【中英双语】时代楷模——张桂梅

On June 29, 2021, Zhang Guimei was awarded the highest honor of CPC —the July 1st Medal in the Great Hall of the People. This tough, stubborn and even a little paranoid（偏执的） woman once again came into the public's view. She was put into an embarrassing situation in October last year , when she made remarks against her student becoming a full-time mother. Therefore, she has also been labeled 'feminism' by many netizens. But I believe that if you read the following story and learn about her original intention and persistence, you will definitely understand and admire her a bit more.

2021年6月29日，在人民大会堂，张桂梅被授予中国共产党党内最高荣誉七一勋章。这个坚韧、倔强甚至还有一点点偏执的女人又再一次出现在大众的视野。而上一次她被推上风口浪尖，还是在去年10月，当时她发表了反对自己学生成为全职妈妈的言论。因此，她也被很多网友贴上了“女权主义”的标签。但是，我相信如果你看了下面的讲述，了解了她的初衷和坚持，一定会对她多一分理解和钦佩。

From childhood to youth, Zhang Guimei lived a life of worry-free clothing and food . She was also an outgoing girl who advocated freedom, and loved art. She ever had a pretty happy marriage, and her husband loved her very much. However, the good times did not last long before her husband was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Although she exhausted all her savings to give her husband the best treatment , her husband left her forever in February 1995 .This was a very fatal blow to her , which made her unable to pull herself from grief for some time. Perhaps intending to escape from reality, she applied for a job transfer and moved from Xizhou, Dali to Huaping County , where she started her legendary life.

张桂梅从幼年到青年都过着衣食无忧的生活，也曾是一个性格外向，崇尚自由，热爱文艺的女孩子。她有过一段非常幸福的婚姻，丈夫对她宠爱有加。然而好景不长，丈夫被检查出罹患胃癌。虽然她用尽所有积蓄给丈夫最好的治疗，但是在1995年2月，丈夫还是永远地离开了她。这对她而言是非常致命的打击，让她一度陷入悲伤中不能自拔。或许是出于逃避现实，她申请了工作调动，从大理喜洲来到了华坪县，也正是在这儿开启了她的传奇人生。

If she hadn’t seen with her own eyes the unimaginable poverty and ignorance in the mountains and the tragedies that happened to women, Zhang Guimei might not have the idea of building a free girls-only high school . At first, she just wanted all the girls in her class not to drop out of school, but when she went to the mountains to visit her students’ homes, she found that there were so many girls of school age who could not go to school. She was very confused and couldn't think out a method  that can completely solve this problem. In the end, she made a conclusion that only by providing them with free education can all this be changed. When she first proposed to build the high school for girls, people around her either thought she had a mental problem or laughed at her for being too naive. However, Zhang Guimei really started to take action. In order to prepare the school's money, she even went to the streets of Kunming to beg and collect donations, but it was far from enough. The turning point came in 2007, when Zhang Guimei became a representative of the Seventeenth National Congress （十七大）of the CPC. Her dream was known by the people of the whole country and recognized by the central leadership so that the construction of the girls-only high school entered a substantive（实质性的） stage.

如果不是亲眼见识到大山里的那些超乎想象的贫穷和愚昧，那些发生在女性身上的悲剧，张桂梅可能也不会萌生出建一所免费女子高中的想法。起初，她只是想让她班上的所有女生都不辍学，但是当她去深山家访的时候，看到还有那么多适龄女孩子没法读书，她感到很困惑和迷茫，想不出来有什么方法可以彻底解决这个问题。最终，她得出结论，只有给她们提供免费的教育，才有可能改变这一切。当她第一次提出想要创办女子高中的时候，周围的人要么认为她精神出问题了，要么嘲笑她太过于天真。然而，张桂梅真的就开始行动了。为了筹备建校的钱，她还去昆明的街上乞讨和募捐过，但是远远不够。转机在2007年出现，张桂梅成为了十七大代表，她的梦想被全国人民知道，也被中央领导认可，女子高中的建设进入了实质性阶段。

For most girls in this school, if it hadn’t been for such a free high school and the persuasion of Zhang Guimei, maybe they would marry and have children early in their teens but without knowing how to educate and love their kids. It is precisely（精确地，恰恰） because of the particularity of this group that Zhang Guimei's management of the high school couldn’t  be harsher. There is no so-called quality education, only repeatedly learning. She knows that these girls have no way back, and studying is their only chance to change their destiny. Carrying so many children's hopes by herself, she is always under a lot of pressure. So it’s reasonable that her words are a bit aggressive sometimes.

对女高的大部分学生来说，如果不是因为有这样一所免费的高中，有张桂梅校长的劝说，她们也许在十几岁就早早嫁人，生子，但是又不懂得怎么去教育和关爱自己的孩子。正是因为这一群体的特殊性，张桂梅对女子高中的管理近乎严苛。这儿没有所谓的素质教育，只有学习,学习，再学习。她知道，这些女孩子没有退路，读书是她们唯一能改变命运的机会。她一个人承载着那么多孩子的希望，压力也是非常巨大，有时候说话激进一点也是可以理解的。

Although Zhang Guimei is now a hero praised by people, in fact she is also an ordinary person. In the very beginning, she did these things perhaps just to find a kind of spiritual sustenance（寄托）. But year after year, seeing her students enter universities, go out of the mountains, and sail away, she feels that all her efforts are worthwhile. She often says that people always have to do something while they are alive. The high school develops better and better, having sent more than 1,800 poor girls to universities in total, yet years of heavy work and stress have taken their toll (代价）on Zhang Guimei. She suffers from more than 20 diseases, relying on a lot of medicine every day, and sometimes she feels so painful that she could only complain to her friends. However, she still has one wish that has not been fulfilled—her students can be admitted to Tsinghua University or Peking University. Perhaps this is also a motivation to support her in fighting so many illnesses.

虽然张桂梅现在是被人们称颂的英雄，但实际上她也是一个普通人。最开始做这些事情，可能也只是为了寻找一种精神的寄托。但一年又一年，看到自己的学生考入大学，走出深山，扬帆远航，她觉得自己所有的付出都是值得的。她常说，人活着，总要做点事情。女高的发展越来越好，累计将1800多名贫困女生送入大学，但多年繁重的工作和压力使得张桂梅的身体每况愈下。她被二十多种疾病缠身，每天靠很多药物维持，有时候也痛得向朋友诉苦。但她还有一个愿望没有实现，就是她的学生能考上清华或者北大，或许这也是支撑她对抗这么多病痛的一种动力。

A person devotes all of her energy to do one thing—the thing that benefits others.This is already commendable（值得赞扬的）! Let’s pay our respects to Teacher Zhang Guimei, and hope that she can take care of her health and fulfill her unfinished wish!

一个人，倾尽全部的精力只为做一件事，而且这件事还是造福于他人，这就已经难能可贵了！让我们向张桂梅老师致敬，也希望她老人家能够保重身体，完成未完的心愿！