After Becoming a Taoist

  Mourning the passing of Yuan Lao

   At about 10:50 in the morning, there was news that the old man had passed away.

  My first reaction was definitely a rumor, but after eleven o’clock, the rumor was really refuted.

   I was in the car at the time, searching frantically, but unfortunately all the media news, including a certain degree and a certain subject, said they had gone.

   I felt incredible inside, as if I only saw the news about this old man a few days ago, how could it be so fast?

   However, not long after the rumor was confirmed, and I was still scolding the media for having no conscience, a real news came.

  I am very sad, I thought this news was also fake, but it is true.

   Immediately, I thought: Maybe I should eat more bowls of rice.

   I remembered the story my grandmother told me. At that time, every family could not eat enough, and their bodies were swollen with hunger. They pressed each other and there were white marks, which would not disappear for a long time. When they were hungry, they would drink well water.

   I secretly hid half a bag of sweet potatoes, but I didn’t dare to cook them and eat them, for fear that the fragrance would spread, I couldn’t keep them, and I ate them raw.

  In the days of cooperatives, food stamps were used to buy food, and the economy was planned. Even food had to be planned, because without planning, there would not be enough food...

  Grandma said that it will take time to eat enough food after the 1990s. In the 1980s, there was still a time to eat one meal a day...

  Grandma said: "Thank you to the country, thank you to the party..."

   I was very emotional when I heard it, and thought that the old man Yuan Longping also came here in the same era as my grandma (my grandma was three or three years old). It was also a time of famine.

   Chinese people are afraid of poverty and hunger. When I was a child, when I was eating, a grain of rice fell on the ground, and my grandmother picked it up and ate it.

   So an old man who has experienced famine, what can he think?

   He just wanted to keep the Chinese people fed, and to keep future generations from starving.

Now that I hear the death of this old man who has been feeding the people all his life, I can't help but wonder if the agricultural scientific research workers who have not experienced famine can still take over the burden from Yuan Lao and bear the burden of China's grain production and safety against the stand up.

   Thinking again, Yuan Lao said: "It's impossible, it's impossible!"

   Starvation can never happen again in China, so he will leave in relief?

  I think: I will cherish every grain of rice as I respect this old man.

   (end of this chapter)