Under the influence of the May Fourth New Culture, a large number of Chinese young people boarded a cruise ship to France in search of scientific knowledge and the truth of national salvation, and began a new life.

Unlike other ways to study abroad, the threshold for going to France for work-study is low.

After the First World War, there was a serious shortage of labor in France, and the French government believed that a large number of Chinese workers could not only help fight the war, but also help build in the future, but only to educate the Chinese workers.

What they mean is to provide vocational skills training for Chinese workers, so that they can later work as cheap labor in factories.

Cai Yuanbao and others in China believe that they can use work-study to enable Chinese workers to master the advanced technology of France, which is very beneficial to returning to China for development.

China and France hit it off, and in 1916, the Sino-French Education Association was established to be responsible for this matter.

A very important factor in choosing France is the low cost of living in France.

In China in this era, there is a saying in society that students are "first-class Western, second-class Oriental, and third-class local".

The share of studying abroad at the official expense is very small, and the opportunities are very limited.

Therefore, how to strive for less money and still be able to study abroad has become the focus of the problem, to study in Britain and the United States and other countries, the cost of a year is about 2,000 yuan, in France, only 700 yuan.

In the provinces of France, the annual cost of room and board per person is only two or three hundred yuan.

This gives young people from ordinary families a hope to study abroad.

These Chinese youths say that they are international students, but in fact they are equivalent to migrant workers abroad, but the French government will provide educational opportunities.

However, even so, there are two types of international students going to France: official and self-funded.

Fee-free for government-sponsored students. Self-financed students are funded by donations from the business community of 100 yuan per person and 200 yuan by themselves. A total of 300 yuan.

They live in fourth class on the cruise ship, and each person is given a piece of bread and a scoop of soup for each meal. Sometimes give a little leftovers.

This was reported in the newspaper La Marseille of October 20, 1920.

"More than 100 Chinese, aged between 15 and 25, dressed in Western-style clothes, wide-brimmed hats and pointed leather shoes, looked polite and gentle, standing quietly in 'Andre? On the deck of the Le Pont. ”

Students in France will start learning French in secondary school, and then they will work in factories and find opportunities to study at university.

The conditions for studying were very difficult and the situation was very miserable. Some of them live in the slums of Paris or live on the streets.

"We do all kinds of work, the shelves are put down, the face is torn, light work, heavy work, temporary handymen, we do it when we meet, just to earn a little food."

This is the real experience of Chinese students studying part-time in France.

Lin Zixuan had seen this kind of report in China, so he said that condolence word.

He came to the Overseas Chinese Association at 39 Avenue Pointe in Paris.

Founded on August 31, 1919, the Overseas Chinese Association is a public institution of Chinese in France, and its nature is similar to that of a Chinese guild and chamber of commerce. All kinds of institutions are gathered here.

When international students first arrive in France, they are often waiting for the opportunity to work or go to school, and their correspondence with their home countries is also transferred here.

At the Overseas Chinese Association, Lin Zixuan saw an even worse situation.

The Overseas Chinese Association is a villa-style building. However, it is crowded with international students who do not have jobs and cannot go to school.

They lived in the cellar, and when the cellar could not stay, they built a canvas tent on the garden lawn.

A cloth shed four feet long and five feet wide was erected in the compound of the Overseas Chinese Association. More than 40 people were crammed inside, some of whom were even sick. No medical treatment.

Lin Zixuan immediately decided to give the 2,000 pounds he had sold film copies in the UK to improve the lives of these people.

It is equivalent to 15,000 silver dollars in China, which is a lot of money. Although it cannot completely improve their lives, it can also temporarily solve some practical difficulties.

This move was warmly welcomed by the international students in France.

Lin Zixuan just did what he could, and he was powerless to change the situation of these people in France.

Unlike the international students he saw in the past, those people either studied at official expense, or their families were well-off, and they didn't have to worry about money at all, and he spent tens of thousands of silver dollars on studying in the United States for two years.

Most of these work-study students are from ordinary families, and they are not accepted by universities and cannot receive relief from their families, so they can only rely on their own part-time jobs to live.

But it was precisely because of this difficult French years that a group of determined revolutionaries were created.

France has always had a tradition of revolution, including the French Revolution in 1794 and the Paris Commune in 1871.

In such a country, various social trends are rampant, which inevitably affects Chinese students who come to study in Paris.

They worked in the factories of France, endured exploitation by the bourgeoisie, hated the bourgeois system so much that they easily accepted revolutionary ideas and Marxism.

This may have been something that the French government and Cai Yuantou and others did not expect, and they inadvertently created a group of revolutionary fighters.

On the lawn in the courtyard of the Overseas Chinese Association, Lin Zixuan saw many familiar faces in the crowd, who threw themselves into the torrent of revolution after returning to China and changed the face of China.

It's a lot of emotion to think about.

"Mr. Lin, say something." The young man with a Sichuan accent suggested.

At this time, Lin Zixuan had already guessed the identity of this young man.

He was a key member of a group of students studying in France, who organized and participated in a series of large-scale demonstrations in Paris in the aftermath of the May Day massacre.

In later generations, it was a figure who changed the whole of China.

Lin Zixuan thought about it, and combined the "Chinese dream" proposed in the United States with his speech on the May Day tragedy in the United Kingdom.

He believed that China had reached a critical historical turning point, that the Chinese people had uttered a long-silent roar, that China's anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle had reached a climax, and that the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation was about to begin.

It all starts with our generation.

He hopes that the international students in France can return to China and participate in this vigorous social change.

In the end, I don't know who sang the song "My Chinese Heart" first, and this patriotic song is widely circulated among international students.

These students came to France around 1920, and after five years, they have endured many hardships in France, and they miss their motherland and family even more.

"The rivers and mountains only linger in my dreams, and the motherland has not been close for many years, but no matter what, it can't be changed, my Chinese heart ......"

When Lin Zixuan was in France, a big discussion on "uniting Russia and hating Russia" was launched in the domestic ideological circles.

The initiator of this event was none other than Xu Zhimo, who had returned to China, and his "European Travels" about the situation in the Soviet Union became the introduction of this great discussion.

In October 1925, Xu Zhimo took over as the editor-in-chief of the supplement of the "Morning Post".

A big discussion on "uniting Russia and hating Russia" was initiated and organized by Xu Zhimo and Liu Mianji.

Since this discussion was about China's future national fortunes, a large number of celebrities in the ideological and cultural circles joined in expressing their understanding of the Soviet and Russian issues. (To be continued.) )