It took me 18 years to sit with you for coffee. The author's name is Mai. Thank you. I'd love to.

I spent 18 years sitting with you for coffee.

and

I didn't fight for 18 to have coffee with you.

Author: Wheat

My white-collar friends, if I were a migrant worker who came to Shanghai to work before graduating from junior high school, would you sit at Starbucks and have coffee with me? No, absolutely not. Comparing our growth process, you will find that I need to make great efforts for something that you can easily get.

From the moment I was born, my identity was completely different from yours, because I can only apply for a rural hukou, while you are an urban hukou. If you keep your rural hukou when you grow up, you will not be able to find a formal job in the city and enjoy old-age insurance and medical insurance. You may ask me, "Why do you have to come to this city? Isn't the countryside very good? The air is fresh and not as crowded as the city. " But there are no good medical conditions in rural areas. Last year's SARS seemed to make everyone discover overnight that the rural medical and health system was so backward and the material supply was not rich. Because farmers earn less money, they can't afford more expensive things, so vendors won't buy too many goods. After all, the farmers who can afford plasma TV sets in the Spring Festival Evening sketch are an individual phenomenon, and the vast majority of farmers are still struggling for basic survival, so I want to go to the city and get your born big city hukou through my own struggle.

Getting into college is my only chance to jump out of the farm. I want to study hard, from primary school to junior high school, from junior high school to senior high school entrance examination. I fought bravely on the wooden bridge and watched my classmates fall in batches, and the road ahead became narrower and narrower. I, a leader, don't know whether to be happy or worried. I dare not neglect the fierce competition. Apart from studying homework, I don't have time to take care of my hobbies, and the school doesn't have these courses to develop my personal strengths. On the first day of entering high school, the principal told us that there is only one goal in these three years-the college entrance examination. So I took Dai Yue, got up at 5: 30 in the morning and went to bed at 1 1 at night. Even on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, I recited political questions under the street lamp.

Moreover, your pressure for further studies is much less, the competition is not so fierce and your homework is not very heavy. You can have enough time to develop your hobbies, read extracurricular books, sweat on the court and enjoy the blue sky and white clouds in the wild. If you don't want to go to the college entrance examination so hard, as long as your grades are not too bad, you can get a chance to walk in the third year of high school. Even if your grades are too poor, you will be swept into the local third-rate university, and I may have to get a high score in that third-rate university, because there are too many places left for Shanghai in the places allocated by region.

Our examination papers are the same, but the scores are different, but when we all get the admission notice, the tuition fees paid are the same. 6,000 yuan per person per year, the tuition fee for four years alone will be 24,000 yuan, plus the accommodation fee of 1500 yuan per person per year, the book and reference fee of 1000 yuan per year, and the living expenses of 4,000 yuan per year (only eating the school cafeteria), which is 50,000 yuan for four years. In 2003, a university in Shanghai raised the tuition fee to 6,543,800 yuan per person per year on the grounds of "superior environment of the newly-built Songjiang campus", which means that the tuition fee for only four years will be 40,000 yuan, and other expenses will be 66,000 yuan in total. 66,000 yuan may not be a heavy burden for a Shanghai urban family, but for a rural family, it is simply a lifetime savings. My hometown is an open eastern coastal province and a big agricultural province. Compared with the inland provinces in the west, it should be said that the economic level is relatively good, but there is not much money left after a hard year. Take a family of four with two children as an example. Excluding all kinds of daily necessities, a family can save up to 3,000 yuan a year, so 66,000 college expenses mean 22 years of savings! The premise is that no family member can be seriously ill, and another child must be deprived of the right to go to college no matter how excellent his academic performance is, because the family can only provide so much money. I am very lucky. Finally, I paid the tuition fee for the first year by patchwork and student loans. It's really not a taste to look at those students who are holding the admission notice and depressed to the point where the whole family is desperate. University recruitment in the era of educational industrialization?

I can finally get my wish to learn the nutrients of knowledge in the university campus! Study hard, get a scholarship, and earn some living expenses during the holidays. I really can't bear to take a penny more from my parents. Every penny is hard-earned money earned by a drop of sweat falling to the ground and breaking into eight petals!

When I came to Shanghai, a big city, I found that compared with my classmates, I was really poor. I can't draw, I can't play musical instruments, I don't know Hong Kong and Taiwan stars, I haven't read martial arts novels, I don't know MP3, and I don't know what a walkman is. In order to understand the concept of "warehouse supermarket" in marketing management class, I watched it curiously in Metro for a whole day, and I have never seen such a wealth of goods.

