Lesson Preparation
However, most children lack self-discipline and require a more supervised learning environment. Generally, parents who send their children to tutoring classes place a high priority on their education, so there’s no need to worry about a lack of parental cooperation, unlike in regular schools.
Li Lanlan is currently sitting in on an elementary school English class. She brought a notebook and a lesson plan, intending to take some notes.
The class was taught by a young female teacher named Lu Meixia. Her pronunciation was quite standard—certainly much better than Li Lanlan’s own—so Li Lanlan listened to the lesson while taking notes.
The teacher began by reviewing the material from the previous class to assess the students’ understanding, then introduced new vocabulary and helped them form sentences.
During the 45-minute class, she called on at least half the students to answer questions, form sentences, play word chain games, and so on.
Li Lanlan observed the students’ demeanor and noticed they all seemed eager to participate; they didn’t appear afraid of the teacher. There wasn’t the strict teacher-student hierarchy typical of public schools; the relationship felt more equal.
After all, the parents had spent a lot of money on these tutoring classes, so the teacher certainly couldn’t discipline the students the way public school teachers might.
Perhaps this was one of the differences from regular school education; Li Lanlan silently made a mental note of it.
After class, the students ran out laughing and playing. Lu Meixia stepped down from the podium; the two had already exchanged greetings before class, so there was no need to do so again now.
Li Lanlan gave her a thumbs-up. “Teacher Lu, you really gave a great lecture! Not only were these students listening intently, but I felt I benefited from it too!”
Lu Meixia was quite modest. “Hahaha, you flatter me. We’re all here to learn from one another!”
The break passed quickly. The summer schedule here was the same as that of a regular school, so Li Lanlan continued listening after class resumed.
Before she knew it, it was noon. There was a two-hour lunch break, and she planned to go home to eat.
Teacher Lu had brought her own lunch. The office had a microwave, so she could heat it up right away—after all, a meal out cost several yuan! Money was still quite valuable in those days.
When she went downstairs, Wang Dashan and the others had already set up their stall. They were bustling with activity; after a few days of practice, their hands were moving quite quickly now.
Plus, with the stall kept tidy and tasks clearly divided, they’d quickly drawn a crowd. There were plenty of other stalls in the area, but survival of the fittest applied here.
Many vendors whose food tasted bad or wasn’t hygienic didn’t last long. Li Lanlan noticed that two or three stalls she’d seen when she first started were no longer there.
Li Lanlan said her goodbyes and headed home. There wasn’t much she could do to help here, and besides, she was pretty tired after working all morning.
Some people get worn out by mental work, while others get worn out by physical labor.
She used to feel deeply gratified seeing her children spared the hardships she had once endured.
Watching them simply sit in a bright office and work on their computers, she felt truly envious.
Now she was an office worker herself, but it wasn’t as easy as she’d imagined. She felt like she’d absorbed too much information all at once—her head was buzzing!
Back at the small courtyard, Wang Dashan and the others had saved her some lunch, covering it with a dust cover.
People in their part of the country mainly eat staple foods and rarely make stir-fried dishes. Li Lanlan took a look and realized they must have made wheat noodles for breakfast.
They’d tossed the noodles lightly with hot oil to prevent them from sticking, and also prepared stir-fried chives and a meat broth to go with them. The noodles actually had some meat in them—better than nothing—so she just needed to turn on the gas stove to heat it up.
Li Lanlan had been cooking for the past few days, so they’d been eating stir-fried dishes often. Today’s meal was probably made by her older sister, Li Xiaolan. As Li Lanlan heated it up and stirred, she thought, “There’s way too little ground meat in here.”
Her older sister was still being so stingy. Li Lanlan opened the jar of meat sauce to take a look—it was just as she’d left it after scooping some out last time. So today, she’d only scooped out some of the meat sauce oil!
In her past life, ever since she started learning to cook from short videos, she basically had a meat dish at every meal—it was rare for her to go without meat.
It was the same after she came back. Back when she was at the Wang family’s, they also had meat at every meal.
People who are used to eating meat get cravings if they go even one meal without it, but back home, people basically don’t eat meat all year round and don’t even think about buying it.
Apart from feasting on rich, meaty dishes at weddings and funerals, they mostly got by on the leftover meat from the New Year.
They don’t eat much meat during regular holidays either—vegetarian zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival, and vegetarian mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
After Wang Dashan and the others arrived, they’d occasionally remark on how nice it was to have a meat dish at every meal, though they didn’t make a big deal of it. Little did they expect that things would turn out this way once they started cooking for themselves.
Li Lanlan sighed. This was simply a side effect of dietary habits and a lack of sufficient supplies!
The noodles were smooth and chewy, and the meat broth was delicious, but no matter how long she picked through it, she couldn’t find a single piece of meat—just chunks of potato, tofu, and radish.
After a short rest at noon, Wang Dashan and the others returned. Knowing Li Lanlan was resting, they moved very quietly.
Li Lanlan had been sleeping for about half an hour. If she slept any longer, her head would start to ache, so she didn’t dare to sleep more. Wang Dashan had also gone to bed by then.
They had to go out twice that day. The work wasn’t heavy—it was definitely much better than carrying heavy loads—but going back and forth was still tiring.
