Quentin attends high school at the regional capital, but his home is in the city of Danjiangkou. Last Sunday was a holiday. On Saturday afternoon after the third class, he headed for home.

At the coach station, he and three other travellers decided to hire a taxi instead of going by coach. It was a long journey. To kill time, on the way, the travellers started chatting. Quentin learned that they three were all uni students and that their winter vacation had already started.

As their conversation was progressing, Quentin was impressed by one of the female passengers. Looking thirtyish, she was way maturer than the other two. She had been working in Zhejiang for years before she became a uni student. As a teen, she had to drop out of high school because of her family’s financial difficulties. While working in Zhejiang, however, she came to appreciate the value of a good education. Although she could learn further on her own in the real world, a formal education would help her miles and miles more, which her work experiences had taught her. Therefore, last year she quitted her well-paid job and prepared for the college entrance exam. Luckily, she passed it and was admitted to one of the institutes of higher education in Wuhan. Judging from her talk, Quentin believed that this lady cherished her education opportunity.

Another girl, in her early 20s, was a student at Yunyang Medical College. Her attitude towards her education is poles apart. She admitted that her grades were lousy, but her manner of speaking showed that she could not have cared less. What mattered to a lady, in her eyes, was finding a wealthy man and marrying rich. What would be the use of good grades? Good grades were nothing compared with a rich husband.

Listening to the talk, Quentin admired the first lady and despised the second. Although one is free to make his own life choices, Quentin thought the latter female would lose a lot if she stuck to such a mentality. She would sacrifice her freedom and independence for a lifestyle that only pigs lead.

My reader, what do you think?