New Concept English

Over the next few days, Yang Rui attended classes as usual, the Rui Study Secret Compendium sold as usual, and the principal continued making the rounds between the county seat and the prefecture to get official stamps. The atmosphere at school calmed somewhat, but the Rui Study Group's reputation reached its peak. Not only students in the repeaters' class and graduating class, but students in other grades as well, applied to join.

Under Yang Rui's rules, joining the Rui Study Group required a written application. Applications promptly piled up on the desk like snowflakes, and many people actively helped cut stencils and print the Rui Study Group Secret Papers.

The applications varied in length, from over twenty pages to just two or three. Some were obviously adapted from Communist Party membership applications at a glance, while others were written with considerable care.

How could a carp's leap through the Dragon Gate be easy? The Factory-Run Middle School at the Xibao Meat Processing Plant had nearly a hundred students each year, yet not one got into university. Xibao Middle School was about the best township middle school in the area, and even there, only a handful got into university each year... Still, difficulty did not stop them from trying to leap through the Dragon Gate. Just thinking about life on the other side made students with that ambition willing to give everything for the slightest chance.

This was the only shortcut from one world to another.

Yang Rui could not read so many applications alone. After holding out for a day, he brought Huang Ren and Liu Shan into the review team.

Yang Rui's conduct, particularly his act of "teacher appreciation," had greatly improved Liu Shan's impression of him. With her conscientious nature, once she accepted the review assignment, she actually organized the work remarkably well. Not only did she divide the applications into approved, deferred, and rejected categories, but she also wrote comments on each application and created a separate file for each student.

If writing comments showed diligence, creating files took things to a whole new level.

When Liu Shan approached him, she was still worried that Yang Rui would disagree, and spoke persuasively. "Our school doesn't have many students. There are probably only about two hundred who need files, and they won't just submit one application and leave it at that. They'll keep applying. It might not seem necessary after one or two applications, but by the third or fourth, having a file will be more worthwhile. I was thinking we wouldn't need to buy actual file folders or anything. We could just use a binder, make a one-page file for each student, and put it inside. Every time he applies, whether he passes or not, we can note it there. That way, the next person reviewing it will know what happened, and we won't need to keep every application. It'll make the application process fairer, too..."

"I agree." Looking at how seriously Liu Shan took it, Yang Rui felt he fell short.

Rather surprised, Liu Shan asked, "You really agree?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Yang Rui asked in return. The files Liu Shan had created had also inspired him, sparking a whole chain of thoughts. Students could graduate, but their files could keep recording things forever. As the Rui Study Group's membership grew, relying entirely on his memory clearly would not work.

But if he created a file for everyone, even after they graduated and went their separate ways, Yang Rui could still use those files to recall their relationship and reestablish contact.

Naturally, Liu Shan had not thought that far ahead, but her thoughts took another direction. "You aren't agreeing because of me, are you?"

Her eyes were not large, but they were extraordinarily lively. When she looked at someone, they were like swirling eddies in a lake.

Yang Rui had been about to explain, but as the words reached his lips, he smiled instead. "The reason doesn't matter. Your idea is very good. Besides, we shouldn't just create files for students applying to join. We should create files for every member of the Rui Study Group. How about this? Let's hold off on buying file folders so people don't think we're up to something. Get some paper clips or a stapler, and prepare three sheets of paper for each student. Fill in the relevant details while you're at it, including some family information, then their academic progress, our major activities, and so on. Make them a little more detailed than regular files. After all, there are only so many of us..."

Liu Shan had been feeling a little shy, but hearing Yang Rui say so much in one breath, she could not help saying, "I can't possibly create files for several hundred people by myself."

"Then I'll give you another person."

"That still won't be enough. Four would be best, and we'll need someone else specifically to buy supplies." Liu Shan counted on her fingers: how long gathering information would take, how long writing it up would take, how long checking and sorting it would take...

Hearing how seriously she spoke, Yang Rui grew serious too. After a moment's thought, he said, "We'll make it four, then. I'll have Huang Ren arrange the allowances."

"Allowances?"

"The same allowance as the students cutting stencils, I suppose. One mao an hour. I'll give you five days at most. If you haven't finished by then, the allowances stop anyway." As the Rui Study Group became increasingly formalized, credited working hours had also been reduced to a maximum of eight per day, to match the legally prescribed working hours. These days, paying extra for overtime was not the done thing. In fact, no matter how much extra one paid for overtime, people could easily interpret it as exploitation. After all, profit-making organizations had people work overtime to make money. Once money had been made, no matter how much was distributed to the workers, there would still be profit-in other words, surplus value.

In the early eighties, whether it was surplus value or profit was something no one could clearly settle. Yang Rui neither cared about the issue nor wanted to become a target in the debate. He had a bright future ahead; why take that sort of policy risk? As the saying went, a wise man did not stand beneath a crumbling wall. One careless step into the abyss could mean utter ruin. This was a completely different sort of risk from scoring one hundred on an exam.

In the simplest case, an old Party member might take a dislike to him, submit a signed report, and potentially wipe out all his earlier efforts.

In those days, petitioning was not something meant for the masses. The truly formidable petitions came from officials and Party members, who produced far more petitions each year than ordinary people. How many cases involving senior cadres had begun with a petition from a colleague? Yang Rui's slight frame was still far from able to withstand a weapon like that.

