50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 58 Three Stories Begin
They were not very interested in learning to read. They hadn't known how to read before, but they had managed to get through decades. It was obvious that learning to read was of no use.

This is what most people think. If the street had not issued a strict order that they must attend literacy classes, they would definitely not come. Even if they came, they would be prepared to chat.

Now that the literacy class can be turned into a storytelling session, they are more than happy to do so. Many people agree: "Listening to stories is great, this is great, little sir, please tell your stories quickly."

"The incident I'm talking about happened about ten years ago, right over at Gongzhufen. There was a family: a couple and three children, two boys and one girl."

"My husband works outside and is often away from home for ten days or half a month, but he earns a lot of money and our family lives a happy life."

"One time, the man was away for a long time, and several accidents happened at home. The woman had spent all the money at home, and the man still hadn't returned."

"She had no choice but to borrow two dollars from someone, planning to hold on for a few days and pay him back when he returned."

"At that time, the creditor who lent her money asked her to write a promissory note, but she couldn't read, so she asked the creditor to write a note and she signed it with her fingerprint."

"If you press this handprint, it will cause a family to be torn apart and everyone to die."

The people who were listening to the story quietly below already had some idea of ​​what Sun Zhiwei's story was.

They had more or less heard of cases of people being scammed when borrowing money before, but none of them were as famous as this story, and the place where it happened was not far away.

"A few days later, the creditor came to her house and asked her to pay back the money. Her husband hadn't returned, she had no money to pay, and the time hadn't come yet."

"The creditor said he would give her a few days' grace and then left."

"She thought everything was fine, but a few days later, the creditor came with officials, saying she owed him money and asked the government to take action."

"The official showed her the IOU and asked her if it was the one she signed. She acknowledged it after seeing the familiar IOU and fingerprint."

"So the government sided with the creditor and wanted to use her daughter to pay off the debt."

"So the IOU says it's a loan of twenty dollars, payable in seven days, with an additional dollar in interest for each day after the due date. If you can't pay it back, I'm willing to pay the interest with my daughter."

"The creditor never told her any of this because she couldn't read. She just listened to what others said."

"So my daughter was taken away, and later I heard she was sold to the Eight Great Hutongs."

Speaking of this, everyone started talking and sighing that people in the old society were so bad.

However, Sun Zhiwei's story is not over yet. He continued:
"After my daughter was taken away, the government issued a new document for them. Although the daughter was paid interest, she still had to pay the money she owed, so the woman had no choice but to sign the new document."

"She thought that with the government officials present, the document would be safe. Unfortunately, those officials were bribed by the creditor. The new document read: Loan of 100 taels of silver, interest of 10 taels of silver per day."

"When the man came back, the interest plus the 100 yuan on the IOU meant the outstanding balance was over 200 yuan, and he couldn't even pay it back."

"Finally, the man had no choice but to sell his house, wife and youngest son to pay off his debts."

"But the family has broken up. The husband and his eldest son are nowhere to be found. His wife committed suicide after being sold, and no one knows where the youngest son is."

"A happy family was destroyed because of the cannibalism of the old society, but the cause of the incident was ultimately because the woman was illiterate." "Do you think literacy is important now?"

After Sun Zhiwei finished telling the story, he looked around seriously. Every young wife he saw trembled and avoided his sight, as if he was the creditor in the story.

Seeing that the uncles, aunts and aunties present were almost frightened, he changed the subject and said:
"Of course, this is a new society now. If you encounter something like this, you can report it to the street office. There will definitely be someone to handle it for you."

"Although the situation is not so serious now, being illiterate still leads to a lot of jokes."

"Just last month, there was a man in Haidian who went to the wrong women's restroom because he couldn't read. He was arrested as a hooligan and I heard he was sentenced to three years."

"A few days ago, a neighbor lady next to my house spent 5 yuan in banknotes as yuan because she couldn't read."

"After she came back, she got angry and jumped from the third floor. Fortunately, she survived, but she is now lying in the hospital."

"Dear grandpas, grandma's and aunties, even without the above literacy requirements, literacy is closely related to our lives."

"It's like working outside. If you can't read, you can only do hard labor and earn 10 or 20 yuan a month. If you can read, the salary is much higher, up to 40 or 50 yuan, and you can get promoted."

"From small things like not making a mistake in the math to big things like preventing a family from being torn apart, if we can't read, we can only leave it to fate. If we can read, we can make our own decisions."

"So, do you think we should learn this character?"

Sun Zhiwei's combination of beatings, threats and inducements finally aroused everyone's enthusiasm for learning.

Later he officially started to teach the class. This time as a literacy teacher, he had designed the order of learning words according to the main population of the street.

He asked these uncles and aunts to learn to recognize money first, then learn to count, first get to know vegetables, and then learn to know tools.

They need to feel the benefits of recognizing characters immediately after learning so that they will be motivated to continue learning. 1500 characters are really not easy to learn for people with no basic knowledge.

He would design a theme for each subsequent class, whether it was recognizing money, keeping accounts, or writing names, and would intersperse it with rhymes, small formulas, and literacy songs.

In the first month, they were just learning to recognize words. In the second month, they started to form words and sentences. By the time he started school, the students could already write short sentences by themselves.

During this period, he experimented with the pinyin method, the character decomposition method, and the Qieyun method to see how well the students accepted the methods, and then taught them according to their needs.

These good methods alone are not enough, supervision and inspection are also needed. Sun Zhiwei divided the more than 50 students in the class into groups according to their addresses, and took turns to inspect them every day.

He also invented many new methods. For example, he set up checkpoints at street intersections, where people had to recognize at least three words before being allowed to pass. If they couldn't recognize them, they had to learn them on the spot and were only allowed to leave after they had learned them.

For example, he got the news about where cheap eggs were sold, but in order to get the news, he had to recognize 5 words in person. If he couldn’t recognize them, I’d be sorry and couldn’t tell you the news.

These petty citizens, when faced with such an opportunity to take advantage, would feel extremely uncomfortable if others could get it but they couldn't.

(End of this chapter)