Chapter 6 free world

That was one thing that determined the fate of my life. --Kai-fu Lee Kai-fu Lee has always regarded his mother who raised seven children as the Holy Mother of God.The mother always has a smile on her face, listens patiently to what her son says, carefully ponders what his son really needs, and she also knows what is hidden deep in his heart. Desire, knowing that wish will burst out one day in the future, guides his son in that direction little by little.She has a stubborn expectation and trust in her son, believing that he is extraordinary.But as a naughty little boy, Kai Fu always makes his mother angry.At this time, she showed the characteristics of an ordinary mother: anxious, angry, even bossy.

"I have a very authoritarian, but very good mother." Kai-fu always said so.It sounds contradictory, but in fact my mother is a unity of contradictions: gentle and strict, traditional and open, arbitrary and generous. Eleven years ago, she refused everyone's advice and insisted on going her own way, risking her life to give birth to this son.Now, although her son is still underage, she resolutely cuts off the shackles of her mother and sends him across the vast Pacific Ocean to study in the United States.She knew that her son needed not only life, but also space to grow up freely.It was 1972, and Kai-fu Lee was 11 years old.

This year, China had a spring that surprised the whole world.When U.S. President Nixon visited China, he sat side by side with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the leaders of Red China, talking and laughing happily.If this scene appeared today, people would not take it seriously, but at that time it was very important.Before that, China and the United States did not understand each other, and they did not share the same destiny. After that, they both began to try to understand each other, and found that they could coexist peacefully and even be friends.This huge transformation began in 1972. Looking back now, it has changed the history of China and the fate of many ordinary Chinese children.

Those "Microsoft boys" who were later called "geniuses" were nothing at that time. In 1972, Zhang Yaqin was 6 years old. As we mentioned earlier, he was still running in and out of a small town in the south of Shanxi, pestering his grandmother to tell him stories.Shen Xiangyang is also 6 years old. He lives in a small village at the junction of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. He sits in a dilapidated cowshed during the day and listens to the teacher's lectures, and picks wild fruits in the field in the evening.Tong Xin is just two years old, Wu Feng is also two years old, Gao Jianfeng and Zhang Qian are still in their infancy, and Liu Ce will not be born until six years later.Zhang Hongjiang is slightly older, only 12 years old.He left his home in Wuhan and followed his parents to the "May 7th Cadre School" in Yexian County, Henan Province. He was curious and panicked when he saw so many uncles and aunts he didn't know.Ling Xiaoning was the oldest among this group of people. At the age of 20, he was an apprentice in the No. 3 Steel Rolling Plant in Beijing. His job was to move steel bars from one place to another. Hours, 6 days a week, 18 yuan per month.

In the experience of the "Microsoft kid", if there is anything worth mentioning in 1972, it is that Kai-fu Lee traveled across the ocean to the United States.He has since gotten rid of those boring textbooks, endless exams, and that primary school teacher that he hates. Of course, he also left his warm home.It was not until he grew up, achieved success, and became the father of two children that he realized that life and freedom were the best gifts his mother gave him. When Kai Fu was born, his father was 55 years old and his mother was 44 years old.For women of this age, the process of childbirth is not so much a physical torment as a spiritual purgatory.Many people said that her age is no longer suitable to have this child, and the mother just repeated three words softly: "I want to give birth".On the night of delivery, the hospital’s expert said, “This child is either a genius or an idiot.” Seeing the woman staring at him, the expert said, “The probability of being scientifically incompetent is higher.” But the mother was still the same. Three words: "I want to give birth".

The mother's strength saved the boy.He later said that "mother has a strong character", which is what he felt from the first day of his birth. When it comes to the school education system and the family's expectations for their children, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are exactly the same.Like most families in China, in this family, the mother has a stronger influence and control over the children.The birth of the youngest son made the life of this middle-aged woman radiate a strange brilliance.She firmly believes that he is the smartest child in the family, so she loves him the most, expects the highest and disciplines him the strictest.

The mother always has this son in her sight, and she imposes a very standard Chinese-style education on her son.She asked her son to do everything to the best degree. "If you list all the indicators to measure whether a child is excellent, such as mathematics, English, Chinese, shyness, eloquence, etc., and list 30 items, my daughter may be interested in three of them. Five items are very demanding, and my mother has to choose all 30 items for me,” Kaifu recalled many years later, “It means that everything should be the best, and there will be no accommodation for any item.” The mother asked Kaifu to go home every day. The first thing to do was to review his homework, and he had to do it step by step and meticulously. This was in stark contrast to the situation of Yaqin jumping around between grades and messing around in what we will describe later.Whenever Kaifu endorses, the mother personally inspects and distinguishes right from wrong in the sound of her son's reading aloud.She ordered Kaifu to recite all the books, and he had to be correct word for word. If he made a mistake, he would throw the book into another room with a wave of his hand and ask him to pick it up and start over.This is completely different from Yaqin's mother's parenting style.

