RD Chapter 32.2

All the children walked into the hallway and roughly estimated their own height before they started to order themselves by height.

In reality, at this age, most of the children were of similar heights. Even if there was a height difference it would still not be a lot.

After arranging themselves, the teacher helped them adjust their positions. Qin Yu and MiaoMiao were of similar heights and stood next to each other. The first time the teacher went through, their positions were not changed. But during the second pass, when the teacher was splitting people into pairs, she noticed that Qin Yu and MiaoMiao would be separated. So she swapped the position of the child in front of them to behind them.

After the third pass, she let the children sit down in pairs.

There were four groups of desks in the classroom. Each group of desks had two seats in each row, so there would be eight people in a row and there were five rows in total.

The classroom was not small and there was plenty of space between each desk, so MiaoMiao did not feel like her desk was crowded.

After everyone sat down, Teacher Xu returned to the desk at the front and sat down and said: “From today, everyone is an elementary school student. You are no longer a kindergarten kid. You guys need to study hard and not be distracted during class. In a little bit, someone will bring the textbooks over. Right now, we need to select a class manager, is there anyone who wants to be one?”

There were a few students who excitedly raised their hands. MiaoMiao did not know what a class manager was, but she saw that Qin Yu didn’t raise his hand, so she also didn’t raise her hand.

After Teacher Xu selected the class manager, the textbooks arrive. She then asked the class manager to hand out the textbooks.

MiaoMiao suddenly realized, the class manager had to do hard labour?

Why did so many people want to do this kind of work?

After the textbooks were passed out, MiaoMiao realized there really was a lot of books. There were also a lot of words on them. It looks really scary. QAQ

From today onward, she needs to study hard. After all she is an elementary school student now, she is no longer a little kindergartner!

After finishing school for the day, before MiaoMiao returned home, picked out a transparent book covers that matched the size of her textbooks.

She had seen some of the other kids had bought paper and planned to cut it before using it to wrap their books. But even though the paper was really pretty, because you had to cut it, it would be a lot of work. It would also cover up the words on the cover. You wouldn’t be able to tell which book was which anymore, so MiaoMiao selected the transparent one.

After returning home, MiaoMiao and her mother wrapped her textbooks together. Her chubby little fingers carefully helped her textbooks put on their clothes. After completing it, she breathed out a sigh. Then she looked at Fu Rou and said: “Mommy, when MiaoMiao was inside the new class, she noticed that there were a lot of kids. It looked like there were forty!”

“Forty is not that many. In some elementary schools, a single class has fifty to sixty people.” Fu Rou said.

When MiaoMiao heard this, she was immediately shocked. “Wouldn’t it be difficult to remember who was who?”

MiaoMiao felt that if she just had to remember the face or to remember the name, it would still be simple. But if she had to match the face to the name, then it would be much more difficult.

Fu Rou flicked her little nose. “You don’t need to specially remember this. During class, teacher will call on the students to stand up and answer questions. After a while, you will naturally know who is who.”

MiaoMiao nodded her little head.

The next morning, MiaoMiao who the teacher was paying special attention too, was selected by the teacher to answer a question.

Teacher Xu felt that since she had to pay special attention, she definitely needed to make sure the child understood the material. She could not only take care of the child during normal times, she should also pay attention to her during class.

As a result, Wen MiaoMiao who was planning on daydreaming in class, no longer dared to not pay attention. She was scared that she would be called to stand up and answer questions. It would be shameful if she didn’t know the answer. QAQ

So the teachers enjoyed asking Qin Yu and MiaoMiao to stand up and answer questions during class time. In the end, they were the students that their classmates recognized the most early on.

There were times when the other students came to find them to chat. Qin Yu and MiaoMiao felt a bit awkward. They had to look at the other person’s name tag before they would know who it was.

In grade one, the students also had a physical education class. The PE teacher started to teach the children how to do the radio gymnastics.

This was the first time that MiaoMiao found out that the boys and girls had separate physical education classes.

There were not that many girls in the class. In the forty kids, there were 24 boys and only 16 girls.

The girls stood in two rows and the PE teacher stood in front to teach everyone how to do the radio gymnastics. It was different from the one that MiaoMiao did in kindergarten.

MiaoMiao also learned that radio gymnastics were also different for different ages. The one she did before was for preschoolers. Now they were doing elementary student radio gymnastics.

MiaoMiao worked hard while she copied the teacher’s movements. As she did the movements, she would also look at what the boys were doing.

Qin Yu’s body coordination was also very good. He was also able to copy the teacher’s movements just by watching the teacher. After he spent a little bit of time, he would be able to memorize it.

After PE ended, it was time for lunch. MiaoMiao and Qin Yu finished eating lunch and then they planned to find a little kiosk to buy some snacks.

The little kiosk was at the entrance of the school. After MiaoMiao entered, she thought for a long time before she decided to buy a bottle of milk and then she also decided to buy a bag of chips.

After she started elementary school, her pocket money had increased to a hundred dollars a day.

Breakfast was eaten at home, lunch was already paid for, and dinner was eaten after returning home. This hundred dollars was her pocket money for the entire day.

