DRIVER LAOL LI
Lao Li, our senior hospital driver, died yesterday. Today at the back of the hospital, in the open air, we held a memorial meeting, at which the hospital director, a young driver and Lao Li’s second son made speeches. They told of his past, of his devotion to duty, of his revolutionary optimism in the face of fatal illness. They spoke of his fine qualities as a worker of New China.
Lao Li came from a poor peasant family. He had hardly any schooling. Before liberation he was a cart-driver who could barely keep body and soul together, let alone support his family. So he came to Beijing to try to find work. He became an apprentice truck driver, living a life of grinding poverty. It was liberation that brought about a complete change in his life, and his gratitude and devotion to the Party was boundless.
Lao Li had been a good friend of mine. He had driven me to and from work for many years
and we always had much to say to each other. His attitude to me was that of a comrade. He had five children and never tired of telling me about them. All were at school and he was proud of them and loved them dearly. I once asked him if he had any difficulty in keeping five children in school. He said he had no difficulty at all, and he had never been so well off in his life.
A few years ago, while Lao Li was out with the hospital truck collecting supplies from a town several hundred miles away, North China was hit by an unexpected heavy rain, which caused severe flooding. We were not surprised that he returned three days later than expected. He just said that the roads were flooded and some bridges had been washed away. We would have thought nothing more about it if we had not received a letter from a people’s commune asking for the name of our driver.
As Lao Li was driving through the rain, the roof of a roadside granary fell in. the harvest had just been gathered and the food for hundreds of families was in danger. Without hesitation Lao Li stopped his truck and helped to carry the sacks of grain to safety. When
all the grain had been removed, he set about helping homeless women and children to places of safety. For twenty-four hours he worked without food or rest and then, without saying a word to anyone, went on with his journey back to Beijing. A villager had noted the number of the truck. The commune found out that it belonged to our hospital and now wished to write a letter of thanks to the driver.
That’s the sort of man Lao Li was, unselfish, modest, always putting the interests of the people before his own.
Lao Li died of cancer. For months it had been difficult for him to move about, but he insisted that he felt well enough for light work. He said he was fed up with resting at home and wanted to do something useful. So he was given a job in the inquiry office, where he set a good example to all by his deep concern for patients.
Today we all felt that we had lost a comrade, a man we loved and respected, a man to learn from, a man whose death was weightier than Mount Tai.
Helen Keller
高中英语课文Helen Keller was a very special girl who needed a superb teacher. By the time she was seven years old, she still couldn’t speak, read or write. This was because Helen couldn’t see or hear. With these severe restrictions on her communication, Helen’s behavior was often unbearable. She was stubborn and angry, and often broke things when she wasn’t understood.
Anne Sullivan was brought in to help Helen. Anne was a teacher and former student at a school for the blind in Boston. She had had eyesight problems early in life as well so she could relate to Helen’s difficulties. Her first goal was to stop Helen’s troublesome behaviour. Helen would need this valuable preparation in order to learn language. She would also need lots of love. When Anne and Helen first met, Anne gave Helen a big hug.
Helen would have to learn to understand words spelled on her hand. Anne’s technique was simple and straightforward. She would put an object into one of Helen’s hands and spell the word into her other hand. She started with dolls. She would let Helen play with the doll, and then spell the letters “D-O-L-L” into her hand. Helen thought this was a game.
She had a precise description of her excitement in her book, The Story of My Life: “Running downstairs to my mother, I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation.”
Then one day, Anne took Helen out to the well. Anne put Helen’s hand under the water. As the water flowed over one hand, Anne spelled “w-a-t-e-r” into the other hand. Then suddenly, Helen had a burst of understanding; the movement of the fingers meant the cool water flowing over her hand. This precious knowledge gave her hope and joy. Finally, the world of words was opening up to her.
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