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Holiday lessons learned
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STUDENTS may think the 20-day-long winter holiday, which also includes the Chinese lunar New Year, a festival for family reunions, may seem too short . Yet some of their holiday experiences may stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Two years ago Ma Peihua, a senior three student of Huaqiang Vocational School, started a part time job at Pizza Hut as a waitress. To her joy, her wage was recently raised from 5.3 yuan per hour to 6.3 yuan. She worked eight hours a day for fifteen days just like full time employees and opened a bank account to put away her 1,000 yuan earnings. "Earning money is not my target, but improving my social skills is the primary concern," said Ma. "Many of my classmates praised me for my tactics in dealing with interpersonal relationships, which I attribute to my holiday working experience."
Seventh-graders of Cuiyuan Middle School were given a special assignment by their teacher: to earn five yuan with their own hands for class fees. They accomplished the task by the holiday's end. Zhou Weiran earned his first payment by carrying water and flowers in the flower market. Some got errand fees buying books for friends. Their teacher said the assignment was designed to encourage students to understand the value of hard work and cherish their present living and studying conditions.
Huang is a senior two student. He contacted his ten classmates, who together scraped together 6,000 yuan to open a stall at a flower market. But after paying 2,000 in rent and getting everything ready, they found themselves undercut by the competition.
By closing day, they tallied their books and found that after five days of hard work they were actually 400 yuan in the red. But perhaps this painful lesson is the most valuable of all: life has hardship and loss, but things usually work out in the end.
(Richard Han)
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