MiaoMiao honestly could not use it all in a day. Each day she would spend at most twenty five dollars. The rest would be placed into her little piggy bank.

MiaoMiao had already accumulated quite a bit of money from kindergarten. Since the piggy bank had limited space, after she accumulated enough money, she would find her mother to switch to a larger bill. She would exchange her change for a hundred dollar bill, so that she could put more money into her piggy bank.

Each day, Fu Rou now gave her a red Grandpa Mao [1], but when she brought money out to buy things, she would use the change from her piggy bank.

If she really did bring out a hundred dollars, there was a high chance of it being stolen.

So MiaoMiao now brought smaller bills to school everyday. Even though it was spare change to MiaoMiao and they were only ten and twenty dollar bills. In a public school, it was already considered a very rich child.

After school started for a week, the students noticed that Wen MiaoMiao and Qin Yu in their class appeared to be kids with a lot of money. Everyday they would have milk to drink and snacks to eat? And it wasn’t only just once or twice.

That day MiaoMiao had bough milk and potato chips. QIn Yu had also bought the same as her. The class 1 kids sitting next to them looked at them curiously.

A girl named Ye Lu curiously asked: “MiaoMiao, how much is your potato chips and milk?”

“It’s seven dollars.” MiaoMiao innocently and honestly replied.

“That’s so expensive!” Ye Lu was surprised. Then she was a bit jealous and said: “I only get two dollars of pocket money each day.”

MiaoMiao: “… …???” Two dollars? What can you buy with two dollars? A little bottle of milk?

“At least you have two dollars. I basically don’t have any pocket money.” The boy sitting next to them was really jealous and said: “My mother said, I eat breakfast at home, my lunch money has already been paid, and dinner is eaten after going home. The school has water fountains. All I need to do is bring my water bottle. I don’t need to buy water. I basically don’t need money. If I need to buy pencils or erasers, I can ask my mom to buy it for me.”

MiaoMiao: “… …???” There are actually people without pocket money?

Yu Lu furrowed her brows and asked: “MiaoMiao, is your family very rich? I see that you and Qin Yu are always buying things.”

Qin Yu and MiaoMiao looked at each other and didn’t say anything.

Qin Yu knew that his family was rich, but MiaoMiao didn’t know that about her family. He didn’t say anything because he was worried that MiaoMiao would notice.

MiaoMiao thought for a moment and said: “My mommy said that we don’t really have that much money.”

“Then how do you have so much money each day? How much pocket money do you get each day? Ten dollars?” Ye Lu curiously asked. In her heart she felt that it wouldn’t be just this much. She might be getting fifteen or twenty dollars.

MiaoMiao felt that if she said that she got a hundred dollars of pocket money each day, she would make the other students unhappy, so she said: “I get about fifteen dollars a day. But during vacation, my mommy would also give me pocket money. So I saved up a lot during summer vacation.”

“That’s so lucky.” Ye Lu jealously looked at MiaoMiao.” my family doesn’t have that much money.”

MiaoMiao: “… …” My family doesn’t have money, ya know.

MiaoMiao was a bit distressed and Qin Yu pulled her to head back to the classroom.

On the way, Qin Yu carefully asked: “MiaoMiao, did you notice anything?” Did you notice your family is actually very rich.

MiaoMiao furrowed her little brows and thought for a long time before she looked at Qin Yu. “Yu Tou, why do they only get two dollars of pocket money a day, or even no pocket money at all? To buy a bag of chips needs five dollars. Milk is also two dollars. They won’t be able to eat chips then? They won’t be able to drink milk?”

“I don’t know.” Qin Yu was also a bit unclear. He scratched his head and said: “Maybe this stuff isn’t necessary things.”

MiaoMiao furrowed her little brows and said: “But not being able to buy any snacks at all is really too pitiful though!”

MiaoMiao couldn’t imagine only eating three meals a day and being unable to eat snacks. No wonder the students in her class were so skinny. They didn’t have any pocket money to buy snacks. They were so pitiful.

“That’s true.” Qin Yu thought for a moment and said: “When this weather is this hot, everyone wants to buy cold drinks. A drink would cost three dollars. Milk is on the cheap side.”

The milk that MiaoMiao and Qin Yu bought were in paper cartons. The amount was on the small side. A little carton was two dollars and the two people would drink quite a few cartons a day. Each time they would drink a carton and immediately drink it. They wanted milk that was just taken out of the fridge and not milk that was taken out for a long time.

MiaoMiao nodded her little head. “From this perspective, even though my family doesn’t have a lot of money, but compared to my classmates. They seem to have even less money.”

[1] The Chinese hundred yuan note is red, with the face of Chairman Mao on it.

Joey’s Corner:
I can’t imagine a classroom of elementary students with 50-60 students. Even 40 students is a lot. Where I am, people already complain that the class sizes for elementary school are too big when there are 30 students. Though to be fair, I feel like most of the time the teachers can barely control the class when there are 30 students. If you double the number of students, then wouldn’t everything be chaos? How do these teachers do it?