Mr. The day of enlightenment in primary school. I can’t remember exactly how we met, but what left a deep impression on me was the teacher’s fingernails. The nails were about one centimeter long, trimmed very roundly, clean and shiny. The first time I saw long nails, I was very surprised. But after I got used to it, it seemed very natural. I even thought that our teachers should have long nails.
When it comes to long nails, don’t think that the teacher is a woman. Our teacher is a man. He is about fifty years old, with a stylish moustache on his chin, a pair of copper-rimmed glasses on his nose, and a gray tunic suit. If you replace your Mao suit with a long shirt, you will be just like the teacher in the old drama.
I was definitely very curious when I was a child. Ever since I saw the teacher's long nails, I have always paid attention to how the teacher does things with the hands with long nails, and I soon made a small discovery. For example, there will be many fine scratches on the chalk used by the teacher, and the teacher will flip through the textbook very quickly with his long fingernails. However, almost every page of the textbook he has used will leave many scratches in roughly the same place. ...
The school building of our primary school was the private residence of a wealthy family named Zhu in the town before liberation. The main room in the middle of the house is our activity place after class; the side rooms on both sides have been converted into classrooms; and the main room behind the main room is the teacher's accommodation and office. Apart from the simple blackboard, desks, and chairs in the classroom, the school has almost no other facilities.
It was under the difficult conditions that year that I further discovered that the teacher’s hands with long nails were really magical. There was no sports equipment, so he would wrap a ball of scrap newspapers in coarse cloth and sew it on with needle and thread. This became a small cloth ball that the male classmates fought for and passed around. They also use rooster feathers, big buttons and small pieces of cloth to make beautiful feather shuttlecocks. The female classmates were kicking shuttlecocks and chirping like a group of happy little chicks. When the weather is nice, he will take us to the grassland by the river near the school, use his homemade props to dress up the students as various characters or animals in the Chinese text, and let everyone perform the plots and scenes described in the text. The students had a great time every time.
Thinking about it now, although there was a lack of material and poor conditions at that time, following the teacher, I didn’t feel bitter at all. On the contrary, I felt very happy.
Unconsciously, I was in the third grade. From that time on, I vaguely felt that the atmosphere of the school had changed. There were often some high school students wearing red armbands who would come to our elementary school for meetings. We didn't quite understand what was said at the meeting.
One day after the meeting, the teacher took us back to the classroom. I saw him take out a piece of big red paper, cut out some long strips of paper very skillfully, and then asked two classmates to help, paste the strips on the wall of the classroom to form a large square frame, and then put the paper on the big frame. A piece of paper with the words "Criticism Column" written on it was pasted directly above.
After finishing these tasks, the teacher told us solemnly that we are now assigning an assignment to the students. If you have any opinions on the teacher, just write them down and post them directly without giving them to the teacher. Go to the criticism column.
The students were all stunned and couldn’t figure out what was going on. Besides, we can’t even keep a diary.
After a while, the teacher added that it doesn’t matter if you can’t remember it at once. You can finish it within two days, but you must write it. This is a political task. If you write it, you will help the teacher.
The students did not understand the political tasks, they only knew that this was an assignment assigned by the teacher. Two days have passed quickly and I still haven’t figured out what to write. There are homework assignments posted by classmates on the wall. Most of them are about being punished by the teacher, being detained by the teacher, or being hit on the head with the textbook for answering wrong questions.
Inspired by these, I remembered an incident two weeks ago. In Chinese class that day, I was caught by the teacher for peeking at a little book. He came over angrily and grabbed my arm to make me stand up. At that time, I felt that the skin of my arm exposed outside the short sleeves was pinched by the teacher's nails, but I didn't dare to say anything. When I got home from school, I didn't dare to tell my family, for fear that I would have to eat "fried pork with bamboo shoots" (using phoebe branches to teach the children). So I put some red lotion on myself and it was cured overnight. I decided to write about it.
With great effort, Fei Lao finally wrote about four lines in the small print book. Among them, I couldn't write the word "arm", so I raised my hand and asked the teacher. The teacher neatly wrote the two words on the blackboard, noted the pinyin and tones, and led me to read them three times.
The teacher must have read the homework written by the students very carefully. The next day after school, the teacher called me to his office. As soon as I entered the door, the teacher took my arm and looked at it, and then asked me if it still hurt. I said it would be fine a long time ago. The teacher touched my head lovingly and said, "It's all the teacher's fault. The teacher apologizes to you and promises not to do it again in the future."
It makes me very uncomfortable for an elder of several decades to speak like this to a child of several years old. I remember that I left the teacher's office with a red face, as if running away.
Fortunately, the matter of raising opinions is finally over. I don’t know if those high school students made things difficult for their teachers.
One morning during self-study, I sent our group’s homework to the teacher’s office. When the teacher reached out to take the homework book, I was stunned - the teacher's long nails were gone.
Looking at the teacher's fingers, I suddenly felt a strange feeling.
The teacher cut her long nails, which made me feel very uncomfortable. I didn’t dare to look at the teacher for several days. The teacher seemed to be fine.
Time flies so fast, and I graduated from elementary school in a blink of an eye. After leaving the elementary school, I also left the teacher. And after leaving, I never saw the teacher again.
No goodbye does not mean forgetting. When I think back to the time when I cut my nails, I admire my teacher's kindness and kindness. I also feel that there is no need for my teacher to change the habit that he has kept for decades just because of my childish behavior. As you can imagine, the teacher's nails are a personal grooming habit just like his beard. This habit, like a person's dress, contains his personality, his self-confidence, and even his dignity. And when this habit is to be changed against your will, what kind of tangle will there be! Every time I think about this after all these years, I still feel guilty. Writing it down after decades later can be regarded as showing my thoughts to the teacher. The teacher can't see it anymore, but I will feel a little more at ease.
About the author: He Liangcai (Chu Feng Xiangyun) is from Yiyang, Hunan, with a bachelor's degree. He has worked in cultural and financial institutions, and has published novels, essays, poetry, folk arts and other works in public newspapers and periodicals. Personal resume is entered into "Biographies of Chinese Literary Artists".