Martina woke up a long time ago, but didn't want to get up. Today is the first day of winter vacation, so there is no need to rush to go to the classroom. She put her arms behind the mold, looked at the rays of sunlight through the slits of the curtains, and thought about her comfortably.
Yesterday's graduation ceremony for international students, the dean of the School of Chinese at University F handed Martina the prizes for outstanding students. It was a beautiful hardcover copy of Modern Chinese Dictionary in recognition of her excellent studies in the past two and a half years. . At this moment, the dictionary was on the opposite bookshelf, and Martina looked away. Thinking of the worry of her former family in China, she couldn't help laughing. For French people, there is probably nothing more difficult to learn in the world than the Chinese language. If a French child speaks unclearly, his parents will ask: "Are you speaking Chinese to me?" They Often, everything that I don't understand is regarded as Chinese. After coming to China, Martina has been studying Chinese at Shanghai F University, starting with Pinyin, and then learning to write Chinese characters awkwardly like a painting. With her cleverness and longing for Chinese culture, she now can not only easily Talking to Chinese people, Chinese movies and TV shows can also be understood, shopping on the streets, she often speaks in dialects such as "How much cheaper?" "A little bit (cheaper) to sell 𠲎?" Bargain with Shanghainese.
The phone on the bedside rang, she grabbed the receiver, and the phone made a beep. It was an international long-distance signal. She exclaimed excitedly: "Mom!" Mother's kind voice came out: "Matti Na, dear, you haven't come back for Christmas or New Year's Day. Now it's winter vacation, and you have graduated. It's time to go back to France."
"Good mother, of course I want to go back, but I want to go back after the Chinese New Year. The Chinese New Year is very interesting. I want to see..."
"Oh, Chinese, Chinese, my daughter is about to become a Chinese."
"Mom, your daughter is a French who likes China, kiss you and dad, goodbye!" Martina hung up the phone, jumped out of bed, and ran into the bathroom barefoot to freshen up.
When she had breakfast, she spread the "Xinmin Evening News" that she bought at the school gate yesterday on the table. It said that there was a New Year's Day temple fair near Longhua Park. She carefully marked the location stated in the newspaper on a map of Shanghai, and planned to ride a bicycle to the temple fair after breakfast.
Someone in the corridor outside the door was joking and laughing, mixed with the sound of something being thrown on the ground, and then her door was knocked hard.
There was a dark-faced man standing outside the door. He looked at her and said, "Hey, let's paint the wall and paint the door. Open the door." After that, he went to the other side of the corridor to get tools.
Martina guessed that he must not be from Shanghai. Shanghainese always call her "Miss".
The black-faced man brought a few large pieces of sand leather and a paint bucket. He first hit the door with the sand leather, and the creamy wooden door immediately became white. The man touched the door with his rough hands. , Without letting go of a small grain of sand, wipe it off with sand, and then start to paint the ground with paint.
"Are you a migrant worker from another region?" Martina asked. She knew that Shanghainese called all people who could not speak Shanghainese "outsiders" and farmers who came to work in Shanghai were called "outside migrant workers."
"Well, how do you know that you foreigner can still speak Chinese?" The man stopped the paintbrush in his hand, smiled "hee hee", then blew his nose and rubbed his body casually.
Martina frowned quietly. She noticed that the man was dirty all over. The shirt was made of cheap chemical fiber, but it was made into a suit style. Wearing a suit for dirty work was somewhat nondescript.
"Not only do I know that you are a migrant worker from another region, but also that your Chinese pronunciation is not standard. You post 'China' (zhōngguó) as 'China' (zhòng guō)." Martina corrected proudly.
"We who work part-timers don't know what standards are not standard. We only know how to work, take money, eat, and sleep." The man laughed again, showing his yellow teeth.
Martina never gave up any opportunity to talk to Chinese people to practice her spoken English, but the man in front of her had a too heavy accent, and she lost interest in practicing spoken English with him. Besides, she had to go to the temple fair.
"How long will it take you to finish it? I'm going out soon." Martina said.
"It will be over in a while. This is quick-drying paint. After half an hour, you will close the door and it will not be a problem." The man said, speeding up the frequency of painting.
"I can't wait for another half an hour, so let's lock the door for me when you are done. This is the key." Martina handed the key to the man.
"Ah yo dear, how can I take your keys? No one in your house, which one can you compensate for later?" The man jumped away as if he saw something hot.
"Is anyone in the house bothering you? How could there be less stuff?" Martina didn't understand. When she was in France, she hired a lady cleaner at home to clean up when the whole family was away. She is in charge of a large set of keys.
"After you locked the door for me, you threw the key into the mailbox downstairs, it's number 305, thank you." Martina put the key into his hand without waiting for him to refuse. She picked up her backpack and walked a few steps, then turned around and asked, "What's your name?"