Liu Shan, however, was startled. Covering her small mouth, she said, "You're going to pay us four yuan?"

"Work deserves compensation."

"You really are paying us for making the files?" Liu Shan suddenly grew suspicious again.

"What do you think?" Yang Rui smiled, then continued before Liu Shan could react. "All right, hurry and find some people. Any Rui Study Group members who have the time will do, as long as they agree. Give the list to Huang Ren and have him pay you."

Liu Shan gave Yang Rui a long look, said, "All right," and turned to leave.

Yang Rui smiled and bent over his desk to continue reading.

For the past few days, he had been writing out New Concept English from memory.

New Concept English was already available in China, but not as a published book. It circulated in handwritten and mimeographed booklets.

The British author Alexander had released New Concept English back in 1967, and it had once swept the world. In China, however, the frantic search for suitable English textbooks had only begun after two rounds of the Gaokao. Because Follow Me, broadcast on CCTV, was so immensely popular, New Concept English, written by the same author, had come to Chinese readers' attention.

However, without an official publication, New Concept English was still very difficult to buy in 1982. People generally borrowed copies and transcribed them themselves, though teachers at some schools would mimeograph a batch for students they liked.

Even on this fragmented scale, New Concept English had spread throughout the country. In another two years, publishers would disregard copyright and begin printing it on a large scale.

But before publishers started printing it, finding a complete set of New Concept English was no easy task. Many students copied only the sections they thought were good. Some gave up after copying a few passages, while others lost their copies or transcribed them incorrectly... Just as with scholars copying books in ancient times, the larger a work was, the more easily parts of it went missing.

After thinking it over, Yang Rui simply decided to write out a complete copy himself, then mimeograph it and distribute it to everyone in the Rui Study Group.

He had little insight into teaching English. The most advanced English training he had received had been for writing academic papers. Graduate students in his field had to publish at least one paper in a first-quartile journal to graduate, and first-quartile journals were all foreign-language journals. Anyone whose English was poor would struggle even to graduate, so not learning it was not an option.

However, Yang Rui had only begun working hard at English in university, and a few years after graduating, he had stopped using it. He had forgotten nearly everything in many areas, while terminology related to his specialty had remained firmly in his memory.

In other words, if Yang Rui were dropped into an English-speaking country now, he could haltingly say a few biology terms, but would struggle to make himself understood in everyday conversation.

Yang Rui did not know any tricks for learning English either, but he remembered very clearly that memorizing New Concept English would absolutely produce dramatic improvements.

He had seen it happen among his high school classmates, his university classmates, and the students at his tutoring school. Basically, memorizing Book Two of New Concept English and a little of Book Three made getting a good score on the high school entrance exam easy. Memorizing all of Book Three made earning an excellent score of eighty percent on the Gaokao English exam a simple matter. With the perseverance to memorize Book Four, passing both the College English Test Band 4 and Band 6 in one go would be easy, and even TOEFL and IELTS would not be difficult.

This was a widely circulated secret to success, yet fewer and fewer people could actually put it into practice.

It was just like how everyone knew that memorizing an English dictionary would ensure good English grades. People in later years were always willing to look for all sorts of efficient study methods. There was naturally nothing wrong with that. Everyone had limited time, and not everyone needed English to live. Getting the highest score in the least time was what people generally pursued.

Students in the eighties, however, were not particular about their quality of life. In this era, never mind memorizing texts-plenty of people memorized English dictionaries. Not because English dictionaries were so amazing, but because an English dictionary was the most complete English book they could find.

Unlike students in later years, students in the eighties had no fallback. No matter how difficult a text was to memorize, they were willing to do it if it could improve their scores. This was especially true for students in township middle schools. They either passed the Gaokao, became honored university or technical secondary school students, and then became state employees with secure jobs in offices, or they failed the Gaokao and could only go home to farm. They would endure at least twenty years of the price scissors between industrial and agricultural goods, then see whether they were lucky enough to have their land requisitioned for a national project, allowing them a few years of leisure. Of course, if they were unlucky enough to have their land requisitioned locally, they would not even have land left to farm.

As for going into business, although it was an option, it was far from a happy road. Most people did not dare risk everything and borrow money to start a business. Even if they did, they might not make money, and even if they made money, there was no guarantee they would keep making it.

In fact, amid the nationwide wave of people going into business, very many township residents and farmers took part in commercial activities. Yet looking back thirty years later, very few were still prospering. Those who ultimately achieved spectacular success were still the people who had entered university in the eighties, then quit their jobs to go into business.

As for those who dropped out to do business, then turned the tables by hiring university graduates, such people did exist. But compared with their peers toiling in the fields, they were far too few, and had paid far too much.

In short, getting two or three years ahead by writing out a copy of New Concept English from memory would be enough to solve most students' English problems.

Even without high scores of eighty or ninety, simply reaching the midpoint of the scoring scale would already put them well above the average Gaokao score.

A method like this, which yielded results as long as one was willing to work hard, was also what students welcomed most at the time. To them, getting up at five in the morning to memorize texts was nothing at all.

Yang Rui himself also began silently reciting New Concept English from memory, hoping to recover the feel for it he had lost. If he could improve his English a little, that would be a good option too.

After all, if he wanted to remain a top student at university, or publish the many papers he remembered, English was still a hurdle he could not avoid.