考體育學院，你會考取的。我本來並沒有這個想法，但經過父親這一提醒，覺得也很好，我就填報了體育誌願。我認真準備了兩個多月，每天學習十幾個小時，父親感歎地說＂從來沒有看見過這個伢子這麽認真讀過書＂。1977年的高考於10月份舉行，那年我們縣有300多人參加體育專業考試，我是唯一的被錄取的體育本科生。其實，那年我的高考成績並不好，剛剛過線，如果沒有父親的建議報考體育學院，我肯定考不取大學，也可能一輩子與大學擦肩而過。而且，那年高考的錄取率特別低，全國僅為4.7%。同一年，哥哥也被錄取到一所頂尖的軍事院校，而且，我們念書的兩個大學都在同一個城市，大學四年也使我和哥哥有了更多交流和了解。這一年我父母親特別開心，兩個兒子進大學，姐姐結婚。
我上大學後，父親每個星期都要給我寫信交流。1986年到1989大學校園有很多的學生運動，父親總是在信中囑咐我不要去參加政治運動，我也非常理解他的擔心，中國的政治運動對於許多人來說就是大禍臨頭，令人生畏。我們讀大學期間，盡管家裏經濟並不太好，但父母還盡全力支持我們，每月提供我們學習所需的基本費用。1985年在我讀研究生的時候，父母還資助我買了一台錄音機用於學習英語。後來，我每天都使用這台錄音機聽美國之音，進行聽力和口語訓練，一直用到我來美國前。
我父親一生保持著愛學習，好鑽研的好習慣，他還發展了一套獨特珠算乘除運算方法，他告訴我他的珠算乘除運算口訣比常規運算簡單，更容易學習。退休前幾年，他還花了很多時間研究陳景潤的哥得巴赫猜想，把他的研究文章送到北京數學研究雜誌，當然是沒有什結果。出於好奇，我把我父親的名字Google一下，還真可以找到他1959年發表在巜財政半月刊 》，1989年發表在《農村財務會計》雜誌上的文章。父親一生也非常節儉，自己從來舍不得給自己買東西，他常常告訴我們要艱苦樸素。他年輕時也喜歡抽煙，喝酒。有時候，朋友幫他從郴州買了好煙葉的時候，他告訴我和哥哥用一個木製小卷煙機幫他自製香煙。但是，父親從來不準我們小孩子抽煙，喝酒，打牌，下棋，他說做這些事情對身體不好，也浪費時間。所有，我們三姐弟都沒這些愛好。父親到四十歲左右，醫生建議他把抽煙和喝酒都戒掉了，他很有自製力，說戒就戒掉了。
父親退休後身就開始不好了，得了不治之症，經常住醫院，被病魔糾纏了三四年，非常痛苦。有一天，我接到姐夫的電話，他告訴我父親不行了，要我立刻回家。我到醫院時已經是下午五點多了，看到父親躺在床上，鼻子裏帶著氧氣管，非常虛弱。過了一會兒，他看到我，輕輕地叫我。我趕忙靠近他說，爸爸，你有什麽事情要告訴我嗎？他搖了搖頭。不久，我發現他好像不行了，我趕緊用手臂扶著他的頭，母親忙跑去叫醫生，醫生進來時，父親已經安祥地離開了，享年六十四歲。
父親去世二年以後，1993年我塔上了赴美的航班，開始了我的美國夢。當時，正趕上美國的計算機革命，我奮鬥了幾年，完成計算機研究生學位後，很快就找到軟件工程師工作，到現在已經整整幹了二十多年。回想自己走過的旅程，非常感概父親眼光的獨到之處，他對我寄予的希望＂學英語，去留學，做計算機工作＂，這個期望競然在我二十年以後完全的應驗了。我經常給太太和我的小孩分享這些奇妙的故事，我真是太幸運了，更是感謝父母親的恩典和父親的教導。爸爸，我愛你！
Father's Day 2022: Remembering my father
As a child, my mother often told me stories about my father's childhood. His father was born in a small county in Hunan in 1927. When he was very young, his mother died of illness. His father was killed when he was less than three years old, and his uncle and aunt raised him. Our home was in an old red revolutionary area of CCP. In the 1930s, the “Beat the local despots and redistribute the land" movement had to be terrifying. My grandfather was a lacquer and was also a small leader of the local Red Soviet Regime. His father-in-law's family was relatively wealthy and belonged to a large family. One day, when the land reform team confiscated the property of his father-in-law's house, he told the land reform team that his parents-in-law were very good people, honest landlords, and he should leave something more for him. Unexpectedly, his plea would lead to murder, and someone soon told him that someone in the land reform team said he was a traitor and wanted to kill him, and persuaded him to hide outside. So, he went to hide at a friend's house. After three days, he felt that the matter might be over, and went back home quietly. That night, a Red Guard member surnamed Wang brought a few people to arrest him, took him outside, and killed him under a big camphor tree in front of the house. A few days later, I heard that this man surnamed Wang was also killed by others. During the Cultural Revolution, this incident brought a lot of trouble to my father. He visited many elders who knew about this incident to ask for evidence, investigated the truth of this incident, and hoped to get rid of the entanglement of this incident. Later, my father thought it was a private vendetta and let it go.
My father's uncle was also a lacquer maker; his family was well off and he had no children of his own. He was nice to my father and sent him to school. After my father finished primary school, he insisted on studying traditional old books with a good friend of his, instead of going to middle school, and his uncle could not control him. In this way, he studied for a year and never went to school again. He often mentioned this matter later, if he had gone to middle school or university at that time, his future might have been different. At the age of fifteen, my father apprenticed to a nearby food store and worked there for a few years. After liberation in 1949, he passed the exam and started his accounting career. When I was a child, I often heard my father tell the story of his taking an accounting training class. He always told us with a smile that he never did abacus homework, but every time he took the exam, he got full marks. When I was in elementary school, I also wanted to learn from my father not to do homework. Thus, this method didn't work for me. Every time I didn't review, I didn't do my homework, and I didn't do well in exams.
