Gu Shaoqiang in life
8 years ago, she wrote "The world is so big, I want to see it"
After looking around, she had a new understanding of this sentence:
It’s not about breaking up with your current life
to gain freedom and happiness
Photos of our reporter Shang Zeyang and Wu Yue were provided by the interviewee
"The world is so big, I want to see it." Do you still remember this sentence that once dominated the Internet?
It has been 8 years since I submitted this resignation letter, during which time the female teacher Gu Shaoqiang had changed her identity. Now, at the age of 44, she is the mother of a seven-year-old girl. She owns a B&B with more than 20 rooms. She has also become a guest on the show and a psychological counselor for problem students...
In a big circle, she returned to her hometown of Zhengzhou, Henan. Recently, Gu Shaoqiang returned to the public eye due to a return visit from a video blogger.
What kind of psychological journey has she experienced over the years, and what is her attitude towards life now? With these questions, our reporter met Gu Shaoqiang and his daughter.
She said that leaving is not boredom, and returning home is not compromising. The exploration of life never stops. When talking about the "golden words" of that year, she also gave a new understanding.
Resignation letter from 8 years ago
Her life of "unboxing the blind box"
Now back to the starting point
The reporter met Gu Shaoqiang in Zhengzhou. She was wearing a black suit and coat, with long black hair and fresh and delicate makeup. Her 7-year-old daughter Xiao Yuer is always by her side. Gu Shaoqiang said that the meaning of his daughter’s name is: If you are not a fish, how can you know the joy of fish?
It has been two years since Gu Shaoqiang returned to Zhengzhou. During the Spring Festival of 2022, facing his mother's request, Gu Shaoqiang packed his bags and returned to his hometown as decisively as when he left.
As she returned to Zhengzhou, controversy continued online. Someone asked her, is she bowing to reality, or has she "seen the world"? Gu Shaoqiang replied that the way of looking at the world is different at each stage of life. "My mother is not used to life in an ancient town in Sichuan. She often suffers from joint pain. When she returned to Zhengzhou, she was able to seek medical treatment in time. The child grew up in the mountains and fields, and has also reached the stage of receiving high-quality education. Living in Zhengzhou, I am also discovering different wonderful things."
Today's life, Gu Shaoqiang has a full schedule. Looking through her circle of friends, she is still trying new things as always. She is what others call "Teacher Gu" and does psychology-related work, but her audience is no longer teenagers. She gives live lectures to share life experiences with everyone and discuss how to become an attractive mother. She is exposed to different knowledge and learns whatever she wants to learn immediately. Watching dramas, becoming obsessed with Kun Opera, and making short videos. She also crossed over to participate in talk shows and was evaluated as a "walking joker."
"I have always known what I want, and I have a strong sense of planning. I will execute it as soon as I think about it, and adjust the direction and goals during execution. Basically, what I want to do is constantly being realized." Gu Shaoqiang said that she likes it very much now status.
In the past eight years, she feels like she has drawn a big circle. Although she has returned to the starting point, the process has been wonderful. Each frozen photo records her journey of seeing the world. She went to Dunhuang, Gansu, Hangzhou and Shaoxing, Zhejiang... "I'm glad that when I was 35 years old, I wanted to see the world and I immediately acted on it. My heart is strong. , we can look at the world more objectively and deeply." Gu Shaoqiang said.
I decided to resign within 20 minutes of that year
Not cool for her
The hustle and bustle surrounding Gu Shaoqiang has long gone.
Going back in time, on April 13, 2015, a Zhengzhou person’s circle of friends was flooded with a resignation letter. The content of the letter was only 10 words: "The world is so big, I want to see it." Three days later, this resignation letter, which was hailed as the "most sentimental", exploded on the Internet and was hotly debated. At that time, Gu Shaoqiang didn't know that her resignation letter had become popular. She was busy packing her luggage. In two days, she would leave the city where she had lived for 35 years.
"The moment I decided to resign, there were emotional and impulsive elements, but rationality accounted for the most part." Gu Shaoqiang said that in life, she has done too many cool things than this. If she were ranked, this thing might not even make it into the rankings. top ten.
After resigning, Gu Shaoqiang came to Chengdu and wandered the alleys every day looking for special snacks. In his free time, he listened to Sichuan opera, drank Kung Fu tea, and basked in the sun. Then she went to Chongqing and lived with old friends she hadn't seen for many years, cooking, singing and walking every day. After learning that the famous drama master Mao Weitao would perform in Hangzhou, she hurriedly said goodbye to her friends and flew to Hangzhou, "spending huge sums of money" to buy tickets for three performances in a row. During the more than a month of living in Jiangnan, she "eated and drank" with her friends, and relying on her "social cow" attribute, she became a god-sister with Sister A Fang, the host of Nanxun's B&B. She made small wontons, Cook noodle……
Gu Shaoqiang and his daughter
After 8 years of seeing the world
She had a new understanding of that sentence
When he resigned, Gu Shaoqiang only had 10,000 yuan in his pocket.
But her B&B dream is still strong. In the winter of 2015, Gu Shaoqiang and his wife invested more than 1 million yuan and opened a B&B in an ancient town at the foot of Qingcheng Mountain, named "Yuangui". Here she meets travelers from all over the world and listens to stories from all over the world.
As a B&B host, Gu Shaoqiang needed to deal with many things independently, but at that time she was just a "novice". She still remembers, "Before opening the B&B, I was mentally prepared. It would not be like in the novel, with a pot of tea, a book, and basking in the sun. But in fact, there were far more difficulties than imagined, and there were many emergencies. Events are unpredictable, such as a sudden power outage at night in summer, or guests drinking and causing trouble." During the peak season, the B&B is extremely busy. She has to clean the toilet, change and wash quilts and sheets, and clean up every day. The hands that once held chalk are calloused. Just when the B&B business was picking up slightly, the epidemic disrupted Gu Shaoqiang's life. He had no income for several months, but still had to pay for water, electricity and rent. The couple had to find other jobs.
Today, the B&B is still in operation and is managed daily by my lover, and the business is “good or bad”. Gu Shaoqiang said that she did not feel that the road to entrepreneurship was difficult. On the contrary, she enjoyed a life she had never experienced before. She felt that the few years of running a B&B had allowed her to rapidly develop in all aspects of her abilities and "grow together."
In the small town, Gu Shaoqiang welcomed his daughter Xiao Yuer. She combines the wisdom of life with her travel experiences, teaching her daughter to combine knowledge with action, to discover beauty and explore the world.
Eight years ago, Gu Shaoqiang did not respond to the heated discussion from netizens. She thought she just did what she wanted to do and said something for herself. "'The world is so big, I want to see it.' Everyone has a different understanding of this sentence. For me, it does not mean that I have to go far away or spread my footprints to every corner of the world. I just want to experience a different life.”
In the past eight years, whenever Gu Shaoqiang stopped for a while, some people would question, why didn't he stop to see the world? Others lamented, "I was almost deceived by you back then, but luckily I didn't resign." Gu Shaoqiang was a little helpless about this: "I didn't encourage everyone to resign, and I didn't ask everyone to leave their lives."
The reporter asked, how do you view this sentence from eight years ago now? Gu Shaoqiang borrowed a word from her friend to describe it, "poisonous".
She said that for some people, this sentence may be a bright light in life, allowing people to see a possibility, but it may also be a bowl of "poison" because some people cannot grasp the sense of proportion. "This sentence does not matter whether it is good or bad. The key is how to understand it and how to use it. It does not mean that you have to be separated from your current life in order to gain freedom and happiness."