Kaifu was originally smart and worked so hard, so his grades were very good.This satisfied the mother, but the son did not like this way of learning.He hates memorization, exams, and homework.What I hate the most is the discipline in the classroom.He is naughty by nature, always moves around in class, talks a lot, and fights against the teacher, so he is always beaten.The teacher's surname was Xu, and one of the ways he punished the students was to beat the backs of their hands with bamboo sticks. "I didn't work as hard as my mother imagined. I didn't ask myself to be the best. For example, I just need to be good enough in the exam. I heard that many college students now pass the test with a score of 60. Maybe this is a college student." "Good enough", when I was a child, "good enough" is to satisfy my mother. Sometimes I will play tricks, such as telling my mother to finish my homework before I finish it, and then hide in the room to watch TV. The next morning at five Get up at one o'clock, do three strokes and two strokes, and finish your homework."

The mother didn't care much about her son's mischievous behavior, but she cared about her son's academic performance.If her son gets a good score, she will think it should be, but if her son's score falls below the third place, she will not have a good face.If it is worse, such as after the tenth place, you will be beaten.When mothers beat their sons, they usually use a bamboo ruler, which is hard and elastic.After growing up, the son still remembers being beaten when he was a child, "It was a real beating, not just a threat, so it was very hard, and once he broke the ruler."

But no matter how smart a child is, it is impossible to compete for the first place again and again.Once the report card was sent out and the grades were not good, Kaifu was afraid for a while, fearing that his mother would beat him, so he changed the grades.He changed it very skillfully, and after his mother signed it, he changed it back, so neither the mother nor the teacher found out.This was a great encouragement to him, and he was very proud for several days.Then, he revised his score for the second time, but this time it was self-defeating and left traces.He felt that it was impossible to get away with it this time, so he simply waved his hand like his mother and threw the paper into the ditch.

Everyone will make some pranks in their own way when they are teenagers, and Kaifu is no exception.This person will become famous in the future, with a gentlemanly demeanor, meticulous in doing things, smart and rigorous.No matter what you can't imagine, he also had a series of pranks in his childhood.However, since that failed revision of grades, he has stopped doing such things.Because he found that this family cares more about the character of the child. "If I do something detrimental to my character, neither my mother nor my father will tolerate it." In the spring of 1972, shortly after Kaifu’s 11th birthday, the eldest brother came back from the United States and saw the child studying under such strict discipline, surrounded by test papers and report cards all day long, with no time to go out and play, and no friends , under the pressure of entering a higher school, and getting a good score back after all the hard work, and not knowing whether what I learned is useful, I couldn't help but say: "It's useless to go to university if this continues. Why don't you follow me to America." At that time, few Chinese went abroad to study, and Kai Fu couldn't imagine what the United States was like in his young mind.But my elder brother knows that country well. When Kaifu was one year old, he went across the ocean to study in the United States. Now 10 years have passed, and he has a soft spot for American education, and he is even more disappointed with Taiwan’s education. Now seeing this child grow up When he got up, he was determined to take him into that wider world. My mother has never been to the United States. She received a traditional Chinese education, but surprisingly retained an open-minded nature.She is in many ways a contradictory unity, just as she can combine two completely different natures, stern and loving.While urging his son to study day and night, he feels sorry for his son who doesn't even have time to play; while he feels relieved that his son has excellent grades, but at the same time has strong doubts about where this kind of exam will lead his son.Now, this well-behaved and meticulous mother has decided to give her son a world of freedom. That day, the mother put her hand on her son's head and said to him, "America is a great country, and many great people are born there. Just go there." Kai Fu looked at his mother in awe.She is an authoritarian, strict woman who believes in traditional Chinese education.For the past 11 years, she has kept the child firmly on her side, demanding that his son receive an education according to her will.But now, she actually let him be free and let him out of her sight. For a mother, the day when her son leaves home is the biggest event in the world, and she will never forget it, but an 11-year-old child still cannot understand the meaning of it.He only remembered that he was going to the United States by plane, unlike his elder brother who had to take a ship for more than a month.The plane took off and flew into the blue sky in a blink of an eye. It was the first time for this child to soar among the blue sky and white clouds. Looking down, he saw the crescent-like coastline below gradually blurred. The mother realized how important the child was to her life, and had a strong urge to keep him in Taiwan, but she knew it was impossible.She knew her son well, understood that there was his future beyond the ocean, and understood that his son belonged to the whole world. The best people should belong to the whole world, which was originally the belief of this woman. Years later, just as the mother expected, the son has become a remarkable person.Looking back on the past when he was free, he "specially thanked my mother for being so strict, but giving me freedom at the most critical time." "Looking back now, it must have been one of the things that determined my life. If I hadn't gone to the United States to study when I was young, I wouldn't have failed very much now, but I definitely wouldn't have the success I have today. Some of my friends in Taiwan, In terms of intelligence, they should be about the same as me, but I think their emotional intelligence is much lower than mine, and their communication skills, writing skills, vision, and English level are all much worse. I think it’s because I’m studying abroad.” Therefore, if you want to stand on the starting line of "E students", then establish the second concept: you not only belong to your parents, you belong to the whole world.