My father is smart and capable. He likes reading very much. He has strong working ability. His abacus skills can be said to be fast and accurate. He is also a famous senior accountant in our county. When I was a child, I often heard stories from my mother about the county finance bureau sending my father to the regional and provincial finance departments to review difficult accounts. He has retrieved a lot of money from the higher-level financial department for our county finance bureau many times. Because of his excellent work, he was promoted to the deputy section chief of the rural department of the county finance bureau when he was in his twenties, and his salary was quickly upgraded to 57 yuan per month. In a small county town in the 1950s, a young man in his thirties earned a monthly salary of 57 yuan, which was already very high.
In 1958, the Great Leap Forward movement swept across the country, and our county also launched a campaign to catch up with the United Kingdom than the United States, and smelt steel. Almost all the iron pots, copper braziers and kettles in our house had been used by the neighborhood committee to make steel. Soon, the government was going to build an agricultural machinery factory. Our ancestral house with thirteen rooms was demolished by the local government in three days and three nights, and then a factory workshop was built. Our family was forced to move to a very small and short house, and the family of six lived in the short and small house for a long time. Later, we moved to the dormitory of the old post and telecommunications bureau for two years. Around 1962, the government implemented a policy to compensate for some confiscated private real estate. Although our family was only a small handicraft painter before 1949 liberation, the county government believed that my family was too wealthy to be compensated. My father was not convinced by this, so he wrote a report to the Hunan provincial government. Thus, the provincial government judged my house demolition as wrongful demolition, overturned the decision of the county government, and asked the county government to vindicate and pay compensation. In 1964, our family received compensation for half the workshop, which was about more than 200 square meters, which was equivalent to one-third of the old house. In this way, our family moved back to the place where the old house was. Since the other half of the house was a forge workshop, all the machine sounds were deafening from morning to night, and sometimes we couldn't sleep until midnight. Although our family got this due compensation, my father also offended his leadership because of this. He was considered by his superiors to be disobedient to the leadership and complacent. His job was also transferred from the Finance Bureau to the County Commercial Bureau, and he had since stopped be promoted in working. Until he retired at the age of sixty, he was still at the sub-department level, and his salary never rose again. Since the location of our house was next to the main street of the city, some units of business units always hit the idea of ??it. During the Cultural Revolution, the factory rebels came to our house many times to make trouble and mess with the house. Later, they forcibly occupied a quarter of our house. In 1983, under pressure from the government, my father finally sold the house to the County Materials Bureau at a low price of 27,000 yuan. After that, we moved to a dormitory of less than 60 square meters in my father’s company, and the living environment was very poor. My mother was very angry at my father's handling of the property, complaining all the time, and the two often argued about it.