I have never touched a computer, so I spent half a year in the school computer room to learn the basic knowledge and operational skills you learned in middle school. My English is deaf-mute English, and my pronunciation is incomprehensible to both China and foreigners. It's not my fault. There are no foreign teachers in our hometown, so teachers can't read correctly. How can we teach students to pronounce correctly? Without a good foundation, I can only spend another year correcting my pronunciation. I really envy the students in big cities who are versatile and have such a wide range of knowledge, and I can only study. When I was a student, I had to study, take exams, and go to higher schools, because only when I was admitted to a university could I come among you and study with you, and everything should be subject to this goal.

I can stand the ridicule of my classmates in the city. I haven't eaten meat for weeks. You can spend all day in the library and study room on Saturday and Sunday. I can envy the couple in the campus ballroom on the way back from self-study on weekends. I can run around the playground on lonely and boring nights. I think one day when I graduate, when I can earn a salary in this big city, I will also become a Shanghai citizen like you and grow up in the city. My parents will be proud of me because their children work in big Shanghai!

Finally graduated, it is difficult to find a job in Shanghai, and there is no employment opportunity when I return to my hometown. Fortunately, an undergraduate who can find a job in Shanghai earns about 2,000 yuan a month. Maybe you think the money should be enough for you to spend, but for me, I still have to rent a house, pay the water, electricity, coal and telephone bills, and pay the student loan. I also want to send some money to my family so that my brother and sister can continue their studies. The rest is only enough for me to eat 1.2% rice every meal, so I still can't sit in Starbucks and have coffee with you!

Now I have finished my master's degree in Shanghai, and now I have a job with an annual salary of 70 thousand to 80 thousand. Struggle for 18 years, and now I can finally sit with you for coffee. I have been integrated into this international metropolis, and I am no different from my white-collar friends. But I can't forget those hard years in the process of struggle, those former classmates and their long-cherished wishes that can never be realized. So I wrote the above words in the first person way, which is the most typical portrayal of the struggle of children of civilians in small and medium-sized cities and rural areas. Every time I see those students who are struggling with their fate, I always have a heavy sense of responsibility in my heart.

I didn't write this article to complain. Fairness is relative in this world, which is not terrible, but it is very terrible to turn a blind eye to unfairness. When I was studying for a master's degree in Shanghai, I once discussed a marketing case of David newspaper. One of my classmates, who had three years' working experience at that time, is now the personnel administrative manager of a Sino-foreign joint venture company. He put forward a plan: let David Paper develop high-grade facial tissue products and push them to the 900 million farmers' market. I was surprised at her courage in putting forward the plan. At that time, I asked her if she knew how to deal with the greasy face of the peasant brother after eating. She looked at me doubtfully. I wiped my mouth twice with the back of my hand and gave her a contemptuous look at such indecent movements.

In a macroeconomics class, another classmate of mine criticized laid-off workers and teenagers who dropped out of school to go to agriculture: "Eighty percent of them didn't work hard when they were young, so they deserve to be laid off now!" Those students can work while studying. It is said that many students can earn thousands of dollars in a summer vacation. Do you still have to worry about tuition? "My classmate is too ignorant of rural areas in poverty-stricken areas.

I was born in the mid-1970s, and my peers are gradually becoming the mainstay of society. Our actions will affect social and economic development. Send this article to those young people who grew up in superior environment, and those who have suffered for a long time and now have forgotten it. Pay attention to the lower class. For a fairer world, we should try our best to keep the sense of social responsibility in our minds.

It took me 18 years to sit down and have coffee with you.

I didn't fight for 18 years to have coffee with you.

Three years ago, an article by Wheat, "I struggled 18 years before I sat down with you for coffee", caused a lot of abuse. After 18 years of struggle, a farmer's son won equal rights with his peers in metropolis, which is a true portrayal of a generation. However, three years later, I suddenly realized that he was premature. 18? No matter how rich the years are, I still can't sit and drink coffee with you.

