Life Like the Stars: Soaring

[“Welcome the 20th Party Congress, Let Youth Write a Glorious Chapter” Themed Essay Contest] [Fiction]

An ordinary yet extraordinary job. Teachers nurture their students and help dragons soar through the nine heavens.

In this age of Chinese prosperity, every person, however ordinary, is born a star. Countless stars come together to form the gleam on the national flag. Look here, and witness the Chinese dragon taking flight into the highest heavens.

Synopsis:

A PE teacher rescues a goose that had been abandoned in his neighborhood. After diligently caring for it, he finds it a permanent home. On the day a student comes to take the goose away, it darts among the students performing a dragon dance.

The PE teacher had once come close to becoming a university instructor, but missed out by half a point. He thought PE, a subject he believed no one took seriously, could not accomplish much. Then a veteran teacher taught him “how to educate students.” It turned out that political education teachers were not the only ones who could teach students what was right. But students sometimes would not listen, and he could not exactly explain the spirit behind PE to them.

In recent years, the country has placed particular emphasis on traditional cultural education for young people. From dragon dancing to martial arts, from introductory lessons to competitions, and, when the pandemic struck, recording instructional videos for the Eight-Section Brocade. By passing on his passion for sports and traditional Chinese athletics to this generation of young people, the teacher rediscovers the spirited competitor he once was.

On the day the PE teacher’s application to join the Party is approved, the goose lays an egg. As it dances among the twisting dragon’s coils, the egg seems to become a dragon pearl. The young people being educated will one day grow up, and, just as they do now, use their own shoulders to support the Chinese dragon as it takes flight.