Nephew from T urkey
高度
Ilyas Halil
One day last year, there was a sudden knock on the door. Without warning, my nephew had arrived from Turkey! When I had last en him, he was knee-high to a grasshopper, with timid eyes, ears like two fans, two front teeth missing, short hair and continually dirty hands. Y ou know, the look that fits every nephew. I liked and was cloly attached tohim. With that knee-high-to-a-grasshopper size, he ud to look up at me as if viewing a telephone pole, his amber eyes smiling and cretly making fun of me. The legs sticking out of his short pants were a little crooked. Though his eyes were straight, he appeared a bit cross-eyed. I felt sorry when I looked at him…and I never got angry with him or hit him. When we talked, he emed to have a weight on his shoulders and appeared offended. When he was guilty, this attribute definitely worned. His eyes grew moist and his voice softened to where he could hardly be heard; it trembled like a leaf. Tho who saw him, thought him an orphan and felt sorry. They felt like putting their hands in their pockets and giving him some spending money or candy. In spite of my hitting my other nephews for any old thing, this one I couldn‟t touch. I loved the little sonofagun!
At home, no matter who got angry, our nephew managed to keep his distance. If you spoke to him, he
didn‟t reply. If he did answer, it was quietly. Even if you hit him, he was quiet. When taking a beating, instead of increasing, his wailing decread. Thus, the anger of who ever was beating him turned to compassion and the boy was saved from further punishment. Only much later did I come to this conclusion. When talking with others I obrved that our lad had neither crooked legs, cross-eyes nor big ears hanging like fig leaves. Furthermore, when he got mad, he knew how to yell his head off. It was only when he detected danger that his legs went crooked, his ears grew and his eyes crosd.
I hadn‟t en my nephew for the fifteen years since I had emigrated to Canada. He had become a strapping young man, handsome and strong! After bidding him welcome, I asked a few questions about what he planned to do.
钻圈“What job will you take, Nephew?‟
“Golly, Uncle, I‟ll do any job there is. Nothing will get away fro m me. Just say it, I‟ll do it. I‟ve done everything! I‟ve been a carpenter, electrician, peddler, shoemaker, tailor, auto mechanic;
you want more? I‟ve been all of the!”
窈窕的意思
“Too bad! So you didn‟t get the chance to go to college?”
笔记本花屏
“What kind of talk is that, Uncle! I finished law school.”
“V ery well, my boy, but how did you find time to do all the things? Y ou‟re only twenty-three years old! How did you manage all the jobs and still go to college?”
纸尿裤保质期几年“Uncle, don‟t worry about the details! Just eat the grapes and don‟t ask about the vineyard! If you don‟t believe me, show me a broken electric wing machine, radio, electric shaver or a juicer and I‟ll repair it. Y ou can‟t tell a suit I‟ve reverd the cloth on from a new one. If I turn that handkerchief po cket over it will look real sharp! It‟s not hard to ll old clothes for new! If it‟s food you want, let me cook for you today! See if what I cook isn‟t so delicious you can‟t eat enough of it? The flavor will stay on your palate a hundred years! There‟s nothing I don‟t know, Uncle!”
I saw that our boy certainly had learned “to shoot the bull.” I‟ve heard of all types but never one like this. The boy was a walking trades guild! Furthermore, he had studied law! Be logical, I thought to mylf. If a person spent two years learning each job, it would take fifty years to learn all the professions. “Something‟s rotten in Denmark.” It‟ll probably surface later!
“What job can you get here? Forget law for now. The source of Canadian law is not Roman law. Napoleoni c Civil Law isn‟t in effect here, either, ” I told him.
“Napoleonic Law? What‟s that? We didn‟t study such law.”
“Y ou mean you don‟t know who Napoleon was?”
“No,” replied our nephew.
“So-o-o, what kind of history did you study?‟
“Ordinary history, Uncle! Only we didn‟t have a history teacher. A captain came to our class, a history buff from the nearby regiment. He gave us lots of lessons on soldiering and the repair of weapons. Becau of him, I became a Number One gunsmith. Bring whatever you want! Blindfolded, I can take apart a machine gun and asmble it again, I can even repair heavy tanks. If you want, I‟ll make you a pistol form a water pipe! I know lots about weapons. Our captain ud to say, “After you know weapons, you make history yourlf. There‟s no need to learn history someone el has made!” I don‟t know who defeated whom in battle nor what year. What do I care? Would that make me powerful? It‟s hot air! Nah! If this right arm is strong, OK, forget the rest!”
“V ery well, Nephew! Tomorrow, let‟s go to the capital and register you at the embassy.”
“Are we going to Washington, Uncle?”
“Come on, is Washington the capital of Canada？Who taught you geography, my boy?”
“O-hoh, Uncle, look at the question you asked. Gee, in a lifetime, who is going to ask me the capital of Canada? Instead of that, I learned more uful things! If your coat gets torn today will knowledge about Canada save you expen? Or is knowledge of wing needed? Tell me, Uncle! The things our geography teacher taught us are always uful. After our school‟s geography teacher, Omer Temel, left to open a grocery store, the town tailor, Kasim Effendi, who knew how to read and write, came to teach the geography class. He taught us for six years. We learned a lot! Every year, we turned the cloth on two suits of clothes. We patched and learned to press! We learned how to w trours. Our teacher said, “Learn this and in life you‟ll never go hungry. Instead of memorizing the names of infidel foreign cities, or learning their rivers, learn something uful! What‟s that knowledge good for except to climb mountains and tear up your shoes? For what God-awful reason do you learn the population of Berlin or London? Doesn‟t the number change every year? Not only every year, it changes every day, every hour! Thousands of people die, are born, come and go…Don‟t tho geographers have any brains? They never get tired of giving fal figures to the students.”