My father was an amiable and easy-to-communicate person, but he was very strict with our brothers and sisters. Every morning at five or six o’clock, before the sun rises, he would wake up our brothers and sisters and arrange for different housework, washing up, etc. Bowl, swept the floor, read, took my brother and I to the river to fetch water. Sometimes, on Sundays, we were to a nearby winery to drag the lees of the lees home for cooking, or help my mother go to the river to do laundry and made dry vegetables. When we grew up a little, my brother and I were responsible for some of the heavy work at home. My mother was very busy with housework and usually didn't care about us. The three of us were afraid of my father. As long as he was at home, we all behaved very well. After dinner, we always sat around a square table and did our homework under dim kerosene lamps. When I was a kid, I was playful and didn't like to study. My dad sometimes goes out at night, and every time he goes out, I also went out to play with other children. Whenever I sneaked out of the house, I always heard my sister's loud voice behind me, "Ming-Ya-Zi is out to play again". Dad sometimes got angry and beat us and asked us to kneel on the ground. My sister and brother were very obedient and they would kneel down very quickly. But I was stubborn and refused to kneel down. Even after kneeling sometimes, I would stand up quickly. My father was so angry that his face was red, and the more he beat me. Sometimes my mother would come to intercede and persuade my father not to beat me again. After I grew up, I once heard my father told my mother that the children already grew up, he would never beat them again. Later, he stopped hitting us, and he rarely lost his temper with us. Sometimes, when we upset him, he communicated with us patiently and reasoned with us. When my sister and I reminisced about the past, my sister always laughed at me and said, "When we were beaten when we were young, our father asked us to kneel down, and we all knelt down quickly. You just didn't kneel. You kneel down, and stand up again, so you were beaten. most".
When we were young, my father asked our three sisters and brothers to learn abacus. My sister and brother were very serious and learned very quickly. They could add, subtract, multiply and divide abacus. When I was a little older, my father also began to teach me to learn abacus, but I had no interest at all, and I was not serious and focused, no matter how he taught me, I could not learn well. I always made mistakes and miscalculate the wrong number. My father was very patient and still sit next to me and taught me hand in hand. Occasionally, I could add six hundred and six correctly once or twice. My father would be very happy and say you did good job.
