Striving for the Boast I Once Made

Life is really strange.

The me right now is the me in the boast I made 2 years ago. The first Spring Festival after starting work 2 years ago, the weather was unusually cold. I caught a cold the second day after returning to my hometown in the north. In the small clinic in the village, I met my elementary school classmate from the same village, Ah Sheng. Ah Sheng’s father was a live-in son-in-law and worked as a docker at a dock in Bohai all year round, rarely coming home. Ah Sheng’s mother took care of his grandparents alone. Ah Sheng came back this time because his grandfather was seriously ill, and the old man had given up treatment. He came to the clinic to settle the previous medical bills. Ah Sheng’s grandfather was a famous gentleman in the village, wrote beautiful calligraphy, and was also kind. When we were young, we all liked to go to his house to play, and the walls were covered with calligraphy and paintings. Under his grandfather’s tutelage, Ah Sheng wrote beautiful regular script in elementary school. I remember in the parting message in the fifth grade, he could already use running script to write “Our friendship lasts forever” in my tattered notebook. I thought it was just a parting message from a classmate at the time, and laughed at him for making a fuss, because we would still be together in junior high school. Later I learned that because his father was a live-in son-in-law, his family was ostracized by other family members and had to move back to his father’s hometown. I didn’t expect that we wouldn’t see each other for fifteen years since that parting. Later, when I went home for the Spring Festival, I heard from my mother that Ah Sheng’s family was also ostracized in his father’s hometown, plus his grandparents still liked to live in their own village, so they moved back, but not living in the original courtyard, but rented another small courtyard in the village.

Seeing Ah Sheng this time, both of our expressions were calm, after all, we were in the clinic. Ah Sheng said he is now in Hainan, doing advertising design. After graduating from high school, he went to an art college. It was hard to find a job, and he moved to Hainan, and has now settled down in Hainan. He usually likes to write and paint. I said that’s good, it’s still your hobby from childhood. I am now doing agricultural project investment.

He smiled and said you have also realized your ideal. Remember your first essay in 3rd grade “My Ideal”, you wrote that you wanted to be a farmer and grow corn cobs weighing 10 jin. The Chinese teacher Xie San laughed at you, saying you had no ambition, wanting to be a farmer.

I said yes, when I got to the second year of high school, I still wanted to be a farmer. When filling out the college application in the third year, my parents and teachers wouldn’t let me fill in the Agricultural University. In a fit of pique, I filled in Chengyang Agricultural College as the second to last choice out of seven, and ended up actually going there. Only then did I know it was the only university in the country located in a small county town, just like high school. The only beautiful scenery was that the school was surrounded by pear orchards, and in the blooming season it looked like snow. Near graduation from university, I couldn’t find a job. In fact, no one in the school was looking for a job. Everyone was like me, transferred here, and was holding their breath to pass the postgraduate entrance exam and jump to a prestigious university. I didn’t think about going to graduate school, because I still liked dealing with crops. And I was studying Entomology. Do you know the scientific name of the “Youzi” we used to skip class to catch in the sweet potato fields? Katydid, what an elegant name. And the scientific name of the “Ruanzao” we eat is “Diospyros lotus”. The more I studied in this university, the more fun I found it. In the third year, I suddenly heard that the “class flower” was going to take the postgraduate exam for Zhejiang University, and only then did I know that Zhejiang University also had agriculture. I thought since the class flower was going to Zhejiang University, if I got accepted, I would definitely be closer to her. Maybe it could even lead to marriage. So I applied for Zhejiang University, but the class flower didn’t pass, and no one else in the major passed except me. Just like that, I went to Zhejiang University, studied for two years as a graduate student, and now after graduation I am doing agricultural investment in a company.

Actually, I was vain in my heart. It’s not easy to find a job with an agriculture major even from a prestigious university. I graduated 2 years ago and couldn’t find a job. I was working as a pesticide salesman, running around villages every day. For the sake of face, I said I was doing agricultural investment.

In the past few days, I suddenly had the impulse to resign, and actually jumped to an investment company.

The boast I made 2 years ago, it really came true!

Should I make a bigger boast?

Published at: Jul 24, 2015 · Modified at: Dec 12, 2025