The two did not actually talk about Chen Xuan and Mrs. Wen. Mr. Rong was not a gossipy person. He was just a little concerned about Chen Xuan. Seeing that Chen Xuan was fine, he was relieved. The two first talked about some business arrangements. Business this year was not good, especially in Beijing. Affected by the Three Northeastern Provinces Incident, prices soared, and the cosmetics business was not plummeting, but it was not as good as before. Fortunately, there was the patriotic and affordable series launched by Ms. Chen, and Chen Xuan and Wei Yin followed suit in time, so the store's turnover has been good. In addition, they had a batch of raw materials for cosmetics before the Three Northeastern Provinces Incident, which means that the cost of their cosmetics is actually still controlled at a relatively reasonable benchmark. Fortunately, this year, Sun Yan and Xiao Li, the shopkeepers, went to Tianjin, and Miss Bai Qi San went to Shanghai. Tianjin was also hit hard, but the market in Shanghai was not affected much. In this way, because of the expansion of the Tianjin and Shanghai markets, the profit has increased compared to last year. Although the increase is not large, under the current situation, the overall business has not only not lost money but has increased, which is rare in the northern cosmetics industry.
After talking about business, Chen Xuan talked about her feelings about the old and new cultures. Chen Xuan said, "Nowadays, people always say that men and women are equal. I also know that women can study and work. Even in the government, there are female employees. Mr. Rong, I feel that the old culture in the past mostly required people to work for the public. Women were required to take care of their husbands and children, which was not for themselves. Men were required to manage their families, govern the country and bring peace to the world, but in fact, they were not for themselves. The new culture now emphasizes the individual more and no longer requires people to sacrifice for the 'public'. Whether men or women, they must first do their best."
Rong Yang also agreed with what Chen Xuan said, "Well, in the past, we emphasized the whole, the country, the family, and the home. Now we pay more attention to the individual."
Chen Xuan looked at Rong Yang, and Rong Yang changed the subject, "But in fact, in the past, women took care of their husbands and children because there were no positions for women outside, so women had to be in a supporting position. Taking care of their husbands and children corresponds to obeying the husband after marriage and obeying the son after the husband's death. The status of women is obtained from men. And men manage their families, govern the country and bring peace to the world, which corresponds to a saying, learn literary and martial arts, and sell them to the emperor. Whether men are doing business or being officials, what they are doing is for the justice of the world, or their own wealth, fame, power, and status? And power and wealth are extremely personal achievements. On the other hand, women take care of their husbands and children. If their husbands and sons achieve something, they can provide for them better. So, is their dedication to their husbands and sons also for the protection of their own living status? Everyone's life, food, clothing, housing and transportation, these are extremely personal things."
"But according to what Mr. Rong said, there is no difference between the old and new cultures. It is nothing more than old wine in new bottles."
Rong Yang said casually, "New and old culture, to put it simply, is the difference between new and old trends. What we need to understand is why the old trends that have been passed down for thousands of years have been replaced by today's new trends."
"Why?" Chen Xuan asked.
Rong Yang asked back, "What do you think?"
Chen Xuan thought for a moment, "In the past, women couldn't support themselves, but now they can support themselves if they go out to work. Also, I heard from the older generation that in the past, it was men who worked outside, and there were very few women. Now everyone thinks it's normal."
"Women are not as strong as men by nature, so it is difficult for them to do heavy physical labor. In the past, there were very few job opportunities for women. Even if there were, they were mostly in their own shops, and there were few large-scale women working outside. The difference today is that the development of science and technology has brought about social changes. Many of the heavy jobs in the past have been replaced by machines. Machines have led to increased production efficiency. The increased production efficiency means that from now on, weaving a piece of cloth does not start with manual twisting of cotton thread and a loom, where a weaver with the most dexterous hands and feet works hard for a day or a foot of narrow cloth. Today's machines only require a small number of workers who understand how the machines work to weave an unimaginable amount of fabrics in the past, and the fabrics are tight and strong. In the past, people traveled by walking, riding horses, ox carts, donkey carts, and horse carts. Now there are trams, cars, trains, and airplanes. Whether riding horses or driving carts pulled by various animals, women are naturally inferior to men in terms of strength. However, when it comes to driving a car or a plane, what is important is no longer strength, but whether a person's mind is smart and whether he can handle this new type of travel. Tools. Compared with the past, the current society used to be at the speed of riding and walking, while now it is at the speed of cars and airplanes. The development of science and technology and society has brought a large number of job opportunities. Relying on men alone can no longer meet the needs of society. Women are naturally suitable for meticulous and patient work. Just as the schools used to be taught by men, the number of female teachers has been increasing. Most of the nurses in Western hospitals are women. There are also many women who study medicine, economics, language, and literature. In the future, with the further development of society, this new era will not pass. On the contrary, the more advanced the technology, the more obvious the advantages of women in their careers will be than men. When women can earn the money they need for their lives, and they can obtain wealth with their own hands instead of relying on the hands of their fathers, husbands, and sons, women can stand on an equal footing with men. The German thinker Karl Heinrich Marx once said in his book "Capital. A Critique of Political Economy" that the economic base determines the superstructure. I think this sentence will never be outdated in our lifetime. "
Rong Yang is not only a partner to Chen Xuan, he is also the one who made a list of books for Chen Xuan when many people secretly laughed at her dream of becoming a first-class university professor. In Chen Xuan's heart, Mr. Rong is her spiritual guide.