In June 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, and all schools began to close classes to start the revolution. Movement after movement, many people were arrested and criticized by the Red Guard rebels, wearing high hats and parading through the streets. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, my father was not affected. One day, a meeting of 10,000 people was held in our county seat. After the meeting, there was a parade around the city. Our house was facing the road, which was the only way for the parade. We all stood at the door to watch the excitement. We suddenly found out that my father was also grabbed, with a big sign hanging around his neck, three feet long and two feet high, with the words "Handicraft Capitalist, Class Heteropolar Li Qixaing". My father, with high myopia glasses, expressionless and helpless, he looked at us as we walked. We were all very surprised and had a hard time accepting what we saw. How could a good and honest man like our father suddenly become a bad guy? After the parade, Father soon returned home, we all looked at him, he said angrily, "fucking, these guys really bad". My sister has been crying sadly, and my father asked us with a helpless smile if we saw him on the street? He comforted us that it didn't matter, so many people were paraded through the streets. Soon after, my father was locked up in the unit and was not allowed to go home. He wrote reflections every day. One day, my brother fished a big Chinese soft shell turtle, and my mother cooked a big bowl of turtle fish soup for my father. He said it was delicious. Later, my father was sent to the May-Seventh-Cadre-School far away from the county seat for labor reform, and he seldom returned home. He stayed there for three years. After a long period of years, one day, he was finally released and returned to work in his original unit. However, the good times did not last long, and then he was persuaded to return home without a job.
After my father returned home, he and my mother started bouncing cotton to support the family, and then worked as an accountant in a street carton factory for two years. At that time, the cotton machine was manpower, and one foot had to constantly move the pedal up and down to drive the machine. If you step on it for 20 minutes, you will be sweating profusely, which was very hard work. My dad liked to study. All the faults of the flower machine were repaired and maintained by himself. He also bought an old motor, designed it by himself, converted the bounce cotton machine into an electric one, and made a fan to install behind the machine. This greatly reduced the labor intensity of my mother bouncing cotton. After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the country's policy changed again. Many state cadres who had been dismissed were rehabilitated. My father also resumed his original position and was assigned to work in the Township and Township Enterprise Bureau until his retirement.
During the Cultural Revolution, the movement of Intellectual Youth go to the Mountains and the Countryside was a nightmare for many families at that time. My sister was sent to the countryside after graduating from junior high school at the age of 16. She stayed the countryside for eight years. Because our father was the target of criticism, every time she had the opportunity to recruit workers and returned to the city, she was turned away. The reason was that our family had failed the political review of government. My brother was also sent to a local farm after he graduated from high school, but he was lucky, and after staying for less than three years, he joined a factory as an electrician. I should say that it was the luckiest. Per the policy at the time, if a family had three children, after two children were sent to the countryside, the third child could stay in the city. Therefore, after I graduated from high school at 16 years old, I was not sent to the countryside. At that time, many young people were unemployed, and even it was very difficult to find a temporary job, especially children like us who could not pass the family political review. So, I did nothing every day, playing around, playing basketball, swimming, sometimes participating in training games, and occasionally helping my mother bouncing cotton. I was idle at home, which was also a headache for my father. He hoped that I would be able to support myself in the future. He always patiently persuaded me not to waste time on playing, but to learn mathematics, physics and chemistry, especially mathematics and English. He often said to me that with English, you could study abroad and learn computer science. My father's words was like an ear wind. What was a computer, I had never even heard of it. No matter what my father said, I still played every day. Sometimes, when my father was annoying me, I told him that I couldn't even find a job, so how could I go to study abroad? What was the use of learning English? At this time, my father always said that you would see, whether you need to have knowledge or not in the future.
