He Cai Liang

Miss Xia was my primary school teacher in the 1960s. The first time we met was the day when my primary school was confused. I don't remember the meeting clearly, but what impressed me deeply was the teacher's fingernails. That nail is about one centimeter long, and it is round, clean and shiny. I was surprised to see long nails for the first time. Later, when I got used to it, I felt so natural that I thought our teacher should have long nails.

When it comes to long nails, don't think the teacher is a woman. Our teacher is a modest person. He is in his fifties, with a fashionable little beard on his chin, a pair of copper-rimmed glasses on his nose and a gray Chinese tunic suit. If you change the Zhongshan suit into a long shirt, it will be no different from the teacher in the old play.

When I was a child, my curiosity must have been quite strong. Ever since I saw the teacher's long nails, I have been paying attention to how the teacher works with them, and soon I made a small discovery. For example, the chalk used by the teacher will have many tiny scratches, and the teacher will turn the textbook quickly with long nails, but almost every page of the textbook he uses will leave many scratches in roughly the same place. ...

The school building of our primary school was the private residence of a large family named Zhu in the town before liberation. The hall in the middle of the house is our activity place after class; The wings on both sides were transformed into classrooms; The main room behind the main hall is the teacher's accommodation and office. Apart from the simple blackboards, desks and chairs in the classroom, the school has almost no other facilities.

It is under difficult conditions that I further found that the teacher's fingernail-growing hands are really amazing. Without sports equipment, he would wrap a group of waste newspapers in coarse cloth and sew them with needle and thread, which became a small cloth ball for male students to compete with each other. They will also make beautiful scarabs with rooster feathers, big buttons and small pieces of cloth. While kicking shuttlecock, the female students twittered like a group of happy chickens. When the weather is fine, he will take us to the grass near the school, and in the Chinese class, he will dress up the students as various characters or animals with his own homemade props, so that everyone can perform the plots and scenes described in the text. Students always have a good time.

Now think about it, although the material was scarce and the conditions were simple, I didn't feel bitter at all, but I felt very happy.

Before I knew it, I was in the third grade. Since then, I have a vague feeling that the school atmosphere has changed. There are often some high school students wearing red armbands coming to our primary school for meetings. We don't understand what was said at the meeting.

One day after the meeting, the teacher took us back to the classroom. I saw him take out a piece of red paper, skillfully cut out some long strips of paper, and then asked two students to help him stick the paper on the wall of the classroom to form a square box, and put a piece of paper with the words "critical column" right above the big box.

After doing this, the teacher told us with a dignified face that now we should give the students an assignment. If you have any comments on the teacher at ordinary times, just write them down and post them in the critical column, without showing them to the teacher.

The students are at a loss and don't know what's going on. Besides, we don't even keep a diary.

After a while, the teacher added that it doesn't matter if you can't remember. You can finish it in two days, but you must write it. This is a political task. If you write, you will help the teacher.

The students know nothing about the political task, except that it is the homework assigned by the teacher. It's almost two days, and I haven't decided what to write yet. There are already homework posted by students on the wall, most of which are written by teachers. Teachers punish them, stay in school, or knock them on the head with textbooks for answering wrong questions.

Inspired by these, I remembered an incident two weeks ago. In Chinese class that day, the teacher found me peeking at the picture book. He came up angrily, grabbed my arm and made me stand up. At that time, I felt that my arm exposed to the short sleeves was skinned by the teacher's nails, but I didn't dare to make any noise. When I come home from school, I dare not tell my family. I'm afraid I'll eat "fried meat with bamboo shoots" (teaching children with bamboo branches). I put some mercuric chloride on myself, and it will be fine overnight. I will write when I want to.

Boss Fei finally wrote about four lines in the small print book. One of them couldn't write the word "arm", so he raised his hand and asked the teacher. The teacher carefully wrote two words on the blackboard, wrote down the pinyin and tone, and took me to read them three times.

The teacher must have read the homework written by his classmates carefully. The next day after school, the teacher called me to his office. As soon as I entered the door, the teacher took a look at my arm and asked me if it still hurts. I said it was over long ago. The teacher touched my head lovingly and said that it was all the teacher's fault. The teacher apologized to you and promised that it would not happen again.

It makes me uncomfortable for a teenager to talk to a teenager. I remember leaving the teacher's office with a red face and running away.

Fortunately, the matter of giving advice has finally passed. I wonder if those high school students have embarrassed the teacher.

One morning when I was studying by myself, I sent our homework to the teacher's office. When the teacher reached for the exercise book, I was shocked-the teacher's long nails were gone. Looking at the teacher's finger, I suddenly had a strange feeling.

The teacher cut her long nails, and I was very unhappy. I was afraid to see the teacher for several days. Teachers are nothing.

How time flies! I graduated from primary school in a blink of an eye. I left primary school and teachers. And when I left, I never saw my teacher again.

No goodbye doesn't mean forgetting. Looking back on those years of nail-cutting, while thanking the teacher for his kindness, I always feel that the teacher doesn't need to change his habits that I have maintained for decades because of my childish behavior. As you can imagine, it is a personal gfd habit for a teacher to grow nails just like he grows a beard. This habit, like a person's clothes, contains his personality, his confidence and even his dignity. And when this habit is to be changed against one's will, what kind of entanglement will there be! Every time I think about it over the years, I still feel guilty. Writing after a few decades is also a sign to the teacher. The teacher can't see it, but I will feel better.

About the author: He (Chu Feng Xiang Yun), a native of Yiyang, Hunan, with a bachelor's degree. He has worked in cultural and financial institutions and published novels, essays, poems, Quyi and other works in public newspapers. Resume entry Biography of Writers and Artists in China.