“Tailor Kasim Effendi ud to say, “Now e! Look at Haydar, the literature teacher‟s hou, t hen mine! Tell me now, who knowledge is the most uful? Haydar Bey writes poetry, but he‟s hungry;
so what‟s the u of this knowledge? Come and e who knowledge provides more bread, butter and honey. Come and e who lives more comfortably. Pay attention to what I say! Learn what I show you and you won‟t eat bread without butter and honey!”
I listened to my nephew in amazement. What he said was probably true. I compared my situation with his. There was a chasm between us! I was a graduate history teacher, fifty-three years old. For the past fifteen years I‟ve continued at the university every winter learning new things. Every year, I realize how far behind I am! In spite of this, in the same place, like a donkey‟s tail, I teach on and on, hoping for better things! With this way of life it ems I‟m getting nowhere.
“V ery well, my boy, how‟s your mathematics?” I asked.
“Hot as a pistol, Uncle. Not a thing wrong with it! We learned mathematics fr om its origin.
There was no one better than our teacher. If you arched all of Turkey, you truly couldn‟t find a better teacher. Mison came to us for math. He was the accountant for a big institution. He taught us how to count money, put the excess in the safe and to bargain.
“He impresd on us the fine points of addition and subtraction. For example: when buying a product,
addition is one thing when lling, something el. It‟s the same with subtraction! Not everyone knows the fine points. Mison is a man who gives the government the run-around. He prepares t ax returns every year and it‟s impossible to find a mistake in them. The government offered him thousands of lira: …Come and be our Minister of Finance!‟He didn‟t accept. …I‟m just a rvant to free principles!‟ he replied. Truly, he was a modest man. It‟s too bad we couldn‟t learn multiplication and division form him. But never mind, I‟ll handle the situation with addition and subtraction. Thank God, I haven‟t been cheated yet.”
“All right, son, didn‟t you have difficulty in college with such a two-bit edu cation?‟
“What difficulty, Uncle? The teachers had the difficulty from us. It was really easy for us. At this time I learned auto repair. In the cond year of law, our professor of International Law was sick and didn‟t come to class the whole year. During tho class periods, I went to the garageacross from the university and worked. I did auto repairs. American tourists ud to bring their cars to the garage. So I learned foreign money and exchange in addition to improving my knowledge of English. That ye ar I earned as much as a professor.”
I was becoming more and more interested. This was a philosophy of education unfamiliar to me. They were educating students in an atmosphere conforming to the goings-on in the world.
高中周记300字>《朱子家训》原文
“OK, son, what did you learn carpentry in place of?‟
“I didn‟t learn it in place of anything, Uncle! When our professor of Civil Law suddenly died at the beginning of the school year, I worked at a carpentry shop to fill my spare time. Uncle, I have no regrets that I learned this. I built our hou. Foundation, walls, ceiling, furniture----I made everything. Too bad I didn‟t stay there longer.
“Six months later, a teacher came to our college of Medicine, a specialist in internal medicine. From him, I picked up many facts related to civ il law. He‟d been in the College of Medicine when one of his teachers died; a professor of Civil Law then came to teach them. So that‟s how he learned a great deal about law. That year he also incread our knowledge of health. If someone gets sick at home, I understand their condition, more or less. I know how to administer aspirin and
quinine. Working on crui ships, I measured blood pressure for two asons and made lots of money. I was just about to become a doctor!”
My nephew‟s treasury of knowledge k new no bounds. He had learned something about everything. In Canada, he worked on and off… He couldn‟t hold a job anywhere. Everything he did was third-rate, so they gave him the gate. One day, we found that he‟d packed up his stuff and returned to Tur
key. According to our latest news, in one year the boy became a millionaire.
We correspond. In every letter he says, “Work hard on your university cours, Ha!”
The Lemon Lady
Katiti
We called her the "Lemon Lady" becau of the sour-puss face she always prented to the publicand becau she grew the finest lemons we had ever en, on two huge trees in her front garden. Weoften wondered why she looked so sour and how she grew such lemons ----but we could find out nothingabout her. She was an old lady----at least 70 years of age, at a guess, perhaps more.
One day we answered an advertiment for a flat to rent, as we had been asked to leave ours assoon as we could, and when we went to the address given, it was the hou of the Lemon Lady.
She didn't "unfreeze" during the whole of our interview. She said the flat would not be ready for occupation for about a month; that she had 45 names on her list and might add more before it was ready and then she would just lect the people to suit her best. She was not antagonistic, just firm and austere, and I gathered that we were not likelyto be the ones lected.高硅铸铁
As my husband and I were leaving, I said, "How do you grow tho wonderful lemons?" She gavea wintry smile, which transformed her whole expression and made her look sweet and somehow pitiful.
"I do grow nice lemons," she replied. We went on to tell her how much we had always admired themevery time we had pasd, and she opened up and told us quite a lot about this fruit.“Y ou know the general theory of pruning, I suppo?" She asked.
