Gritting their teeth and persevering until six o'clock in the afternoon, Lin Xiao and Yu Qingning were almost exhausted.
The intensity of the physical work, which lasted for ten consecutive hours, was something they had never imagined before.
Their backs, bent over all day, were almost broken, but they were too embarrassed to show it, afraid of being laughed at, so they could only endure it.
After washing up in the evening, Lin Xiao and Yu Qingning started chatting as they lay in bed to sleep.
The two lamented how difficult it was to work. Xiao Yu said, "Sister, I can't keep going anymore. What should I do? I feel like my back is about to break."
This work will last for 10 days and will end three days before the end of the Easter holiday.
Lin Xiao comforted Xiao Yu, telling her not to desert her post and to persevere for the next 10 days. But on the second night, Lin Xiao also regretted it.
After dinner, everyone rested and chatted, and Xiaoyu's senior talked about her past work experiences.
She has been in France for three and a half years, and has only returned to China twice during that time. She spends the rest of her winter and summer vacations, as well as Easter and Christmas holidays, working in France to earn tuition and living expenses.
Tuition fees at French public universities are very low, but the various living expenses can still be a bit of a burden for ordinary families in China.
The senior student said that her parents were both factory workers, and for children from families like her, wanting to study abroad was basically a pipe dream.
But ever since she saw a film about France in high school, she gradually fell in love with this romantic country. While in college, she worked part-time and minored in French, and upon graduation, she applied to a French university for further studies despite all opposition.
Fortunately, her study abroad application was approved, but she was too embarrassed to ask her parents for money, so she had to support herself for all her expenses after arriving in France.
The senior student said that picking flowers was one of the easiest and most enjoyable jobs she had ever done, and another job was guarding a campsite and cleaning RVs.
The hardest job was when I first arrived in France, working at a French restaurant during Christmas.
Because I had no experience and broke several plates, I was later assigned to wash dishes in the kitchen, where I washed mountains of dishes.
French cuisine is quite complicated; a single set meal can require a dozen or even dozens of plates and utensils of various sizes.
The senior student said that every morning when she woke up during those days, all ten of her fingers were swollen like little radishes.
Lin Xiao and Xiao Yu were both shocked and ashamed by what they heard. Although they had never spoken to each other, their families gave them several hundred thousand RMB a year for living expenses in France, and they had never worried about making a living.
We're all international students, yet our lives are so different!
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