Strawberry farmer from english exam inspires student to top university

A young student has been accepted into a prestigious university thanks to an unusual source of inspiration: a strawberry farmer he met because of a question on an English exam.

Now a postgraduate student in artificial intelligence, He Ziqi was in middle school when his reading comprehension test included a passage about an advertisement by a Beijing strawberry farmer — complete with a phone number.

Curious whether it was real, He searched the number on WeChat and found it belonged to a real grower in Beijing, Mr. Wang.

In a text exchange, Mr. Wang explained he had been receiving students’ messages for more than 10 years.”I don’t know which English teacher took the advertisement I wrote and turned it into an English exam question,” he wrote. “People ask me about it every year.”

Wang has been growing strawberries for 21 years and said 10 to 20 students contact him every year. His usual advice: study hard, be good students, and come visit him in Beijing once they graduate.

He Ziqi never forgot. After being accepted into the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, he reconnected with Wang. Delighted, the farmer took him out for Peking duck dinner — where in a further twist of serendipity, he told He that his daughter attends school right next to the Central University campus.