Chen Xuan kept Rong Yang's words in mind and planned to think about them carefully after returning home. She was just a little curious, "Mr. Rong, you are a man, but I always feel that you are different from other men. You respect and admire women more."
"Even if it's unreasonable, I'm still a man." Chen Xuan blushed at the joke. Rong Yang stopped joking and said, "Men are nothing special. For many years, men's excellence is actually based on plundering women's time and energy. Men are stronger than women in terms of muscles, but not in other aspects. Just like Mrs. Wei, if you stay at home to take care of your husband and children, you can only make Mr. Wei successful in the end. But if you take the initiative to learn and walk out of that courtyard, are you worse than Mr. Wei? In the future, you will achieve more than Mr. Wei."
"How is this possible? Brother Anian is much smarter than me."
Rong Yang didn't say much, just said, "My vision has never been wrong." Chen Xuan was so shy from the praise.
Rong Yang not only invited Chen Xuan to drink tea, but also invited Chen Xuan to have lunch. Rong Yang has always been a lover of fine food, and Chen Xuan generously ate two bowls of rice before leaving. Chen Xuan went to the Sun family to visit Mrs. Sun in the afternoon. Sun Yan went to Tianjin. Sun's brothers and sisters were young, and Mrs. Sun was employed as a tailor in Chen Xuan and Wei Yin's shop. Chen Xuan and Wei Yin would visit from time to time, and would tell Sun Yan about her family's situation when sending letters to her. Even though prices soared a few days ago, Chen Xuan had people send a lot of rice and flour to the Sun family, worried that they and their children were living in poverty.
Mrs. Li, the shopkeeper, was very willing to accept the marriage with the Sun family. Even though her eldest son went to Tianjin, she would go there herself. After knowing this, she praised Chen Xuan and Wei Yin for their kindness and righteousness.
In a blink of an eye, it was the end of the year again, and there was another piece of news in the newspaper that caused a lot of public discussion. That was that the former emperor Puyi, who had previously lived in Jingyuan, Tianjin, ran away to the three northeastern provinces to become emperor again. This matter had nothing to do with ordinary people. Chen Xuan just glanced at it in the newspaper and began to prepare for the activities in the store before the New Year, as well as the stocking of goods for the cosmetics factory before the New Year.
It was Wei Jin. The fruit business was at its best before the Lunar New Year. However, the Wei family’s strawberries had never been hard to sell. Even though there were one or two strawberry vendors in the market this summer, their strawberries were not as good as the ones grown by the Wei family in terms of size or taste. Not to mention the winter, when only the Wei family could sell them.
Chen Xuan also discussed with Wei Jin that they planned to plant some indoor flowers next year. In Chen Xuan and Wei Jin's opinion, those useless flowers are also very expensive in winter. After that, it was time to prepare the New Year's goods. The New Year's goods were always purchased by the cosmetics factory, cosmetics store, lace factory and old shop together, and the food for the family during the New Year was all ready at once. Before the New Year, Second Uncle Wang came over, one to visit Third Uncle, and the other to bring some female workers home to celebrate the New Year.
In addition to these business matters and family matters, Chen Xuan also had the most important thing to do, which was to do the year-end exam papers with the second-year junior high school students, and then ask the teacher to judge the grades. This year, Chen Xuan was pregnant, gave birth to a daughter, and found her biological mother. In addition to the difficulties in the turbulent business world, she did not delay her studies. When the results came out, Chen Xuan was very proud. She had never been good at physics, but she also scored above 90 points. Chen Xuan said to An Nian, "I have to prepare a New Year gift for the teacher who tutored me in physics. The tutoring has shown results, and the money was not wasted!"
