Seven Days Book Day 4 / The cemetery that stole our childhood

I'm lucky enough to not have any places I wouldn't dare to go to again.

But there are indeed some places that are currently inaccessible because of the civil war.

When I worked in West Africa for two years, I encountered a civil war. The police and the army fought. The capital was sealed off, and the cables were damaged. When the whole city was plunged into darkness, the only sound of gunfire like firecrackers was heard not far away.

The prison five kilometers away was broken into. The place where I lived was close to an American school. The entire area was a "high-end area" where foreigners lived. If you wanted to rob something, the area where we lived was the richest and most convenient.

I lit a candle, checked the doors and windows, and walked around the room alone, practicing French over and over again: "Would you like a drink of water? There are drinks in the refrigerator. TV, refrigerator, bicycle, bookcase, wine cabinet, whatever you want. It can be moved."

While working in West Africa for two years, I contracted malaria. While waiting for a bus at the station, a man threatened me with a knife to get me money. After working in the Central American rainforest for two years, I contracted dengue fever and was sent to the emergency room because the number of white blood cells and platelets dropped drastically. , not only did I pull out blood when I went to the toilet, but my upper body was covered with a large bruise just from a slight bump in the car.

Even so, those are wonderful experiences that I would never exchange for a piece of gold.

Even though I was at the scene of a major earthquake, I still returned to the disaster area six months later.

If there is any place I don't want to go back to, it's Taiwan's meaningless education scene. When I was in junior high school, I memorized six English textbooks and six Chinese textbooks and was able to write them silently. I had more than a dozen test papers a day, and it was a perverted education scene where I was given one less mark.

There was no laughter, no physical education classes, and I was tortured one after another in the classroom every day from seven in the morning to nine or ten in the evening when I returned home exhausted.

The education scene in Taiwan back then was a large mass graveyard for children and teenagers, with no room for laughter. When I was in Primary 6, a classmate of mine was beaten silly by the teacher. Before he was beaten silly, he was full of energy and extremely skillful with his craftsmanship. He could use ordinary white paper to cut, paste and paste an entire large aircraft carrier, with weapons and aircraft on it. , it was still full of people, but the teachers collectively beat the creative students until they fell silent.

During the junior high school entrance examination, a second classmate of mine was beaten stupidly. He always trembled in class and took exams, and also lost the ability to speak and communicate.

During calculus class, a girl jumped from the roof.

When preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination, a girl from the law department who had been studying in the library for a long time began to lose control intermittently and repeatedly hit the wall.

We were slapped by the teacher, slapped on the palms, spanked on the buttocks, thrown away test papers, thrown textbooks, dropped schoolbags, scolded for being shameless, and told that we would be doomed for the rest of our lives if we got such a result.

We carry our schoolbags into hell day after day, year after year.

Yes, this is what hell is like.

If you are currently in the hell I have been through, if your children are struggling in hell,

I just want to tell you:

On this earth, there are schools that are full of students laughing, there are schools that do not humiliate or beat students, there are schools that do not have meaningless recitations and exams.

Life is short. If you are a person who has no childhood like me,

Congratulations on coming out of hell, let us breathe well and live well.

Have a good day and have another good day.