Countryman from the 1980S: a Man Who Came Out of the Mud

This is not a story about rebirth and cheating, but a complete and real life of a rural child born in the 1980s. My name is Fu Xiaoguo. I was born in an ordinary village in the mountains of southwest China. I have eaten rice mixed with coarse grains, worn patchwork clothes sewn over and over again, lived in adobe houses that leaked on rainy days, and walked on muddy field roads all year round. My childhood was spent running around the mountains and helping with housework in the fields; my youth studied hard under the kerosene lamp, holding on to a little hope in the days of poverty; my youth walked out of the mountains carrying a simple suitcase, stumbling, persevering, and moving forward step by step in the tide of the times. There is no golden finger, no good luck from the sky, no dramatic counterattack and reversal, just the entire past of an ordinary person living seriously and growing up slowly amidst the fireworks and suffering. If you have grown up in a rural area, have survived the years of poverty, and have gritted your teeth in ordinary days, you may be able to see your own shadow in these words and find a memory of our common era.