Mao Zedong died in 1976, and China ended the catastrophe of the 10-year Cultural Revolution. In July of the following year, it announced the restoration of the college entrance examination system for college admissions. When I went to invite my friends to play, they all told me that they couldn't go to play, but to review and prepare for the college entrance examination. After a while, I also had the idea of taking the college entrance examination, but I really had no confidence at all. Because, from elementary school to high school, I had never studied seriously. Every day was political study, doing labor, and digging air-raid shelters. Besides, it had been more than four years since I graduated from high school, and I had almost forgotten the little bit of physics and chemistry taught in school. However, I finally decided to try my luck. My father was very happy to hear that I was going to take the college entrance examination. He looked for review material questions for me everywhere. At that time, there was no copier, so all the materials had to be written down by hand. He spent a lot of time, sometimes copying the review materials until late at night. I remember when my friend and I went to the Education Commission to fill out the school application, and just about to go out, my father stopped me, he told me that your sports are very good, if you apply for the sports academy, you would be admitted. I didn't have the idea of studying PE at first, but after my father's reminder, I felt that it was also very good, so I filled in the PE volunteer. I prepared carefully for more than two months and studied for more than ten hours a day. My father sighed and said, "I have never seen this child read books so seriously." In 1977, the college entrance examination was held in October. That year, more than 300 people in our county took the physical education professional examination. I was the only sports undergraduate student admitted. In fact, my grades in the college entrance examination that year were not good. I just passed the test. If I didn't apply for the sports college with my father's suggestion, I would definitely not be able to get into the university, and I might miss the university for the rest of my life. Moreover, the admission rate for the college entrance examination that year was particularly low, only 4.7% nationwide. In the same year, my brother was also admitted to a top military academy. Moreover, the two universities we studied in were in the same city. The four years of university also enabled my brother and I to have more communication and understanding. My parents were very happy this year. Two sons went to college and my sister got married.
After I went to college, my father wrote to me every week to communicate. From 1986 to 1989, there were many student movements on college campuses. My father always told me not to participate in political movements in his letters. I understand his worries very well. Political movements in China were a disaster for many people, which were life-threatening and frightening. During our college years, although the family's finances were not very good, our parents did their best to support us and provided us with the basic expenses for our study every month. When I was a graduate student in 1985, my parents also sponsored me to buy a tape recorder for learning English. Later, I used this recorder to listen to the Voice of America every day for listening and speaking training until I came to the United States.
My father maintained the good habit of loving learning and studying hard all his life. He also developed a unique abacus multiplication and division method. He told me that his abacus multiplication and division formulas were simpler and easier to learn than regular operations. A few years before his retirement, he also spent a lot of time studying Chen, Jingrun's famous Goldbach conjecture, and sent his research articles to the Beijing Mathematical Research Journal, of course, to no avail. Out of curiosity, I googled my father's name, and I could still find his article published in the 1959 Financial Biweekly and 1989 in the "Rural Financial Accounting" magazine. My father was very frugal all his life, and he was never willing to buy things for himself. He often told us to be hard and simple. He also liked to smoke and drink when he was young. Sometimes, when a friend helped him buy good tobacco leaves from Chenzhou, Hunan, he told my brother and I to help him make cigarettes with a small wooden cigarette maker. However, my father never allowed our children to smoke, drink, play cards, and play chess. He said that doing these things is not good for health and wastes time. All, our three siblings do not have these hobbies. When my father was about forty years old, the doctor advised him to quit smoking and drinking. He was very self-controlled and quit when he said quit.
After my father retired, his health began to deteriorate. He suffered from an incurable disease and was often hospitalized. He was entangled by the disease for three or four years, which was very painful. One day, I received a call from my brother-in-law, who told my father that he was dying and wanted me to go home immediately. When I arrived at the hospital, it was past five in the afternoon and I saw my father lying on the bed with an oxygen tube in his nose, very weak. After a while, he saw me and called me softly. I hurriedly approached him and said, Dad, do you have anything to tell me? He shook his head. Soon, I found that he seemed to be dying. I quickly hold his head in my arm, and my mother rushed to call the doctor. When the doctor came in, my father had left peacefully and was sixty-four years old.
Two years after my father's death, in 1993, I got on a flight to the United States and started my American dream. At that time, I was catching up with the computer revolution in the United States. I studied hard for a few years. After completing my graduate degree in computer science, I quickly found a job as a software engineer. I have been working for more than 20 years now. Looking back on the journey I have traveled; I am very impressed with the uniqueness of my father's vision. His hope for me "to learn English, to study abroad, and to do computer work" has completely come true 20 years later. I often share these wonderful stories with my wife and my children. I am so lucky and very grateful for the grace of my parents and the teachings of my father. Dad, I love you!