That year, I was 25 years old and spent countless sleepless nights. I got my degree. The lines on my forehead are particularly obvious, but I dare not stop at my feet. I don't want to go back to my hometown, and there are countless descendants. I have to find a job in Beijing quickly. What about you? You're not in a hurry, World of Warcraft and Red Alert? I'm tired of playing! You have an ambitious plan to start a business. At that time, Robin Li, Chen Tianqiao and Zhou Yunfan were not born yet. Baidu, Google and Perfect Time and Space were even more distant terms, but youth was invincible. You set up a distribution website on campus, recruiting people with great fanfare, and reporters from various media flocked in. The dormitory 334 soon became famous in the whole building. The little girls sent pink stationery from all over the world and wrote admiringly, "I learned your wonderful story from the newspaper …" When I was free, I climbed onto the roof to blow the wind. You cheerfully turned to me to take care of my own people and said, brother, how about getting rich together?

Unfortunately, I can't. Entrepreneurship is a chess game for you, which can be advanced and retreated, and can be attacked and defended. Start-up funds shall be raised by three aunts and six relatives as soon as possible. Even if it fails, the parents' three-bedroom and one-bedroom heater will not fail. Failure means to me that the water under the bridge is a complete failure. Every summer, in order to save three or five hundred dollars in machine money, my parents have to harvest five acres of farmland in the sun. I finished my first interview in a borrowed suit and had my first date with my beloved girl in a borrowed watch. When you got the first investment and reported to the whole class excitedly, I calmly crossed half of Beijing to be the last tutor. Yes, "this job has a low technical content", but before the first month's salary was paid, my rented land and rations depended on it.

It didn't take long for the internet to encounter a cold snap, and you are also depressed about starting a business. You entered a state-owned communication company and I was hired by a foreign company. Sitting on the sidelines, I foolishly thought I had pulled back a game. On the surface, my salary is a little higher than yours. Spend 8000 yuan after tax, stay in a 5-star hotel for business trip, and take a paid vacation for one year 10 days. I try my best to believe that there will be a fairy tale ending in a few years, "living a happy life with the princess."

The good times didn't last long. Soon, I understood why people call white-collar workers dirty words. The 35-pound office package is almost unattended. At lunch time, the most sought-after is the microwave oven in the corner of each floor. White-collar workers lined up with lunch. Later, the property allowed fast food companies to stay, and there was a grand occasion of "thousands of people waiting in line for Lihua". People with a monthly income of nearly ten thousand save money. A colleague, 10 yuan's cold medicine went to the insurance company to claim compensation; The other stayed in a messy railway station for three hours in order to get an extra dinner allowance from 150 yuan when he returned after 8: 00.

This comedy failed to make me laugh. I can understand that every figure embodies overtime and humiliation; Be exploited by the boss, in order to build a square meter nest for yourself. The process of starting from scratch is arduous and long. For three years, I have never taken a long vacation or eaten duck neck once. I am not surprised to hear that Hu Xinyu, a 25-year-old employee of Huawei, died of overwork. The phenomenon of exchanging sweat and youth for money is too common in this industry. Next time, don't be surprised when you see a group of people lying on the ground in suits and ties and carrying IBM notebooks. We are a group of IT workers.

The only consolation is that we are getting closer to our ideal goal step by step.

Suddenly, your good news fell from the sky: invite everyone to the new house for heating at the weekend. How is that possible? You are faster than me? Bright 100 square meter, red apple furniture, 37-inch LCD color TV, there is no doubt in front of you. You said in an understatement that the old man gave 654.38+million, and her family also gave 654.38+million, which kept urging us to get married ... On the way home, my girlfriend was depressed and didn't speak. Like me, she comes from an unknown mountain city. I grabbed her shoulder and encouraged her and myself. It doesn't matter. Let's trade time for space.

You spent half a year's salary easily on your honeymoon in Hong Kong. When you come back, it doesn't mean anything, not as beautiful as it was filmed on TVB TV. My wedding, cruising in the dirt road of my hometown and the onlookers of the villagers, worshiping heaven and earth in the low and dim old house, sleeping on the cold heatable adobe sleeping platform with my lover. Fortunately, many years later, in my wife's blog, the gloomy picture turned into a radiant picture. She recalled: "Where there is love, there is heaven."

We all want to give the girl we love a heaven, but the meaning of heaven is very different. Your wife has become a full-time wife, downloading friends and jailbreaking with an electric donkey every day. I want to do the same thing, but my wife doesn't agree. If you support me, who will support my parents? I can't bear to let you raise seven people by yourself. When your girl put on Clinique mask and lifted her feet comfortably, my girl fought tenaciously in the sea of people.