Because she did well in the exam, Chen Xuan was in a very good mood. When she prepared New Year gifts for Rong Yang and Mrs. Wen and wrote a letter, she also mentioned this matter and showed off modestly, saying that tutoring is indeed useful.
Chen Xuan did well in the exam, and so did several other children in the Wei family. Even Yun Jieer, who started school late, has now jumped to the fifth grade. But Zhao Feng and Zhao Yu from the Wei Jin family not only started school late, but also couldn't keep up with Yun Jieer. They were always at the bottom of the class, and this year was no exception. When Wei Jin saw the report card, he was so angry that he chased the two with a feather duster and beat them up. Old Mrs. Wei ran to stop her daughter on tiptoe and had to persuade her, "What are you doing? Beating my grandson in my own house!"
"Mom, look at the results of the two little bastards on the test. One got 16 points in the foreign language test, and the other got 30 points. How did you two study? How did you get the test results?" Wei Jin was so angry! Old Mrs. Wei snatched the feather duster, pulled them into the house and talked to them. She took out fifty cents from her pocket and stuffed it into her pocket for her eldest grandson Zhao Feng, and sent the two children out to buy candy. Wei Jin was so angry that she snatched the money back and stuffed it into her pocket. Old Mrs. Wei kept muttering, "What's the matter? It's just that they didn't do well in the test. Our children don't have to take the exam to become a scholar. Look how angry you are. It's okay. Just learn some words and use an abacus in school. Our children will be in business in the future. They don't need those profound knowledge."
Wei Jin sat on the kang and continued to be angry, "Mom, I didn't ask them to get first or second place in the exam. I told them long ago that at least they should learn foreign literature well. My second brother's wife told me that if we know foreign languages, we can do business with foreigners. Look at Xiao Qin, he can negotiate orders with the French and do business with foreigners. Look at these two losers, they only got 10 or 30 points out of 100! They are not worthy of the 30 yuan tuition fee that year!"
Mrs. Wei didn't take it too seriously and said to her daughter, "I can do anything. It turns out that they are not very good at foreign language. It's not easy. Anian is very good at foreign language. Just ask Anian to help them improve it."
Of course it is possible! However, Wei Jin was still angry and said to his two sons, "They always say that nephews look like their uncles. A Shi and An Nian were both very good in school. How come they don't look like their uncles at all?"
Old Mrs. Wei said, "This is your fault for not being able to support him, not my grandson. Well, maybe it's just like you, you were not good at learning to read when you were a child."
Therefore, although Wei Jin's strawberry planting went smoothly, he was very anxious about his sons' homework. Not only did he ask his second brother to teach his two sons foreign languages, he also privately asked Chen Xuan whether he should hire a tutor for his sons. Chen Xuan was experienced in this regard, "You can hire a teacher for a long time. I was not very good at physics before, so I hired a teacher to tutor me this year. My eldest sister-in-law said that the teacher was unnecessary. I did well in physics in the year-end exam. It can be seen that tutoring is still very useful."
Wei Jin pursed his lips, his chubby cheeks looked even rounder, and he held the little girl in his arms. The little girl was well-fed by her mother, so she also had a chubby face. Then, when the aunt and niece sat together, those who didn't know would think they were mother and daughter. Wei Jin said, "I said you hired a teacher because you are so old, why do you still study like the kids? I just want to learn a few more foreign languages, which will be useful for doing business in the future."
Chen Xuan knew that she couldn't reach an agreement with her elder sister-in-law about her ideals, so she didn't talk about that. Instead, she talked about tutoring and suggested to her elder sister-in-law, "Aunt-in-law, if you want to hire a teacher for Feng and Yu, I'll ask for you. It's best to hire one from a university. University students are knowledgeable."
Wei Jin asked, "How much does this tutoring cost?"
"It's different. If you come every day, it will be more expensive. If you come once a week, two hours or four hours, the price is also different. First find a good teacher, let the teacher see Feng Ge'er and Yu Ge'er's progress, then ask the teacher to make a remedial lesson plan, and then ask him to quote a price." Chen Xuan couldn't help but think about it. Wei Jin saw that she suddenly became stupid while talking, and couldn't help but push Chen Xuan and said to her, "Why are you suddenly in a daze?"
