I am a low-class member
To dodge possible censorship (internal and external), I decided to pen this piece in English.
Yes, I am a low-class member. I was, have been, and will always be a low-class member. A proud low-class member. A low-class member at heart.
It's tatooed on my heart. I was born to parents who barely had enough to eat growing up. By any standard they were low-class members. So I am a low-class member by birth.
I never forgot or attempted to ditch this part of my identity. I treat everyone equally, be him president or plumber. I greet anyone who is deemed a low-class member (janitors, cabbies, doormen, street vendors, etc) because he is from my tribe. They are someone eles's brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandpas and grandmas. They are my brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandpas and grandmas. Their experiences are inextricably intertwined with mine. We are one.
I am also a low-class member by choice. I rub shoulders with chefs, waitresses, and complete strangers who call Beijng home. They are not a faceless and nameless group of trouble-makers and losers. They are men and women with skills, hobbies, dreams, hopes, aspirations, and ambitions, just like you and me. Had they been lazybones or losers, they would never have left their comfort zone to try to make good in Beijing, a city they are full of bittersweet memories. Their work ethic and vigor never go unnoticed: I once kept an account of their resilience in a post.
In the 1998 Harvard commencement speech, May Robinson, a Harvard alumnus and then United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, addressed the graduates. Her words still reverberate in my ears:
But I would ask you to remember that it's not a world full of possibilities for all. Each of you has been the beneficiary of a rare privilege. You have received an exceptional education at an exceptional place when there are many, in both your country and mine, and in many, many other parts of our world, who are just as innately talented and just as ambitious as you are but will never have such an opportunity. I say this not to make you feel guilty. You should be proud of what you have achieved. But I do ask that you use your education to pursue only the worthiest of goals; goals that contribute to the betterment of the lives of others; and goals that give you personal satisfaction because of their contribution to the society we live in.
Similarly, Melinda Gates, Bill Gates's wife, once said,
If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped.
It would be a good starting point for us to claim, or reclaim, this identy.
I, for one, am a low-class member. Are you?
题图：source unknown.
推荐阅读：