Two people make money much faster. By the end of 2004, we also saved the first sum of 65438+ ten thousand yuan in our life. Who knows that the China property market was awakened by the devil at this time, like a tsunami surging, destroying all the weak individuals. In March 2005, the down payment was enough to buy Licheng in the West Fourth Ring Road. In July, I had to go to Cheng Nan to clean the building. Our savings could have bought a 90-square-meter two-bedroom apartment. In mid-September, just in the past two months, only enough to buy more than 80 square meters.

Never studied the principles of economics? It doesn't matter. Life vividly explains what asset bubbles and liquidity flooding mean. At this time, experts jumped out to speak, "Beijing housing prices will drop by 30%, and Shanghai housing prices will drop by 40%." Otherwise, wait? I almost lived in an empty camp in Winton, and you stood up and pointed out the maze: buy it quickly, and the house price will go up. The news of buying a house was sent back to my hometown, and my parents sighed assiduously: It is worth our busy work for half a year. In their view, 7500 yuan per square meter is an incredible sky-high price. Three years later, in 2008, my younger brothers lamented that you had made a fortune. The average price in the fourth ring road is 1.4 million, and there is no building to buy.

A few days ago, I saw Shui Mu's last message, and I was very emotional: "I really deserve it if I don't buy a house after working for five years. In 2003, the property market was in a downturn. Today is not only the gold property market, but also the whole life. "

I really appreciate you telling me what is consumption and what is investment when I don't know what is financial management.

Not everyone has a forward-looking vision and investment philosophy. Many brothers, like me, came from a small place, only knew how to work hard, paid too much attention to the wheat fields under their feet and missed a bright starry sky. Your theory is that making money is for flowers, and only in circulation can you add value, buy your favorite goods and make your life relaxed and happy. And my peasant brother-here refers to the brother who came from a peasant family and stayed in a big city after graduation-is used to holding the RMB tightly in his hand. The increase in the number of passbooks fascinated them. When it is time to buy a house, they are renting a house; When it's time to repay the loan, they would rather bear the loan interest rate of 7% than save it for five years. Hard-earned silver shrank and depreciated while waiting. They are often at the peak of housing prices and have no choice but to take the last stick; I also naively made a wish to go home and buy a house after earning 1 10,000. But when that day really comes, the house prices in my hometown, second-and third-tier cities and even towns have skyrocketed.

This is the biggest difference between you and me, and it is also a deep-rooted difference and an insurmountable gap. I used to think that our life would be the same with the same education, the same salary and the same company reputation. In fact, the difference is not reflected in the obvious symbols, but in the inheritance from generation to generation, in the blood and in the mind. 18 years of accumulation, family background, lifestyle, and financial management concepts have created such you, such me, and your generosity and my conservatism. After I paid off the loan, you bought a second house; The Shanghai Composite Index is 6000 points. When I finally test the water and become a stockholder, you clear the warehouse and move to the gold market. I send back 1000 yuan every month to assume the responsibility of supporting my parents. You just smiled and said that I would support the elderly. When I was thinking about whether to have children or not, and to what extent the cost of raising children would damage the quality of life, four old people have already paid for your second generation; It's good to go to Jiuzhaigou during the Golden Week. You are not satisfied. You say Germany is too formal and America is too casual. France is the fashion capital you yearn for. ...

My story is a true portrayal of a generation of "immigrants"-I was forced to leave my hometown and my motherland was vast, but I moved around like a migratory bird and chose to live in wood. The current social system is destined to have richer educational resources, medical resources and convenient life in big cities. Even if you get a paper account, the process of integration is still full of suffering. It will take five years, 10 years or even longer to get everything that the aborigines can reach at their fingertips. I used to be indignant and pursued, but now I have learned not to complain and to be calm between cracks. Although there is a gap, it is not regrettable. It is this gap and the efforts made to make up for it that strengthen the tension of life and make life more hierarchical and diverse.

The foreseeable future is that one day our descendants will gather in Disney (I still have this confidence) to tell my father's story. Mine, though not necessarily more exquisite and colorful, is undoubtedly much more tortuous and interesting. This story is about independence, courage, Jedi rebound and resurrection. I can't afford a luxury car for my son, but I can give him a growing heart. I want to tell him that whether he is rich or poor, millions of dollars or displaced, he should be equally calm and open-minded.

At this point, what does it matter whether you drink coffee or not? The elegance of life posture does not depend on where you sit, what utensils you hold, or the money you pay for tea. It depends on your attitude towards tea tasting.

I struggled for 18 years, not to have coffee with you.