Chen Xuan said, "I suddenly remembered that Feng Ge'er and Yu Ge'er's grades are not very good. Are there many children in their class who need tutoring?"
"Who knows? We just need to take care of our own business. Other people's business has nothing to do with us."
Who said it doesn’t matter
Not only is it related, it is a huge relationship.
Because, after Chen Xuan asked about the learning situation of the students in Zhao Feng and Zhao Yu's class, especially their foreign language situation, she first told Brother Anian about this matter, "I heard from Brother Feng and Brother Yu that there are many students in their class who are not good at foreign language. Brother Anian, I think, taking advantage of the time during the New Year, can we go to the familiar schools and see the foreign language situation of the children in each school. If there are many such children in Feng and Brother Yu's class, can we set up a foreign language tutoring class? We are familiar with An Ning and Professor Chu. Not all college students come from wealthy families. We are not limited to foreign language, we can tutor any subject. By then, there will be ready-made teachers, college students from regular universities. This way, both sides will benefit."
Of course, this matter has to be done in the name of Chen Xuan.
Before Chen Xuan and Wei Nian made up their minds about this matter, they received strong spiritual support from Wei Jin. The reason was that if Chen Xuan opened a cram school, there would be no need for tutors. If their own children went to the cram school, how could their sister-in-law still charge money
Chen Xuan's idea to make money just now made Wei Jin, who was always obsessed with money, very greedy. Wei Jin even bought two big steamed buns to bribe Chen Xuan. Chen Xuan had to eat them, so Wei Jin handed them to her. Chen Xuan had no choice but to take them and gave the other one to her elder sister-in-law. Wei Jin didn't hesitate. After all, she bought the steamed buns, which were filled with Tianfuhao's braised pork elbows, which were very delicious. Wei Jin took a bite of the big meat steamed bun and asked Chen Xuan in a greedy way, "Second sister-in-law, you are a real person. Why do you have so many ideas to make money? Do you have any tricks?"
"What's the secret?" Chen Xuan knew that her elder sister-in-law's steamed buns were not so delicious, but she did not understand what her elder sister-in-law said.
"How did you suddenly become so smart?" Wei Jin asked, "When you first married Ah Nian, you were still stupid, but now you are so smart." Thinking of this, Wei Jin felt strange. When Chen Xuan first came into the family, Wei Jin felt that this country girl was not worthy of her handsome brother. But you say it's strange, in just a few years, Chen Xuan has been reborn, not only thinner and more fashionable, but more importantly, she has become much smarter. How come she is so good at thinking about ways to make money
Chen Xuan finally understood what Wei Jin wanted to find out. Chen Xuan was an honest person. Besides, she was eating the big meat buns that Wei Jin bribed her with. She told the truth, "Studying. I became smart after studying. Sister-in-law, you said that studying is useless. If I hadn't studied, I would definitely still be as stupid as before." Chen Xuan also said to her sister-in-law mysteriously, "This is a secret. I told you only because you asked. You must keep it secret and don't tell anyone."
"What kind of secret is this? Going to school and studying is not a secret." Wei Jin took another bite of the steamed bun. She was neither stupid nor dumb.
Chen Xuan said, "It's no secret to go to school and study, but in this life, except for those who are very lucky to be reborn without having to worry about anything for the rest of their lives, others have to study if they want to succeed. Of course there are geniuses in the world who are very smart without going to school, but most people are ordinary people, and I am an ordinary person among ordinary people. Sister-in-law, if ordinary people want to have a good life, they have to study hard. This is not a secret, and it is also a cliché, but it is the truth."
Wei Jin thought for a moment, thinking that Chen Xuan had indeed become more eloquent, more talkative, and more capable of making money and doing business since she began to learn to read. It could be said that it was indeed through studying that she became smart. So Wei Jin said seriously, "Then you should run the cram school well and hire a few good teachers. Feng and Yu will take cram schools here. Improve their grades, and when they have a bright future, ask them to be filial to you, their uncle and aunt."
It doesn’t cost any money anyway, and even if you don’t become smarter, reading more books won’t make you bad!
Well, it’s decided!
Wei Jin decided to let his two sons study as much as possible, and Chen Xuan was even more relieved. If she hadn't studied, how could she have eaten the big fire cake that her elder sister-in-law bribed her with! It was filled with Tianfuhao's braised pork elbow, so delicious! It was really delicious!
The author has something to say: ps: The first update is here, good afternoon everyone!