The Rubber Boy is a Chinese story titled “Rubber Boy” that presents a useful lesson for children, which is that contentment is an inexhaustible treasure, and that the child should appreciate his parents’ efforts toward him, and not mock his poverty and living conditions, but rather know that they are making their utmost effort to make him happy and for his comfort.
Story events:
There was a boy named Huck, who was eleven years old. His mother worked in collecting rubber to provide him money for living, since his father was deceased, so the mother had to work with all her energy to provide money for living.
But Huck did not know the reality of his mother’s hard work. Rather, Huck felt sadness about his poverty and the hardship of living.
Huck’s fight at school:
Huck woke up to go to school, and his mother used to take him to school every morning on the bicycle for collecting rubber. The students at school used to bother him, saying to him: Rubber Boy. They mocked him and made fun of him and his poverty. So Huck had a violent fight with his friends.
Huck tells his mother about the reason for the fight with his friends:
Huck returned home and his clothes and bag were torn. His mother asked him about the reason for the chaos that appeared on his appearance, and told him that this would cost her buying new clothes for him.
So her son Huck told her that she was the cause of that fight between him and his friends, because his friends called him Rubber Boy whenever they saw him riding the rubber collecting bicycle with his mother. He told her that he hated being poor, while his friends went to school in luxurious cars, while he rode his mother’s bicycle and his friends’ mockery of him increased.
He told her that even on the Chinese New Year, he would not be able to buy toys or new clothes like his friends. Huck kept crying bitterly and screaming in his mother’s face, accusing her of negligence toward him.
Huck’s mother invites him to go with her to work:
His mother looked at him and said to him: So what do you want me to do?
He said to her: Work with effort so that we do not become poor again, and bring more money so that we become rich.
She said to him: If you think with such ease that we can get money, then follow me tomorrow to my work.
Huck said to her: Let us go together.
Huck discovers the nature of his mother’s hard work:
In the morning of the next day, Huck woke up to go with his mother to work. The mother rode the bicycle a long distance until she reached a distant forest with rubber trees. Huck felt tired from the long distance, so he sat under one of the trees of the forest, watching his mother as she worked.
He saw how his mother collected rubber from the tree trunks. She would tie a container to the trunk of each tree, wait until the container filled with rubber, then collect the containers, pour the rubber into large containers that she carried on her shoulder, transfer them on the bicycle, then return to work.
It is extremely hard work, and his mother did not stay even a minute. Huck tried to carry one of the containers and could not, but he saw his mother carrying two containers together while appearing tired.
Huck apologizes to his mother:
Huck thought inside himself and remembered what he asked his mother yesterday, when he told her that she should work with effort. In that moment Huck learned that working with effort is all his mother does in her life. The hard day ended, and Huck returned with his mother to their home.
He said to his mother: Mother, I am sorry, and promised his mother that he would strive in his studies.