A Pleasant Weekend

A speech draft supposedly written by a teacher while flying a plane.

Good morning, teachers and students. I am Wu Qian, the head teacher of Class 12 in Senior One. My topic today is: a pleasant weekend.

I went to high school in Jiangxi. Teachers such as Xia Ruyi, Zhang Huiping, and Xia Zhi also taught there for many years, so we all know very well that high school students in Jiangxi have to study six and a half days a week. Morning reading starts at 7 a.m., and evening self-study often ends at 10:30 or even 11. The only rest is Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. For us, Saturday afternoon meant the start of the weekend. We could finally play a game properly, rest for an entire afternoon, watch TV, or even keep studying at home. But obviously, you all have a much more pleasant weekend.

Your pleasant weekend starts being planned from the third class on Friday afternoon: where to eat tonight, which hero to use in Honor of Kings, who to go out with, and how to spend all of tomorrow. Just thinking about it is exciting, though you cannot laugh out loud. You silently queue up the song Actor to praise your own composure. At last the long forty minutes end. You collect your phone from the head teacher, answer obediently that you will only use it after leaving school, and then, while it is still in your pocket, your hand expertly presses the power button.

Many boys probably start gaming on the way home. This becomes the main melody of the weekend. Mom calls, “Dinner is ready!” and the reply is, “Coming, don’t rush me, let me finish this match!” If she threatens to confiscate the phone, the answer becomes, “Fine, take it, and never give it back for the rest of my life!” The lips pout; this move is quite effective. In your head you think: “I cannot handle Teacher Zhou Jie, but I can’t handle you?” You have already negotiated with your parents that tonight belongs to entertainment. You wolf down dinner, immediately queue with your teammates, and dive back into the game. While waiting to respawn, you open QQ Zone to see what everyone else is doing and hand out likes one by one. You make a brilliant contribution in one match and still lose. Trash teammates. Then the teammates flame you first: “Do you even know how to play Mai Shiranui?” You suppress your rage and calmly answer: “Do primary school kids really have so little homework these days? You should go do your assignments.” A wave of pride rises in your heart.

Girls may be more likely to go out with friends, chatting about which idol they are currently fangirling over or which Taobao shop has the best clothes. At the milk tea shop they take a beautiful selfie, touch it up a little, add a heart effect, enlarge the eyes, sprinkle on some sparkle, and then post it to QQ Zone. The text cannot be too directly about themselves, so they write, “The milk tea here is pretty good.” Before long the army of likes arrives. The comments fill with “So pretty!” and “Darling, you look the best!” You choose one pleasing comment and reply with a kiss emoji. Satisfaction settles in: this week at school was exhausting, but at least it did not damage my beauty. Wait, why are there only sixty likes? There are usually over eighty. Are you all blind? Or did a week at Xuejun damage your eyesight?

By around ten on Saturday morning, you finally wake up. It is time for the promised family study session. The test paper is spread open, the vocabulary book lies beside it, and then you begin replaying last night’s highlights, or last night’s beautiful photos. “Mom, when is lunch?” “Mom, I really love your cooking.” Mom says, “Not for a while yet.” Fine then, use the hour before lunch to check what everyone else is up to. Oh, that quiz is interesting. “Give me two names and I’ll tell you which matters more to me.” Surely everyone has long been dying to know whether they matter to me or not, so let us give them a chance. The whole morning passes. The QQ avatar never flashes. “You people are even more reserved than I thought.”

After lunch, it is time for cram school. Cram school feels ten thousand times better than ordinary class. This teacher is what real service should look like. If I am dissatisfied, I can quit the course. Teachers at school really should learn some customer service. You chat with your deskmate, flirt with the handsome teaching assistant, talk with QQ friends, and before you know it the pleasant cram-school afternoon is over. Back home, you put on a face of total exhaustion for your parents: wow, I learned so much today in cram school, I am really tired.

Before you know it, Saturday night has arrived, and panic begins to creep in: tomorrow afternoon you have to return to school and take the weekend test.

Never mind. First, post a deliberately self-deprecating status on QQ Zone. You are quite skilled at playing weak; if you are going to do it, you have to commit all the way. That is how everyone starts trying hard, and then their pushback gives you an indescribable pleasure. After thinking for a while, you type: “The purpose of my exam tomorrow afternoon is to help everyone test how many students there are in the grade.” Soon someone takes the bait: “A god is once again crushing us mortals.” “We kneel before the master!”

Good. Now you have the motivation to do the weekend homework. At least half of it has to be finished today. Wait. What even is the weekend homework?

Maybe ask in the class group chat: “What is the physics homework today?” Wait one second. No one replies. So you immediately close QQ. For the next one or two hours you do not open it again. Since you do not know what the homework is anyway, what is the point of sitting at the desk? Better go watch TV for a bit. Mom asks, “Weren’t you doing homework?” “I just started, but I never get much fruit at school. Let me eat an apple first. Mom, this apple is really good. Can you cut me an orange too?” By the time you have dragged it out to nine o’clock and both episodes of your mother’s drama are over, you finally feel too embarrassed to keep stalling and return to the desk. You open QQ. A classmate says: “Just two test papers.” Ah. Now you know what the physics homework is. That counts as half the battle. It has been a long time since you last played a ranked match, so hurry and play one. Eleven o’clock. Oh no, the Xuejun school biological clock is urging you to sleep.

Sunday morning. This is supposed to be a morning for studying. Last time someone shared a complete list of key points for the academic proficiency exam in QQ Zone. It looked pretty useful. Who was it that shared it again? I cannot remember. Better search through the list. Oh, not this one. Why does this guy always share this kind of thing? Never mind, just like it. Why does this girl always post selfies and only retouch herself rather than the people beside her? Never mind, just leave a “So pretty.” Wait, our kindergarten actually moved? That was the place that accompanied three whole years of my youth. It is gone? Quick, post a status to calm myself down: “Goodbye, my kindergarten. Goodbye, those old days I can never return to.”

At noon, we are back at school. There is no day more annoying than Sunday afternoon. None. There are still a full five days before the next pleasant weekend.

Students, if you remain forever immersed in your current kind of happiness, then your vision will remain forever limited to your current frame.

A survey some time ago showed that 54 percent of people born after 1995 dream of becoming internet celebrities or streamers. In many people’s eyes, scientists are nowhere near as appealing as influencers, anchors, and stars. We do not want you to become that sort of person.

At Peking University, the Life Sciences building where I worked faced the east gate. There was always a group of folk “scientists” standing there with signs and slogans, shouting at passersby: “I have overturned relativity, why don’t the professors at PKU dare debate me?” We do not want you to become that sort of person either.

Last night I also saw many parents forwarding a post saying that a Zhejiang student with a score of 520 could only get into a second-tier university, while a Beijing student with 520 could get into Tsinghua or Peking University. One highly liked comment said: “People from Zhejiang are smarter, so 520 is only enough for a second-tier school. People elsewhere are not as bright, so 520 gets them into Tsinghua or PKU. If you’re from Zhejiang, give this a like.” We do not want you to become that kind of person.

So what kind of person do we hope you become?

You know better than I do: upright and kind, and respectful of science.

That concludes my speech. I hope everyone can turn a “pleasant weekend” into a steady and fulfilling weekend.

Happy Dragon Boat Festival.