By the afternoon, Li Lanlan felt she was really getting the hang of things, though she still needed more practice. She now finished work at six in the afternoon, so she didn’t have to pick up the kids too late at night.
When she got home, she saw that her older sister, Li Xiaolan, had made another vegetarian meal. Li Lanlan opened the fridge and found the meat she’d bought earlier still frozen inside.
She let the kids play on their own while she thawed the meat and made Fish-Flavored Eggplant. Since the two younger ones shouldn’t eat too much meat yet, she also steamed some minced pork and egg for them.
Cooking with natural gas is so much more convenient than the traditional earthen stove back home—she had everything ready in less than half an hour!
Her eldest daughter, Zhengzheng, said happily while eating, “Mom, this is so delicious!”
This child has always been quick on her feet, and she still is—she carries herself with the poise of an older sister, looking after her younger sister and brother. Back home, it was always the older kids taking care of the younger ones.
But if she could do it all over again, she’d rather spend the money than deprive her children of their childhood. Let them all go to school—she gave birth to them herself, so of course she has to take responsibility.
The second child was eating with such gusto, slurping away like a little piglet. This child had always been a real handful at mealtimes—dawdling and dragging her feet. Since coming to Beijing, perhaps because the food was better than before, she’d actually started eating quickly and without fuss.
Still, the second child was definitely one to enjoy life. In their previous life, once their circumstances improved, Li Lanlan and Wang Dashan would occasionally buy some coarse grains like cornmeal steamed buns to eat.
The other kids ate them happily, and the elderly couple occasionally missed them too. Even though they’d eaten so many heart-burning sweet potatoes and throat-scraping cornbread as children, they actually found themselves missing them now and then—perhaps because they were so deprived back then.
But the second child was different. She only liked refined grains and wouldn’t touch a single bite of coarse food. The main reason was that she would vomit as soon as she ate it. Once, she forced herself to eat some, only to end up vomiting all over the floor, which made the whole family feel sick to their stomachs.
Even in their past life, by the time their children were born, they had basically stopped eating coarse grains. The coarsest thing they had was red-flour steamed buns, but this child wouldn’t eat them even when she was starving.
There was nothing to be done; the couple had to eat it themselves, while the children were given white flour buns—which the couple didn’t even like.
That pot of buns was never finished; they were simply too unpalatable. Besides, times weren’t that hard yet, so there was no need to be so frugal.
Eventually, they gave the leftover buns and most of that bag of red flour to others to feed their pigs. Things got easier after that, and they never had to eat like that again.
The two little ones always had a hearty appetite and were quite sturdy—which gave her great comfort. After all, a family’s good health is more important than anything else.
After cleaning up after dinner, Li Lanlan tried teaching English to her two older children. The lesson lulled the two kids into drowsiness, but Li Lanlan herself was full of enthusiasm.
“Lanlan, Lanlan, open the door!”
Li Lanlan hurried out to help open the front gate. Wang Dashan was pushing the front of the cart, while her older sister and brother-in-law pushed the back. Happy smiles lit up everyone’s faces.
After unloading their things, they went to change and wash up, while Li Lanlan started preparing the sauce—a task she still handled mostly on her own.
Once it was ready, she put it in the fridge; when it was time to use it, they’d just need to mix it with water in the right proportions.
After she finished, Li Xiaolan had also finished washing up. Li Lanlan called her over. “Sis, didn’t I tell you to cook some meat when you were making dinner?”
Seeing her younger sister pressing her so insistently, Li Xiaolan felt a little guilty.
“I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, okay? Besides, the food isn’t bad. Why eat so much meat all the time? It’s a waste of money. And I put so much meat in there—look how greasy and fragrant that noodle soup was at lunch!
I had two bowls. Your brother-in-law and Dashan each had two bowls of dry noodles and two bowls of soup. My cooking’s actually pretty good!”
“Stop beating around the bush. I’m asking why you didn’t use the meat from the fridge!”
“That meat wasn’t fatty enough to make a proper meat sauce. You should buy fattier cuts next time!”
At this point, Li Xiaolan felt justified too. That meat looked so lean—it was obvious it wouldn’t render a single ounce of fat no matter how long she stir-fried it, and she’d have to add half an ounce of rapeseed oil herself.
“Who said we’re making meat sauce? Didn’t I just tell you to make green peppers with pork?”
Seeing her sister’s attitude, Li Xiaolan figured she wasn’t going to listen anyway. Did she really think her sister didn’t know good meat when she saw it?
It was just that she’d been scared into frugality by poverty. Since they were family, didn’t she, as the older sister, have a duty to help this spendthrift save a little money?
This girl just doesn’t appreciate a good thing—oh well. When you’re under someone else’s roof, you have to bow your head!
“Fine, I’ll do it your way!”
“You should’ve been doing it my way all along. By the way, have you been tired lately? Working in the food service industry, I bet you haven’t had much time to rest recently!”
“Rest? What rest? We’ve finally got something to look forward to—I can’t afford to rest now!”
“All right, all right. You go watch TV. I’m going to study a bit more!”
Li Lanlan waved her hand to shoo Li Xiaolan away, then stayed in her room to continue reviewing her lesson plans and taking notes.