Military Training That Received Unusual Attention and Care
The school military training has been going on for almost a week now. As a much-older university student, I stood out conspicuously in the ranks. On the very first day, the drill instructor spotted me, came over, and struck up a conversation to find out my basic situation. The instructors who came to the school for military training are all young soldiers born around 1995-1999. Once they learned my age, several of them in the instructor team, including the one training me, directly started calling me "Uncle," the same way my classmates do. Moreover, the instructors coordinated with each other, saying they should take special care of this older trainee during training and make sure nothing happens to me.
You can imagine the result. During training, I was constantly being asked: "Uncle, can you still keep going? If you can't hold on, just let us know; don't force it. If you feel even slightly unwell, step aside and rest." The class counselor (who is also a post-95s) also checked on me several times a day, worried that my body wouldn't hold up. Although I repeatedly told them I was perfectly fine, these young people still wouldn't rest easy. I could understand their feelings; after all, if an accident happened during military training, they would be held responsible.
But if I didn't do military training on the field, I would have to "observe instead of train" - carrying a small folding stool to sit beside the field watching others train, and then enjoying the salute of every other person's gaze across the playground. I felt that would be even more unbearable than training on the field, so I didn't take advantage of that privilege. In fact, my physical stamina is much better than many of my classmates.
On the physical education fitness test, my standing long jump was 2.06 meters; only about ten percent of the boys in my class can jump over 2 meters. So during the fitness test, when the watching classmates saw me jump past the 2-meter line, they let out waves of exclamations. Today's children mostly don't exercise; even though they are in the prime of youth, their physical fitness may not necessarily match that of me, a 46-year-old middle-aged man. Their energy in classes and extracurricular study and activities is also generally not as high as mine.
What makes me most uncomfortable at school is this ubiquitous care and attention. Before coming to school, I had hoped to live in a corner, unnoticed and undisturbed, quietly studying for a few years on my own. But after arriving at school, I found this was a vain hope. From the first day of enrollment, I was noticed; many people approached me out of curiosity, prying into my various circumstances, and the teachers also gave me all kinds of attention. This caused me a certain amount of disturbance, because I don't particularly like living under other people's gaze.
But I have gradually adapted to this environment. After getting along for over a month, the more than 100 classmates in my class have accepted me, and most get along with me harmoniously. It's just that with the recent military training, I was organized into a new group and got to know another 50-plus classmates from a different class. These past few days I've been subjected to a barrage of questions, which gives me a bit of a headache. Luckily military training isn't long; in about ten more days it'll be over.
I don't particularly care about my age, but studying alongside a group of eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds, the ubiquitous details keep reminding me that I am already old, and the gap between me and these young people can never be completely bridged. This unusual life experience, when I look back on it in the future, will probably be quite worth savoring!