184 Night School
Those who knew the situation immediately stood up and said, “The order is urgent this time. We have to recruit people who can be used immediately.”
Another person who knew the inside story said, “I heard that the first recruitment was held because Mr. Yu wanted to take care of the villagers. She knew that the villagers usually didn’t study, so their literacy was limited, so she specifically extended the time and let us use those three days to review our knowledge and increase the pass rate of the villagers.”
“Sigh, then we’ve really let Miss Yu down. We haven’t learned anything since the last recruitment.”
“Isn’t that so? I originally wanted to continue learning after the recruitment ended. After all, Miss Yu said that the factory still had to recruit workers. Unfortunately, I found the words difficult to recognize, so I didn’t learn after that.”
“What’s the saying? I remember now! If you can’t take the hardships of studying, you’ll have to take the hardships of life!”
“No, no. If I don’t pass this time, I have to persevere and continue learning. Perhaps I’ll be able to seize the opportunity when the factory recruits more students in the future.”
“Me too. Count me in!”
… .
In this round of the written test, Yu Bing asked the same type of questions as she did in the first round. She only changed the specific questions.
The two ordinary workers who were chosen in the end were an intellectual, a villager, and two female chefs.
One of the female chefs was called Jiang Wen. She was the only one who insisted on studying after the last job recruitment. She was illiterate and from a family that favored boys over girls. She was also the eldest, so her parents naturally left her at home to do housework and take care of her siblings.
Because she had never been to school for even a single day, Jiang Wen had only relied on the 20 words she had learned in three days to take the exam last time. Therefore, she only filled in two questions on her paper. The rest were all blank, so Yu Bing had a deep impression of her.
Jiang Wen had never been to school, but she knew that the early bird catches the worm. Her thoughts were very simple. Others who had gone to school might have had enough time to revise, but she didn’t. Therefore, she forced herself to memorize five words a day. At night, after dinner, she kept writing every word she had learned on the ground and repeated them tirelessly.
The people who taught her how to read were her sister-in-law, who had attended the literacy class, and her son, who was in the third grade of primary school. Other than the two people who taught her, everyone else in her family mocked her for wasting her time. They said that if she had the time, she might as well do more housework, serve her husband, and give birth to a few more children, but she refused to accept it.
She had just celebrated her 28th birthday this year and happened to be at the maximum recruitment age, so she wanted to give it a try. Even if she didn’t succeed, she would rest assured knowing she had done her best.
Reality proved that opportunities were only given to prepared people!
When Jiang Wen’s in-laws found out about the results, they were very surprised. Jiang Wen’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law had graduated from junior high and had also entered the interview process with her. Unfortunately, they didn’t get chosen in the end. When their in-laws saw the results announced immediately after the interview, they were stunned.
Jiang Wen’s sister-in-law usually mocked Jiang Wen the most when she was studying. She boasted that she was one of those rare people with a junior high school degree in the village and had always scoffed at Jiang Wen for not going to school. She felt that Jiang Wen was uncultured and uneducated, so she loved to snub Jiang Wen at home.
On this day, Jiang Wen finally welcomed the first rare peace and quiet ever since she insisted on studying. This was because no one would mock her anymore when they passed by the courtyard.
Many people knew that Jiang Wen was illiterate in the past and was very curious about her admission. After knowing that Jiang Wen had learned about 300 common words in the past two months, they all made up their minds to study.
Yu Bing didn’t expect this small interlude to ramp up the enthusiasm of the He Mountain Brigade. She suddenly had an idea.
Yu Bing found Wu Jin and said with a smile, “Village Chief, I have something good for the country and the people that I need your help with!”
Wu Jin looked at her suspiciously. “Tell me. I’ll listen.”
Yu Bing told him her plan. “I want to open a night school in the village!”
Wu Jin frowned and confirmed, “Night school?”
Yu Bing nodded affirmatively. “In the past, in order to improve the literacy of farmers and increase their awareness of legal rights, the country specifically opened a literacy class. Almost everyone knows how to write and read. But now, because they have lived in the countryside for a long time and have dealt with farming all day, I realize that other than their names, they keep making mistakes when writing other words!”