Chapter 1: A Lost Generation

  "Good men go to sea! Listen to us and join the army!"

  "I don't want to go!"

  "Alas, go then!" His father's voice was heavy but seemed to have made up his mind long ago: "Going to be a soldier will be tough for a few years, but in the end you'll have a stable job, so just go!"

  "It's not easy to find a job now, and it's even harder to find a good one! You'd better go!"

  Her mother sighed and her eyes were reluctant, but her tone was very firm: "If you are in the countryside, there is still a piece of land. Even if you don't have any talent, as long as you are willing to work hard, you will definitely have food to eat. But now you are in the city, what if you can't find a job in the future..."

  "Don't I know how to find a job? Am I going to starve to death?" I raised my head slightly, somewhat indignant.

  "You also need to have a degree and good grades in order to get into university and then have a good job assignment!"

  "Look at your own grades, you're already in the second year of high school. Out of seven subjects, only Chinese and chemistry are barely passing. Which one can you be proud of? Now you're hanging out with those hoodlums every day, do you think you can get into college? Can't you think for yourself?"

  "But I'm only sixteen now and the recruiter said I couldn't join the army until I'm eighteen."

  I reluctantly said out my last killer mace in the hope of changing my parents' minds.

  "You don't have to worry about this anymore. Your father has found his old comrade-in-arms from the troops, who happens to be the deputy director of our city's armed forces department. The age difference is not big, so you don't need to worry about this."

  "Wait another three to five years and your father will also retire. When you return from the army, according to national regulations, you can take over his position. The unit is one of the best units in our city's personnel department. You won't have to worry about your second half of life."

  "We can't teach you properly, perhaps it's only in the army that you'll be able to change for the better."

  His father took a deep drag on his cigarette, his eyes filled with disappointment and sighed: "If you really make progress, then get me to take the military academy exam in the army, even if I don't pass, just become a man when you come back."

  I: “……”

  The scene above took place in late November 1994, in the three-bedroom living room of our house, my bedroom. My life was about to undergo a major change that would be irreversible, and I would embark on a path that I had never taken before, a path that others would later call becoming a real man.

  I remember at that time I was very resistant, not strongly opposed to joining the army, but I didn't like everything being out of my control. What I disliked even more was when my parents told me what to do and I had to do it. The rebellious personality of mine at that age was armed to the teeth. Whatever teachers or parents wouldn't let me do, I would think about doing.

  Before I was fifteen, my grades were not bad. My ranking in the class was always around tenth, and in the whole school, I could be among the top fifty. If I said that with this grade, I still had hope to enter a undergraduate college. But since I was fifteen years old, for the first time, I wrote a love letter to a girl in my class, and after my mother entered my room without my permission to check my diary, everything changed.

  From that day on, I became a different person. I was no longer an obedient child. This transformation is really strange. To this day, I still can't fully recall what the girl I wrote love letters to looked like. Of course, she wouldn't have had any contact with my later life either. But it was that one thing that made me resist all of my parents' expectations. Even when I saw in my heart how disappointed they were at my downfall, I felt a strange kind of pleasure.

  It was the first time I felt that my right to existence had been violated; because I felt that my parents did not respect my personal autonomy, and for the first time, I felt a strong resentment towards their behavior.

  But that time I let my mother talk, and I didn't say a word back with a red face. To this day, my mother still doesn't know why I became a different person at the age of 16, but I know that from then on, there was a subtle twist in my mind.

  When I was sixteen years old, I did many things.

  That year, I learned to smoke, using my own living expenses to buy cigarettes and also smoking my father's. At that time, I thought it was hard to smoke but felt very cool about it, at least I was different from others. But what I never expected was that this inexplicable sense of coolness would lead me to fall into it until now, unable to extricate myself.

  That year I learned to fight, and basically every big or small conflict in our school that year had my shadow. From being a little punk who followed behind me to finally picking a fight with a guy who bullied a girl in our class, beating him until his ribs were broken, so that from then on, whenever he heard my voice, he would run away with the wind.

  That year, I also learned how to hang out in society. In the game hall, a dozen people would gang up on a little brother and take his money to go to the karaoke hall to sing and dance wildly, drink some wine, and cause trouble on the streets with a dozen people whistling at beautiful girls on the side of the road. That was my true self-portrait back then. At that time, there was a very fashionable word to describe us, which was called - hooligan.

  ……

  Of course, since then my grades have been plummeting. Playing hooky became my nickname and lying became my most frequent speech. My academic performance went straight downhill. As the son of a university professor, it was the first time he had to go to the police station to bail me out because I got caught for fighting. That night, I saw that the lights in my parents' room were on all night, and three days later, the above scene unfolded.

  As for the decision above, I didn't think of resisting. Although at that time I had already gone astray and became very disobedient, but actually I still had a certain fear of my parents.

  This fear is unimaginable to many of my buddies in society who know that they have always been obedient to their parents and even take pride in it, while I am actually an unqualified 'thug'.

  Actually I just thought of two possible reasons why I didn't become a complete 'hooligan'.

  One reason is that I was educated from a young age and lived in the countryside until I was eight years old, when my father's work in the city allowed us to move there as a family. So, my nature is actually quite simple. Moreover, my father was a cultured professor and my mother was an elementary school teacher, so they didn't slack off on my education from a young age. Under their influence, I can be considered a child of a scholarly family, not one with a "bad root".

  One reason is that at the time, it was an era of reform and opening up, and the social atmosphere was really chaotic. I remember that for a period of time, students in schools were actually popular with grabbing belts, two or three junior high school students would grab a bunch and go to the entrance of a nearby primary school or lower-grade students to grab.

  Because such things happened too many times, nobody cared about them anymore. In the end, it became an honor to grab a belt and show off the gold-plated buckle on one's body. The atmosphere was so bad that many kids were affected at that time. What impressed me most was a senior in our school who was always ranked first or second in his class. He also talked about his past experiences of grabbing belts or cigarettes with such a proud expression. Now, thinking back to the way we looked up to him with admiration, I think he must have gotten great psychological satisfaction from it.

  So to sum it up, I wasn't that bad at the time, but rather was harmed by the social atmosphere. To this day, I can still find information online about how our generation in the 70s grew up during the tide of reform and opening-up, yet had to bear the leftover poison from before as well as being influenced by various Western cultural toxins - it's truly a lost generation.

  So based on the above two reasons, seeing that my parents have made such a big decision, although I am not willing in my heart, but actually myself is very confused and really do not know what to do.

  Although I often boast and brag in front of girls, once I encounter something that will decide my life's path, I completely lose all confidence. Even if I try to resist, the words just don't come out right. In the end, I give up and let my parents handle it. After all, they're my own flesh and blood, they won't harm me, will they?

  Since (thank you zhzhx for correcting me) I couldn't resist, then let's just go with it. At worst, I'll serve as a soldier for three years and come back as a good man again. I remember when I was 16, after my parents said the above words, I muttered this sentence to myself.