Chapter 95: 073: The little girl is quite capablel i
Translator: 549690339 |
Ni Cuihua is a bona fide country folk, deeply influenced by the tradition of favoring males over females, and has received no formal education from childhood.
As a child, her days were filled with picking pigweed and toiling in the collective farm to earn work points.
However, such conditions were not unique to Ni Cuihua. Many rural women her age were illiterate.
Some have even never stepped foot outside their county their entire life.
Read the alphabet?
Ni Cuihua was taken aback at first, then bursted out laughing, “At my age? Learn to read?”
Illiteracy was a significant problem and incredibly inconvenient.
Every time Ni Cuihua held out a stack of papers to ask Ni Yang which were important and which could be thrown away, it tugged at Ni Yang’s heartstrings.
Especially in the advanced information-technology era, being illiterate was practically paralyzing.
If she was going to relive her life, Ni Yang wanted to change not only herself but also her mother.
She was determined to help Ni Cuihua become a little better than before.
“You have to learn,” insisted Ni Yang very seriously. “Mom, you’re only thirty-six. There’s no limit to what your future can hold. Being illiterate is a laughing matter out there.”
At that, Ni Cuihua was dumbfounded.
Did her future truly hold unlimited possibilities?
Back in the countryside, everyone was illiterate so she didn’t feel out of place. But ever since she arrived in Beijing and started interacting with the local villagers, Ni Cuihua had come to realize her own shortcoming.
Like when that disdainful woman, Wang Jinfang, from the village covertly ridiculed her for being an illiterate, she didn’t even know what being an illiterate meant…
And she had just laughed along with everyone else.
It wasn’t until much later that she found out illiterate meant not knowing how to read or write, being uneducated.
Thinking about this, the smile on Ni Cuihua’s face gradually faded. Looking up at Ni Yang, she asked, “Yangyang, can I still learn now?”
With such an outstanding daughter, she as a mother must not hinder her progress.
Ni Yang nodded, “Yes, of course! Mom, you’re so clever. I’m sure you’ll pick it up.”
Determined to stand strong and no longer be a burden to her daughter, Ni Cuihua decided to follow Ni Yang’s advice and learn the alphabet.
Ni Yang took two notebooks and a pair of pens out of the house.
“Mom, first let’s learn to write your name.”
“Alright.” Ni Cuihua nodded in agreement.
Ni Yang had a beautiful handwriting.
Small regular script, each stroke distinct and forceful, as if printed straight from a textbook.
Although Ni Yang had an elegant, passionate yet rough penmanship as well, it wasn’t appropriate to show it off as she was teaching Ni Cuihua how to read and write.
“Our Yangyang has such beautiful handwriting.” Although Ni Cuihua was illiterate, she could tell beautiful from ugly, and her eyes were filled with pride.
Ni Yang handed the pen to Ni Cuihua, “Why don’t you give it a try?”
Ni Cuihua nervously accepted the pencil. These hands had tilled the soil, planted the seedlings, done all sorts of strenuous work, but strangely couldn’t seem to hold a pen properly today. Ni Yang’s writing lines were straight and clear, while hers were a messy, zigzagging scrawl, and to make matters worse, her hands were uncontrollably trembling.
Just as Ni Cuihua was feeling stupid and useless, Ni Yang leaned over, gently held Ni Cuihua’s pen-holding hand and slowly guided her, stroke by stroke.
“Mom, it’s like this for everyone the first time they learn to write. Don’t get disheartened. My first handwriting was even worse than yours.”
They say teaching elderly people and children literacy is the most challenging.
But Ni Cuihua was neither elderly nor a child, and she was clever to boot, hence Ni Yang believed that she could definitely teach her well.
Ni Cuihua then said, “But Yangyang, your handwriting is so beautiful now.”
Ni Yang chuckled, “Well, don’t you see how many years I’ve practiced! It’s your first day, you can’t rush these things. It has to be taken slow.”
With that said, Ni Cuihua was considerably more at ease.
After ten minutes of hands-on lesson by Ni Yang, Cuihua was able to write her own name independently.
Although her handwriting was ‘not very good’, it was already a giant leap forward.
Having learned to write her name, Ni Yang then started teaching Ni Cuihua phonetics, spelling.
Ni Yang wrote all 26 alphabets on a piece of paper.
Seeing those letters played out, it was as if Ni Cuihua had opened a long-lost gate of memory. Vague as it was, she could vaguely hear a gentle voice teaching her, “This is pronounced ‘a’, ‘o’, ‘e’….”