The Ups and Downs of the Commoners 2 Page #2

This book is the second volume of the novel "The Ups and Downs of the Commoners". It will tell you about caused by the disastrous consequences of the "Great Leap Forward" and the People's Commune Movement in China in the middle of the last century to the livelihood of the Commoners, as well as the difficult path of study of the protagonist of this book, Fang Zhengben.

• Novel

								

When Fang Zhengben returned to the bedroom after lunch, he did not see Wang Dingjun and Zhu Zihong again, thinking that they might have gone to the street.    He opened his covers, rested his head on the covers, and lay down on the straw that made the bed.    Because he had no bamboo mat and no mattress, he felt a little hairy lying on the straw.    After lying down for a moment, he thought that he should go and see where his classroom was.    So he got out of bed, walked out of his dormitory, walked around the school along a path covered in coal slags and planted with Hibiscus syriacus on both sides, and finally found his classroom on the ground floor of a small Western-style building with two floors and one bottom.
There are four classrooms on each floor of the building, and first, second and third grades of junior high school are distributed from the bottom to top. Fang Zhengben pushed the door and looked into the classroom, only to see the soft sunlight shining through a clear glass window, illuminating the entire classroom. Neatly placed desks in classrooms have a partition underneath which allows students to place their own textbooks and stationery. He thought that this middle school was indeed different from the elementary school. It was no that like in elementary school, where there were no windows on all four sides of the classroom, and only a few glass tiles placed on the roof could transmit light, and no books could be placed under the desk, so he could only hang his schoolbag at both ends of the table. Thinking of this, his heart also brightened.
Fang Zhengben looked at the classroom and thought of preparing the ink for tomorrow's class, so he turned and walked towards the street.    He walked down the street for a while, found the district supply and marketing agency, took out the remaining two cent RMB from his pocket, bought a package of blue ink crystals, and returned to his bedroom.   He took out an ink bottle he brought from home from his bag, went to the a boiled water of bucket and put half a bottle of warm boiled water, poured the ink crystal into the bottle, shook it a few times, and the ink was ready.    Then he heard a bell ringing and saw that his classmates were all heading towards the student dining hall.    He knew it was a signal for dinner, and he took the enamel cup and walk to the dining hall.
The students who arrived first had steamed rice with their own enamel cups or clay pots.      After finding their enamel cup or clay pot, they stood under the eaves outside the dining hall, looked for their name from the Table Number List posted on the wall, and then took their seats.      A small basin containing a small amount of fried eggplant had already been placed in the center of their table, and when all eight people at the table had arrived, they divided the dishes in the small basin into their respective bowls, and each person received a small handful.      Fang Zhengben arrived late at school and did not steam rice, so he had to be temporarily arranged by the affairs teacher, and let him join other classmates who don't have time to steam rice, and make up a table of eight people, and went to the cooking room to receive a basin of steamed rice and a bowl of side dishes to distribute and eat.
After dinner, he followed the example of other students, found a piece of bamboo to make a brand, wrote his name, and then hung the brand on the handle of the enamel cup with a thread, handed it to the cooking room, and waited for the masters to add rice for him and steam the rice.
The next morning, as soon as the bell rang, Fang Zhengben rolled over and got up, ran to wash his face in the Huayan Pond. Halfway back to school, he heard another bell, followed by a whistle. He knew it was a sign for morning exercise, so he quickened his pace and ran to the playground in outside of school.
In the playground, many teachers and classmates have gathered.  Standing at the front was freshmen the first year of junior high school, and Teacher Tang was already standing at the front of the queue and was gathering his students.  Fang Zhengben put the towel on a rock by the playground and ran to his own class, just in time for the whole team.
At the end of the morning exercise, the students rushed into the school gate like a tide and walked to their respective classrooms. On the way back to the classroom, Fang Zhengben met his elder cousin brother Zhang Xueru. He is the younger brother of Zhang Jingru. The Zhang Jingru used to came to his family to help them farm and later worked with his parents at the provincial forestry department. The Zhang Xueru is Fang Zhengqing's elementary school classmate and is now in the third grade of junior high school. Fang Zhengben looked at him and salutation, "Older cousin!" Zhang Xueru smiled at him and said, "You're here too!" So they went back to the classroom for morning self-study.
The morning self-study on the first day of school was actually Teacher Tang arranging seats, designating temporary class committee cadres and distributing textbooks. Among Fang Zhengben's familiar classmates, Meng Jingyu served as a cultural and entertainment committee member, and Zhu Zihong served as a labor committee.
Textbooks and workbooks are being distributing, the bell rang for the end of class.  However, Teacher Tang insisted on the end of the distribution before announcing the end of class.
As soon as the students walked out of the classroom, they went straight to the dining hall like arrows fired. The students who arrived first surrounded the row of laundry tables outside the dining hall, looking for their own tableware from the stacked enamel cups and clay pots. Fang Zhengben was difficult to get close, and he waited until there were not many enamel cups and clay pots left on the laundry table before finding his own enamel cup.
According to the newly arranged Table Number List, he found Zhu Zihong, Wang Dingjun and Zheng Guoqiong at the same table. Like other students, they divided a small bowl of pickles placed on the table into everyone's bowls, and then waited until the teacher on duty issued the command to "start" on the front platform before everyone quickly delivered the first bite of rice into their mouths.
The first class in the morning was Teacher Tang's Chinese class. The content of this lesson is to learn a "Great Leap Forward" song "I am coming" from Shaanxi. Teacher Tang neatly wrote the title on the blackboard with chalk, and then read aloud the text in a bold and passionate tone:

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