Because of my mother's relationship, after graduating from college, I went to Shenzhen, gave up my job in a foreign company, and helped out in my mother's company. The so-called company, in fact, is the kind of purse company. I and my mother and a few of her relatives with the dream of getting rich in Shenzhen, but also her company employees together, in Shenzhen, a peasant house inside, every day busy, and all kinds of people meet. In my mother's words, that's how business is done, and that's how it's talked about.

My mother disappeared from my life when I was four years old, and then suddenly reappeared when I was eighteen. For me as a teenager, my mother was a mysterious and intimate figure inside my imagination. So when she said she wanted me to help out in Shenzhen after I graduated from college, I didn't hesitate to go.

I remember that my father didn't say anything at the time, he always did, whenever I decided to do something, he always said nothing, even after I stood in front of him with a bloody head, he still didn't say anything.

I remember the summer I carried a suitcase to the place that was both my mother's office and residence. My mother's first words were, why are you dressed so badly. That day, I wore a simple white shirt, and a long floral skirt. My mother always thought I was unattractive because that would make it hard for me to find a rich boyfriend in her eyes. My mother, who looked very young, told me not to say that I was her daughter in front of outsiders, and that it would be more cost-effective for a woman to do business and hang around in these days, not to let people know her age or her marital status.

At that time, I sincerely thought that this mother who had never lived together, she had been through too many difficult days, I should help her. So I said yes.

The next few days slowly began to make me realize how hard life is. In the opposite side of the house where I live, there is a collective dormitory for those working girls from Hunan. Every day, when it was time for them to eat, many of them were carrying bowls of white rice with a bottle of chili sauce, eating with great relish.

And we were not well off. I realized that my mother did whatever business she could to make money, even if it was just a little. Although my mother always grabbed the bill when she invited others to dinner, at home, she always saved to the point of having only one vegetarian and one meat dish for each meal.

But my mother was the kind of person who, even with only two dollars in her pocket, acted like a millionaire in front of others. That is, until now, round and round, she is still living her life in such a way.

My mother would often suddenly disappear for a while, so the landlord would come to me for rent. These relatives of his had to start a meal every day. There was once a day when I had only two dollars left inside my pocket, and looking at them, looking at this place, I really wanted to cry. Because I didn't know how I would live on tomorrow after these two dollars were used up.

When my mother disappeared, I had to earn money on my own to support the family and myself at the same time. Relying on my classmates, I received a gift business. I remember running into someone else's factory with my classmates and negotiating up with them. But others quickly saw through my bottom price in the end how much, the contract signed a little gray. But at least a little money to earn, the heart has been very satisfied.

On another occasion, my mother dragged a hundred boxes of beverages from somewhere, and shipped them from Northeast China to Shenzhen. And she didn't know where she was going. I scrambled to find a warehouse to store the drinks, but began to worry about the warehouse fees.

Faced with a pile of drinks whose names I hadn't even heard of, I pushed my bike along with my classmate and started selling them from store to store.

Begging people is really a thing that requires courage, to face the unflinching refusal of others, or the kind of simply do not want to take care of the look, now look back, fortunately that time young, just out of school, but can withstand these things, if it is now, it is really difficult to imagine that I, can not be as at that time, go to do this kind of thing.

Results, just like this, braving the hot weather, I still remember, one day in the afternoon is still raining, our bike fell on the ground, a box of drinks from the back seat above fell down. At that time, there was a moment of despair, thinking that it was impossible for me to do anything. I know this student of mine felt the same way I did at that time.

But fortunately for us, this weakness lasted only a short time, and as I recall, we picked up our bikes and went on from store to store, selling our drinks.

At last, I remember, a good samaritan was finally touched by us, so we made a little more money and were finally able to take care of a large group of people for a month.

This went on for a few months, and I soon realized that there was just too much difference in the way my mother and I valued life and survived.

My mother was always giving me examples of young girls around her. Whoever married a rich old man, whoever married a Hong Kong businessman, or whoever worked as a second wife and she got a lot of real estate.

In my mother's eyes, money is the most important thing, don't mess with money no matter what, because only enough money can survive.

But I don't see it that way. I think it would be nice to fall in love with someone who is rich, but it's not worth it if it's just for the money.

We had a falling out, and she and I broke up, but for me at the time, there was no way I could go back to Shanghai, so I had to start over in Shenzhen.

In order to make a living, in the first few months, I did all kinds of jobs. Hotel waiter, warehouse manager, and secretary to the boss of a state-owned enterprise who had nothing to do every day. The reason for the change of job, the main reason is still the wage problem, because to rent a house, to cope with daily expenses, so at that time, the primary criterion for choosing a job is the wage is not high. It wasn't until later, on the recommendation of a friend, that I entered an international accounting firm, and from then on my life was back on track.

The reason I say this is because if I hadn't chosen to come to Shenzhen and follow my mother, I would have done what a lot of my classmates did, and a few months down the line, I would already be doing well in a foreign company. There were times when I felt as if I had wasted half a year of my life. But in retrospect, I really want to thank my mother for these days in Shenzhen.

Because in these days, I saw so many people struggling at the bottom of life how to live, I also came into contact with all kinds of characters, they do different things, some people follow the rules, slowly looking for opportunities, and some people with improper methods, hoping to make the most money in the shortest possible time. But their initial starting point is the same, to survive.

In this period of time, I also experienced, many times in order to survive, must have enough courage and toughness to face the people and things in this society.

My classmate, after we stayed together in Shenzhen for a month, he went back to his hometown of Hunan, a remote county, he said that his ideal is to enter the TV station, and then I heard that he hosted a children's program in the county's TV station. Then we lost contact.

When we met again in Beijing eight years later, he was a writer-director at Zhuhai TV, and I had become a reporter at Phoenix TV. He told me that he had spent five years going from the county town to the provincial TV station, and then came to Zhuhai alone, from a supernumerary to a full-time employee of the TV station. He said that the days in Shenzhen, taught him, how to be in a difficult time, encourage themselves to go on.