What do I get from my family

In 1959, when I was seven years old, I entered Beijing No.1 Experimental Primary School. The elementary school is located near the Gate of Peace, and its classrooms are antique two-story wooden buildings with cloisters, painted with mottled dark red paint.

The entrance exam seemed easy back then. I remember taking the Hanyu Pinyin test. The teacher wrote a big "A" on the blackboard. Just recognize it. I don't remember what else was on the test.

I have always been a good student and a good girl. I have never had any difficulty in my studies. Maybe it's genetic -- my dad was always number one in school when he was a kid. His grandfather died when he was four, and his uncle supported him. Grandfather's home is a poor farmer, uncle for him to go to school actually does not let his own son go to school. One is because my father really read well, is a study "material", one is also uncle heart is too good. As soon as my father came to Beijing after liberation, he took my uncle from his hometown and provided for him until he died. The old saying that a brother is a father is true to my uncle. The esteem in which he is held by his father is well deserved.

There is also evidence that my brothers and sisters and their children are exceptional. The elder sister and the elder sister all went to Harbin military industry (in fact, they could have gone to Qing Hua, but all the young people in their time wanted to devote themselves to the national defense industry and join the military directly); The second sister participated in the middle school mathematics competition on behalf of the winners speech, published in the newspaper; Brother middle school gold medal, it must be all 5 points, there is a 4 points are not; My brother's daughter went to Tsinghua University at the age of 14, and was admitted to Duke University in the United States at the age of 18. She was already a teacher at Hopkins University at a young age. My sister's son is also an excellent student in the experimental middle school, the school should recommend him to Tsinghua, he was too professional, he went to the Tsinghua computer department.

I had never taken a formal exam in my life, so I had no idea what my level was. It felt as if my intellectual limits had never really been challenged, as if anything was unlearnable. Our primary school is affiliated to the Normal University, so sometimes there will be experimental tests from Beijing Normal University. Once, the whole class to participate in an arithmetic test, with the usual class test is not the same: this paper design of a particularly large number of questions, is simply not done, but we can do how much to do how much. I didn't feel good when I handed it in, because I didn't finish it, the first time I didn't finish it. After a few days, I had forgotten about the test, but suddenly I was awarded a pencil from the normal university in front of the whole class, saying that I was the first and only winner of the test. My vanity received an unexpected satisfaction.

It is worth mentioning that we are growing up in an age when birth is becoming more and more important. Around the fifth grade, the children in our choir had to sing accompaniment to the big musical epic "The East is Red". But a very good singer and beautiful girl in the choir was not selected to participate in the performance, everyone commented, it was said that she "came from a bad family". From then on, we had the concept of "family origin," which was a mysterious concept for us teenagers. It was then that we came into contact with the cruelty and injustice of society, which left its first shadow in our young minds.

This is the first time my writing has ever been put into type. Still remember that the end of the article in the youth annual report drew a little boy, may be my name to make people difficult to distinguish between men and women. As a result, a lot of children wrote to me. A little boy wrote to say: I want a table tennis racket, can you send me one? Of course, I didn't answer the letter, but I was happy for a long time. Later, I was summoned by the local education bureau for this composition. When one of the teachers asked what my parents did, I replied, "They work for the People's Daily." No wonder, she replied. This surprised me at the time, and I thought a lot about it. I didn't understand how my writing had anything to do with my parents' work, because they never paid attention to or helped me with my writing. Only when I grew up did I understand the logical relationship between the two -- my parents' work was related to writing.