Wang Fang felt that the past dozen years or so were like a compressed biscuit, all the flavor, nutrition, and expectation tightly pressed upon her son Xiao Jun's soon-to-be-revealed Gaokao score. To be precise, they were pressed upon the two words: "Peking University."
The list appeared on a gloomy morning, like a judgment handed down from the sky, silently landing on the principal's desk. A thin sheet of A4 paper, printed with more than a dozen names, all students of the school. Behind each name, in red ink, two startling words were marked: "Fallen to death."
I found out on a Tuesday afternoon. On the radio, an announcer read the news in a flat tone: Wannian County, Jiangxi, would no longer be hiring English teachers starting in 2025. I was making coffee, and the hissing of the boiling water mixed with the announcer's voice, like some kind of old jazz.
I put down the moka pot and went to the window. Outside, the rain was relentless. The gray sky was like a giant, damp old newspaper, the words on it blurred. I thought of my English teacher, a middle-aged man who liked to wear plaid shirts and gold-rimmed glasses. He always played Beatles songs during breaks. He said they were memories of his youth. And now, English, along with those songs, seemed to be disappearing from this small county.