Substitute Teaching at the Village Primary School
Wu Yunzhu held up the bowl, the warm medicinal fragrance entering her nostrils. She sipped slowly, the sweet yet bitter liquid sliding down her throat, warming her entire body.
“Mom,” putting down the bowl, Wu Yunzhu hesitated, “Do you think… he’ll come back safely?”
Sun Hongying didn’t answer immediately.
She got up and retrieved a small wooden box from deep inside the wardrobe, opening it to take out a stack of yellowed letter paper. “These are what your father wrote to me back then.”
She gently stroked the faded handwriting, “Whenever I felt I couldn’t go on, I would take them out and read them.”
Wu Yunzhu took the letters, the pages already so fragile they seemed ready to crumble at a touch.
She carefully unfolded one, her father’s youthful handwriting leaping before her eyes. “My beloved Hongying, today we eliminated three more bandits, our unit suffered no casualties. At night I dreamed of the sweet potato porridge you make, woke to find my pillowcase soaked…”
“You see,” Sun Hongying said softly, “no matter how hard the days are, they pass one by one. What matters is having something to look forward to in your heart.”
Wu Yunzhu gently placed the letter back in the wooden box, suddenly noticing a photograph at the bottom.
A young Sun Hongying stood at the village entrance, holding a baby in her arms, against a backdrop of wheat fields just turning green again.
“This is…”
“Your one-month celebration,” Sun Hongying’s voice was tender enough to drip with sweetness, “Your father specially invited a photographer from the county.” She pointed to a corner of the photo, “Look here, there’s half a person’s shadow—that’s your grandfather hurrying to get out of frame.”
Wu Yunzhu burst out laughing, yet tears welled up again. This time, they weren’t bitter tears, but warm ones filled with hope.
“Sleep now,” Sun Hongying kissed her daughter’s forehead, “You still have to teach the children tomorrow.”
Wu Yunzhu nodded, carefully placing Yuan Ye’s tin box back under her pillow. She suddenly remembered something and called to her mother who was about to leave, “Mom, let’s go to town tomorrow, shall we? I want to buy some pear tree saplings.”
Sun Hongying turned back, candlelight casting soft shadows on her face. “Where do you want to plant them?”
“By the river,” Wu Yunzhu’s eyes lit up, “right next to that old pear tree. When Yuan Ye comes back, he’ll be able to see a whole grove of pear trees.”
Sun Hongying smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes smoothing out. “Good, we’ll go first thing in the morning.”
The morning sunlight filtered through the mist, spilling onto the dirt road leading to the village primary school.
Wu Yunzhu tightened the cloth bag on her shoulder, which contained lesson plans and a few old textbooks she had prepared overnight.
She had deliberately worn that light blue terylene shirt.
“Good morning, Teacher Wu!” Several children carrying cloth schoolbags ran past her, their crisp greetings warming her heart.
Though it was only temporary substitute teaching, being called “teacher” still made her unconsciously straighten her back.
The school was a low brick and tile building that had originally been a production team warehouse.
Where the wall plaster had peeled off, yellow-brown mud bricks were exposed, and the plastic sheeting on the windows rustled in the morning breeze.
Wu Yunzhu took a deep breath at the entrance. The creaking of the wooden door drew over twenty pairs of eyes in the classroom to look at her in unison.
“Hello students, I am…” Before she could finish, she stumbled over the raised threshold, her lesson plan papers scattering like snowflakes across the floor.
The classroom immediately erupted in laughter, with several mischievous boys even slapping their desks.
Wu Yunzhu’s ears burned red as she crouched down in a fluster to pick them up.
Just then, a small pair of hands reached over to help her gather the scattered papers.
“Here you are, teacher.” A girl with pigtails looked up, her eyes bright as black grapes, “My name is Li Xiaoman, I’m nine years old.”
“Thank you, Xiaoman.” Wu Yunzhu took the papers and noticed that the top one had been smudged with mud. It was her carefully prepared illustration for “Spring Dawn”—now the ink had already bled.
The lectern was a wooden board raised on bricks, which made a dangerous creaking sound when Wu Yunzhu stepped onto it.
She surveyed the classroom—the children were of varying ages, the youngest appearing only six or seven, the oldest possibly twelve or thirteen.
They shared benches of different lengths, with one boy’s knees almost pressed against the back in front of him.
“Today we’re having Chinese class.” Wu Yunzhu’s voice trembled slightly as she opened the textbook, “Please turn your books to…”
“Teacher!” A sturdy-looking boy in the back suddenly raised his hand, “When will Teacher Wang come back? She always told us stories.”
“Teacher Wang went to have a baby, it’ll be a long time.” Before Wu Yunzhu could answer, a girl with braids jumped in, “My mother said the new teacher is very capable, definitely knows more than Teacher Wang!”
The classroom suddenly erupted like a pot boiling over, with children chattering away in discussion. Wu Yunzhu tapped the blackboard eraser, chalk dust falling in a shower, which instead made several children start coughing.
“Let’s start by learning characters.” She turned to write “sun, moon, water, fire” on the blackboard, the chalk breaking several times, “Everyone read after me…”
“We already know those!” the sturdy boy shouted, “Teacher Wang already taught us to write letters!”
Write letters? Wu Yunzhu suddenly remembered the yellowed letter paper her mother had taken out last night. She put down the chalk and noticed Xiaoman was secretly drawing something under her desk.
Looking closer, she saw crooked writing that said “Daddy, I miss you,” with a drawing of three little people holding hands.
“What’s this?” Wu Yunzhu asked softly.
“For my dad.” Xiaoman bit her lip, “He’s at the reservoir construction site, mother says he won’t be back until Mid-Autumn Festival.”
She pointed to the figures in the drawing, “This is Dad, this is Mom, this is me.”
The classroom had somehow quieted down, with all the children looking at them. Wu Yunzhu straightened up and saw many pairs of eyes shining with a similar light.
“Students,” she heard her own voice suddenly become firm, “today we won’t cover the textbook material. I want to hear you talk about who you’ve written letters to, or who you want to write to.”
Little hands shot up one after another. The sturdy boy said he had written to his brother in the army.
The braided girl wrote to her sister studying in the county every week.
A thin boy said his father couldn’t read, but he would tell his words to the postman passing through the commune.
“My grandfather says you have to fold the letter paper three times for good luck.” A girl with a red hair ribbon said earnestly, “The first fold is longing, the second fold is concern, the third fold is…”
“Hope.” Wu Yunzhu finished her sentence, suddenly understanding why her mother had preserved those letters so carefully.
She took out a kraft paper envelope from her cloth bag, “How about I teach you how to address an envelope beautifully and properly?”
Sunlight filtered through the plastic-covered windows, dappling the desks. Wu Yunzhu taught the children to write the postal code in the upper left corner of the envelope, and to write the recipient’s name in regular script in the center.
Xiaoman learned most earnestly, beads of sweat forming on the tip of her nose.
“Teacher,” she suddenly asked, “will you write letters to Uncle Yuan?”
Wu Yunzhu froze, remembering the seven unsent letters already accumulated in the tin box under her pillow. Each one began with “Comrade Yuan Ye,” then she had crumpled them into paper balls.
“I will.” She patted Xiaoman’s head, “When you all learn to write letters, we’ll mail them out together.”