The Boy Who Sat in the Corner of the Classroom Never Grew Up

Doctor zhou March 15, 2023

On the day of my son's coming-of-age ceremony, I went to his school. During the three pandemic years the school was strictly managed; this was only the second time since he entered high school that we had been allowed into the school for a public event.

When I spoke with his math teacher, the teacher could not praise him enough. The teacher told us: your child has nothing on his mind but studying, unlike other children who have more complicated thoughts. He is also well liked in his class; of the two hardest subjects, math and physics, he does best. So classmates often ask him questions, and he always explains patiently. For a while, when the math teacher was ill, it was even he who substituted for the teacher.

Because he joined the Strong Base Program, he also studied college-level math and physics during his three years of high school. Math and physics are the two subjects he is passionate about; he can forget to eat and sleep while studying them. During most study halls, while other classmates played, he sat quietly in a corner of the classroom studying.

Hearing the teacher say this, I only smiled faintly; my wife also smiled with understanding. My son's present state is exactly the same as mine was in high school. My wife was my classmate from middle school, so of course she knows.

From the second year of high school onward, I sat most of the time in the most remote corner of the classroom. There were two reasons I chose such a corner: first, I did not want to be disturbed—including by the teacher; second, because I was class monitor and responsible for arranging seats for the whole class, choosing the worst seat in the room meant no one could accuse me of favoritism.

I was the quietest student in my class. Even when the whole classroom was in an uproar, I could remain alone in a corner, deaf to everything happening outside, with my head buried in books and exercises.

I did not attend the same school in my first and second years of high school; in my second year I was a transfer student. Not long after I arrived in my class, the class atmosphere changed; the study hall became much quieter. Apparently, because many classmates felt that with me quietly studying there, it would be awkward for them to be noisy and roughhouse beside me, the rowdy ones voluntarily went to the hallway or the sports field to play, and once inside the classroom they no longer made a din.

A quiet student has great influence and a power to subdue. When I transferred into my school in the second year of high school, I declared two points to the school leadership: first, I wanted to study under a Chinese teacher I had long admired, and I would follow whichever class he taught; second, I had served as a student cadre for years and was thoroughly fed up. The reason I transferred at the end of my first year was that, as a student cadre, I had offended someone and got into a fight at another school.

Because at the end of my first year my scores in both the arts and sciences in the countywide exam were outstanding, and that same year my older brother was the top arts scorer in our local area in the college entrance examination, after news of my fight at high school spread, leaders of other schools came to my home and persuaded my father to send me to their school. Because of this, I was then in a position to make demands of the school leadership, and they agreed to them—after all, good students are a scarce resource.

But before long, as the consensus wish of the class, I was again elected class monitor. Although I expressed my protest by refusing to call "stand up" at the start of class, the teachers and classmates still made me monitor. I did indeed have a strong spiritual presence and great self-control; my grades were first in every subject, and my essays were excellent, making me the undisputed student leader of the school. My wife, at that time, because her self-control was too poor to settle down to study, asked to be my desk-mate; later, that former female desk-mate became the mother of my child.

My love of quiet is an inborn disposition determined by genes. My male and female cousins, reaching late adolescence, mostly show this same trait. One male cousin is especially noticeable: whenever there is a wedding or funeral at home requiring everyone to pitch in, that cousin of mine is always silent, working hard without complaint; after finishing, he claims no credit, argues over no right or wrong, and quietly listens to others. We were not like this before puberty; the children in our family were all mischievous and lively before puberty, and became very quiet in late adolescence, turning from extroverted to introverted. I am 44 years old this year, and I am still this introverted.

Yesterday I wrote an article titled "Eighth Year of Writing on the Official Account: A New Turning Point". Some readers felt quite sad after reading it and messaged me, telling me they had been reading my articles all these years, that it had become a habit of life, that they were very reluctant to let me go, and hoping I would not abandon the official account. I have many old readers; the longest-standing have been reading my various writings for more than twenty years, and they follow me no matter what pen name I use.

I did not write today's piece to brag about how much self-control I have; I only want to tell everyone that my gradual withdrawal from the bustling online world is a matter of inborn nature, of heredity. But I will keep this official account; I will not stop updating it completely. In the future I may still update it one to three times a week, but I need to devote more energy to more important things.

Some articles on the official account need processing before they are published. So although some articles may be deleted in the future, these deleted articles, after revision, will still appear on my blog.

The editing permission on the official account is very poor; at most 20 characters can be changed, and only once. When, looking back, I find that an article needs substantial revision, the official account is not as convenient as my own blog, where I can revise any number of times. If you truly enjoy reading my articles, you may read all of them on my blog in the future.

Blog URL 1: www.zhiyuanzhai.com (the pinyin of Zhiyuanzhai)

Blog URL 2: www.zhouzhiyuan.com (the pinyin of Zhou Zhiyuan)

Quietness is extremely important for my research. As I said in my previous article, now that I have reached this age, I always feel that time flies and my remaining days are not long, and that the time available for my research is very limited, so I can no longer spend so much time on social media.

Thousands of lives await prolongation through my research. Among them are many minor children, tormented by neuroblastoma, the king of childhood tumors. There are also young people in the bloom of life whose journeys have only just begun; their life and death are tied to the happiness of their families. Some of my own relatives and friends have long suffered from illness and need my help. Therefore, a body with purpose should not be squandered on things of little significance.

I hope everyone can understand these things. Finally, I want to say that I will still periodically publish some articles on the official account; it is just that the frequency will be much lower than before. Do not worry that I have vanished forever.

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