Couplet in Response to Mr. Zou Chunpei (I)[1]

(1902)

Washing feet; (Zou Chunpei)

Cultivating oneself. (Mao Zedong)

[1] This is a couplet exchanged between Mao Zedong and his private school teacher. In the spring of 1902, Mao Zedong returned to Shaoshan from his maternal grandfather’s home in Tangjiatuo and enrolled in the Nan’an Private School, where his first teacher was Zou Chunpei. One day, Mr. Zou Chunpei went out on business and instructed the students to recite their lessons. However, when the teacher returned, he saw Mao Zedong and several other children splashing about in a pond. The teacher was very angry. He called Mao Zedong and the other children before him, pointed at their muddy feet, and recited the first line of a couplet, demanding they match it. If they matched it well, they could escape a beating. Mao Zedong’s wits quickened, and he blurted out the matching line. Hearing it, the teacher could not help but nod and sigh in silent admiration. Zou Chunpei was Mao Zedong’s teacher at the Nan’an Private School in Shaoshan from the spring of 1902 to the autumn of 1904.

The bedroom of the young Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong often covered the doors and windows at night to study, so that his father would not see the lamplight.