"My name is Huang Guilong, yellow grass head, precious, one-stop dragon," the man named Huang Guilong replied blankly, holding the key.
"Huang Guilong, my name is Martina, I am French. There are drinks and food in the refrigerator. If you are thirsty and hungry, eat by yourself, you can be like in your own home. Goodbye." Martina is like a gust of wind. Ran downstairs.
Huang Guilong couldn't help himself for a long time: he wiped his dirty clothes on the bus with Shanghainese. Rolling your eyes a few times is considered polite. It's also common to call you a hillbilly. Isn't it because Shanghainese are richer than countrymen? But this foreigner is supposed to be richer than the Shanghainese. How could he politely let us come in to eat and leave the keys safely. Isn't this foreign girl playing tricks with us, hiding in the dark to see how our country folk steal her things? Thinking of the sweat oozing from Huang Guilong's forehead, he lay on the window sill in the corridor and looked down. The blond figure in red clothes was riding his bicycle towards the school gate. He was relieved that no one was watching him.
Throughout the day, Huang Guilong worked on the third floor of the International Student Building. He painted more than a dozen doors and then painted the entire corridor wall with Nippon Paint. When the work was almost completed, he found that there was still creamy yellow paint left, so Decided to paint Martina's door 305 again to make it more beautiful. This babe can trust us the first time we meet, and we have to be meaningful to her. He took out the key to open the door, put a few old newspapers under the door, and painted it again.
The door that had been painted twice was beautiful and dazzling. Huang Guilong appreciated it for a while. He half-covered the door and sat on the floor outside the door. He planned to rest for a while and leave when the paint doesn't touch his hands. The cigarette in his pocket was squashed early. He looked at no one before and after, quietly lit one and smoked it. The contractor said that if any painter dared to smoke while working, he immediately told him to get out. He Huang Guilong came out from the countryside of Gaoyou in northern Jiangsu Province, and found the job at the moment without much help, but he can't lose it. After smoking, his stomach gurgled. The big bowl of rice and cabbage was gone at noon. He remembered what Martina had said in the morning, so he stood up and took off his shoes and walked into the house quietly.
There was a faint scent in the room. There were many pictures of foreigners on the wall. He couldn't remember what Martina looked like. He saw a photo of Martina and an old couple on the desk. Probably her parents, he looked closely, and remembered her face again.
There is a big refrigerator in the kitchen, which is full. Huang Guilong has never seen these delicious and beautiful things when he grows up so big. Although he is working in Shanghai, the big shopping malls and supermarkets in Shanghai are another world to him. He has no money. Apart from eating and smoking, all the money he earns is sent back to his hometown in Gaoyou, so that his mother can save it for him in the future to marry a wife; he also has no time. Go to the street and do more than ten hours of work every day, seven days a week, and fall asleep in the work shed at night. Only when he is cooking for his fellow workers in the work shed, does he go to the farmers market to buy the cheapest vegetables. He opened an exquisite plastic box with a piece of yellow paste inside, scratched it with his fingers, and tasted it. It turned out to be a piece of butter. He saw that the bottom grid was filled with yogurt. He had thought about it a few times. I'm willing to buy something to taste, for a box of six cents. At this time, his stomach grumbled again. He picked a box of strawberry yogurt. He hoped that Martina didn't know how much yogurt was in the refrigerator. Even though she told him to eat it, he felt that a man would always eat women's food. A bit of a price drop. He pricked a hole in the yogurt box with his finger, raised his head and poured the yogurt into his mouth. The yogurt tastes really good, sweet and sour. He slapped his mouth for a long time and saw a few drops of yogurt dripping on the ground. He used to stretch out his feet to wipe it off, just like he would normally spit. , He found that the shoes were taken off the door, and the yogurt was rubbed on the smelly socks.
Martina dragged her exhausted body back to school. The bicycle broke down halfway and could not find the garage, so she had to walk back half-push and half-pull.
Someone was waiting for her on the steps of the International Student Building. She recognized him as the painter in the morning, and she still remembered his name as Huang Guilong. Huang Guilong still called her "Hi" and reached out to give her the key. Martina said, "Didn't you tell you to throw it in the mailbox? Have you been waiting for me?"
"I want to wait for you to come back to see if there is nothing in the room, or how can I leave with peace of mind?"
"Does anyone not trust you?" Martina was amused by Huang Guilong's seriousness.
"Go up, I'll wait below. If there is nothing missing, you can tell me from the window." He wanted to tell me about eating a box of yogurt, but he didn't say it.
The light came on in Martina's room. She quickly leaned out of the window and waved to Huang Guilong. Huang Guilong was relieved and ran to the work shed behind the school. He was really hungry.