A Heart for Freedom Read Online Free PDF

grandma, who was terrified by the responsibility of caring for three children. In all the chaos, my little brother had managed to drink some of my dad’s alcohol and was now burning with a high fever. There I was, barely ten years old and fully in charge.
    By the time my parents came back from Tangshan one year later, my childhood was over. I knew how to care for my siblings, purchase and cook all our food, write regular letters to my parents to report on family news, and comfort Grandma. With some determination, I learned how to build a chicken coop, bought some little chicks from a nearby farm, and raised them to lay eggs. With Grandma’s help, I also farmed a little piece of land and planted vegetables. I sent my brother to day care and took my sister to school with me. During this important time of transition into being a grown-up, my bond with Grandma grew even stronger.

3
     
“Make Me an Extraordinary Child!”
     
    One day during math class, the teacher assigned us some exercises to work on independently and then walked out of the room. I finished the assignment quickly and began looking around for something to occupy my attention. In the pencil box of a boy seated nearby, I saw a dried sea horse with a big, round belly and an almost perfectly round tail curling down. I asked the boy to hand it over so I could play with it, but he wanted a pencil in return. Just as we were haggling over the trade, the teacher opened the door and came back in.
    “Who has broken the discipline?” he shouted. “Stand up, come up to the lectern, and talk if you have something to say!”
    I immediately bowed my head, not daring to move an inch.
    Seeing we weren’t responding, the teacher burst out like a fire doused with gasoline. Dragging my classmate out of his seat, he kicked him up to the lectern. As the boy struggled to his feet, the teacher punched and kicked him down again. I was scared out of my wits; I couldn’t imagine how this teacher was going to deal with me next. By this point, all the kids had stopped their exercises and were looking on. Between the teacher’s explosions of fury, there was utter silence in the room. I wanted to slip through a crack in the floor. Thankfully, the teacher didn’t raise a hand against me. Instead, he gave me a furious glare and turned his attention back to my cowering classmate, who was still lying on the floor at the front of the room.
    In a sharp, shrill voice, the teacher hollered at the boy, “You’ll never amount to anything, you dog! You’re up to your tricks all day, and you won’t listen, no matter what! There’s a saying that goes, ‘You can teach first-class people with your eyes; with second-class people, you need the lips; but with third-class people, only a whip will work.’ You remember that! Now go!”
    With that, he kicked the boy again and sent him scrambling back to his seat.
    Though I was glad to have escaped such humiliation, I was shocked by what the teacher had said. In my heart, I swore to myself, I’m not going to wait for someone to use a whip to teach me like that!
    On my way to school the next day, the air was thick and oppressive, as it usually is before a storm. At the horizon, I couldn’t distinguish the sky from the earth. As I walked alone on the empty, quiet road, the phrase “You’ll never amount to anything” swirled about in my head. Gradually, an idea came into my mind: You must become someone extraordinary!
    At that moment my muddy thoughts became clean and bright, as if a magic force between the earth and the sky had brought me a revelation. As I continued on my way, I silently recited my new mantra: “Be an extraordinary person!”
    That day in language class, I wrote a long essay as soon as I picked up my pen. When I turned it in, the teacher sighed happily and told all the students to put down their pens and listen as he read my essay aloud. Then, without saying a word, he gazed at me deeply. I was embarrassed and bashful at this