A Rural Bookworm's Road to a Comeback

He drags a dust-stained backpack behind him, as if it carries the weight of his entire youth: countless nights spent studying by the light of an oil lamp, the pride of being "the first college student in the village," and the awkwardness of having his dignity softened by his mother-in-law's spit. He merely answers a greeting in a quiet voice, and suddenly he's an "ungrateful brat who studied himself stupid." He's simply used to speaking standard Mandarin after living in the city, and in an instant he's labeled a "wannabe city boy." The village entrance's "gossip bureau" never runs out of stories, and he's always the leading character they talk about.

His story reflects the lives of countless "exam machines" who clawed their way up from the soil. They venture into the world with a bookish air, only to encounter the sharpest kind of unfamiliarity on the land they know best. The scrutiny hidden in the smoke rising from kitchen chimneys, the comparisons wrapped in concern, the pride broken and pieced back together in the sound of one's hometown dialect: perhaps you've quietly understood it too, at a station platform late at night or around a street corner after turning away.