Chapter 20 - 020 Literacy Class
The literacy classes of the Li Family Village Production Team and the Jishui Production Team had been going on for over a month. Li Xianglu had sneaked in for the first time, listening briefly at the entrance of the cave dwelling. It started with learning characters, twenty each day, followed by sentence making. Of course, the sentences were made from phrases in the Little Red Book and some poetry by great men. Then, it was time for mathematics.
After buying a notebook, she could come to class openly and aboveboard. Now that farming was winding down and there was no work to do, rural people mostly ate two meals a day, skipping dinner, so the literacy class began promptly at five o'clock in the afternoon.
The teachers were educated youths sent down to the countryside. Their educational levels ranged from high school to middle school, which was sufficient for literacy classes.
Most of the students attending the classes were thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen years old, as well as some seventeen or eighteen-year-old youths. Naturally, there were also a few cadres in their forties or fifties from the production team on duty, keeping an eye on the youngsters to prevent any mishaps.
With two production teams gathered together, the place became lively all at once. Laughter and chatter filled the air before class even started. Some seventeen or eighteen-year-old lads were staring at the girls. Li Xianglu frowned upon seeing this. This was hardly the behavior of students coming to learn; it was clear they were here to eye each other up. But the girls being stared at seemed unembarrassed and instead gazed back coquettishly, prompting a wry smile from Li Xianglu. It seemed these people really treated the place like a venue for sizing up potential partners.
Li Xianglu and Li Jianqing each carried their own small stool and found a spot to sit down in the middle of the room. Suddenly, the bustling cave dwelling quieted down.
Li Xianglu looked up to see a man in his twenties appearing on the podium, wearing a blue cotton coat with a clean white collar poking out. The man looked exceptionally refined. However, Li Xianglu couldn't help but notice a hint of disdain in his eyes, clearly looking down on the rural folks attending the literacy class.
But none of that mattered. For Li Xianglu, her mission was simply to gild herself by shedding the label of illiteracy. With this in mind, she recalled her past life where many went abroad to enhance their prestige, while she had come to a literacy class for the same purpose—a truly shameless race to the bottom!
Li Jianqing's face was tight with tension from the moment he entered, greeting his friends with a stern expression. Li Xianglu knew he felt embarrassed and was trying to hide it.