Chapter 493: Naming (for the reward from the book friend "Jinyiwei: Rongrong")
"You've seen the books in the bookstore, but Manbao is really amazing. You haven't been to their farm to see it. The other day, I went back to my parents' home and took a shortcut through that farm. Guess what happened?"
"What's going on?"
"Oh, there are chickens all over the field, and there are geese in the canal. There are so many chickens, maybe a hundred or so. If they all lay eggs, what else would that be but a nugget of gold?"
"It's more than just chickens. Think about all the food harvested this summer and autumn. Manbao got a share of it. The land on that small farm isn't very fertile, so how come the food they grow is better than ours?"
The more they talked, the more envious they became. They didn't worry about how the Zhou family could afford to send their children to school. Compared to studying, they felt that the harvest from the fields was more attractive.
So everyone started discussing the small farm. "I see their winter wheat is doing well. We'll be able to harvest it in the spring. The chickens are also going to lay eggs. If each chicken lays one egg, that means there should be a hundred eggs a day. Oh, how much money can they make from that?"
They can't figure it out anyway.
Mr. Zhuang placed the Zhou children on one side of the classroom and said, "Your progress is different from the other children. I will test you first before deciding how to teach you."
He knew that Manbao had been teaching the family to read, and sometimes she would ask him questions that she couldn't answer, but he didn't know their specific progress.
When it came time to test them, Mr. Zhuang was surprised to find that they had basically mastered the Thousand Character Classic and the Analects of Confucius. It was just that perhaps Manbao's knowledge was limited, so they only mastered the most basic ones.
But once you have the basics, learning will be much easier.
But the handwriting of the Zhou family’s children is really ugly.
Knowing that they had bought a lot of paper, Mr. Zhuang was not polite and assigned them a lot of calligraphy homework every day.
He moved Santou, Sanya and Sitou to the other side to study with the new group of children.
Although they can recite the Thousand Character Classic, they can only recognize it when they recite it and compare it with the textbook. Once the textbook is taken away, or when they are asked to recognize a character individually, they will not be able to recognize it.
So, they should start from the beginning.
Mr. Zhuang thought about it for a long time, and finally let Bai Erlang return to the classroom and study with the students who were one grade higher than him.
He placed Manbao and Bai Shanbao at the back of the class. He said, "You two are at a different pace than them. I will teach you individually."
There was envy and sympathy in the eyes of classmates looking at the two of them, but when the child of the Zhou family looked back, there was only pride, and he puffed out his chest and looked at the people around him.
Mr. Zhuang looked at the classroom that was once again filled with students and nodded with satisfaction. Then he said, "Come, all the children who don't have a name yet, come to me and I will give you a name."
The child from Old Zhou's family stood up immediately, looked around and decided to give way to others first.
They decided to see if the name chosen by the master was nice. If it was not nice, we planned to let my aunt choose one. If my aunt's name was not nice either, then they would look for one themselves in the book.
Anyway, they can recognize words, so they can just look through the books and use any nice-looking words they see as names.
Naming the others wasn't difficult, but when the seven children of the Zhou family gathered around him, Mr. Zhuang hesitated and asked, "You are all brothers and sisters. Do you have to have the same character in your names?"
The children's eyes lit up and they nodded immediately, "Yes, yes, sir, we have the same name now. I'm Big Head and he's Two Head..."
Mr. Zhuang laughed heartily upon hearing this and said, "Then I'll give you two names with two characters, how about the middle one being the same?"
Mr. Zhuang asked them as usual, "What kind of character do you want?"
Everyone thought about it seriously, and then looked at Datou. He was the oldest, and according to the Zhou family's tradition, he could make the decision.
Datou thought about it seriously, and then said, "Sir, we like money. Can we use money as the second word?"
Mr. Zhuang: ...
He coughed lightly and said, "Let's use the character '立'."
He looked at the seven children with a smile and said, "Although your family was once poor, your grandparents and parents have laid a solid foundation for you. Your generation should be able to lead the family to a firm foothold, so take the character 'Li' as your name."
Mr. Zhuang settled down after he finished speaking. He looked at Manbao behind him and beckoned, "Manbao, recite a passage from the Analects of Confucius."
Man Bao stood up, thought for a moment, and recited, "The Master said, 'A gentleman who is not serious has no authority; his learning is not solid; he must be loyal and trustworthy. He must not associate with those who are inferior to him. If he makes a mistake, he must not be afraid to correct it.'"
Mr. Zhuang nodded slightly, wrote this on a piece of paper, and said to the seven children, "Pick one character from it to be your name."
He smiled and said, "The article your aunt chose for you is very good."
The seven children immediately came over to take a look. Datou Daya and Ertou Daya had learned this article and knew its meaning, so the four of them discussed it and decided to let the three younger brothers and sisters who were still confused choose first.
Santou, Sanya and Sitou were pushed forward and asked their older brother and sister in a low voice, "Which word should we choose?"
Erya said to her sister, "If you want to pronounce it nicely, then use the character 'Ru'. Li Ru is also quite nice."
San Ya immediately said, "Sir, my name is Li Ru!"
Mr. Zhuang nodded slightly and agreed with a smile.
Then he looked at the other children.
Santou and Sitou were undecided. Manbao had slipped up at some point and was choosing characters for his two nephews. "Santou, you never like studying, so we'll use the character '学'. From now on, every time we call your name, you must remember to study."
Three Heads: "...I don't want to. Is there a word for 'play'?"
Manbao: "If you continue to be naughty, I will change my words immediately, hahahahahaha..."
Mr. Zhuang looked at her helplessly.
Bai Erlang played well with him and encouraged him, "Learning Chinese characters is better. Other characters are worse. Your name is Li Zhong, so you have to be loyal. Hey, Li Zhong is not bad either. It's almost the same as mine. My name is Cheng."
Santou immediately said: "Okay, I will call myself 'Xue'"
Bai Erlang became unhappy when he heard this and snorted.
Manbao gave the four heads a choice and said, "You should choose the character 'Gu' because you have no ideas of your own. Every time the second head tells you to do something, you do it, and then the third head tells you to do something else. These are obviously two opposite things, but you still do them both. From now on, you must learn to make your own decisions and stick to them."
Mr. Zhuang smiled but said nothing. Although this was not the same as that, her explanation was not wrong. Children always had strange ideas. She just had to not interpret it as stubbornness.
After the three children who were not yet able to choose their own preferences passively chose the words, it became much easier for the remaining four to choose words.
The next update will be around 9pm
(End of this chapter)
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