When I was still working in my office last week, my uncle called me and told me my father was with him and he wanted to tell me something, then he transferred me to my father. I was a bit surprised and expected something urgent.

Instead of first asking me how I was doing on my job as he usually did, he went straight to ask me if I could transfer him ten thousand yuan immediately because he just lost his job and wanted to go home raising chickens to earn some money. He explained further that he went to Zhejiang province with my uncle to be a shoemaker, but things didn't go well as planned. "Maybe I'm too old to be a shoemaker, and I'd be take a train back home tomorrow," he said in self-pity.

"But I thought you are in Changsha doing some construction works, why would you go to such a faraway place?" I asked.

"Right from the beginning of this year, our construction team has got less and less contracts, which means that I could get a lot of days off. But I couldn't wait, so..."

"Dad, you need some rest," I interrupted. "You're now in your fifties, and should consider your retirement. Now, I've grown up and would never ask you for money anymore, and neither would my sister as she's got her own family. So, why you're still in such a hurry to earn money?"

I tried to persuade him to take things easy and stop his intense laboring. But I knew I had little chance to get him persuaded. He's born to be a farmer and late on, a migrant worker, and that root runs deep in his mind. When I was little, he told me a lot about his childhood, mostly, about the tough times the he'd been through.

He was born into a poor family and as the eldest child in his family, he had to do the most family chores. He said he couldn't remember how many times he fell asleep on ridges of paddy fields as he was tending cattle, because he's so tired. He wanted to have a good education as he saw that it's the only way out of poverty. But he'd so many things standing in his way. He got cattle to herd after school, and he got odd jobs to do in order to keep his family away from starvation. However, despite of all those distractions, he did well on his study. When he was eventually enrolled at a local prestigious high school, that's the moment when he saw a bright future ahead of him. But soon, that hope was crushed by brutal reality. He almost went into tears when he recounted the moment when he walked into his classroom one day, barefooted, as his teacher and all classmates stood up in shock. It's a cold winter and there's a heavy snow outside. That class was cancelled as some of his classmates rushed home to get a pair of shoes for him. He was too poor to be able to afford a shoe, how could he afford his books and tuition fees. After attending just a few class in high school, he left his beloved high school and became a full time farmer.

So many years have passed. Gone are the days of cold winters and starvations. But my father will never forget those tough days in his childhood. He knows, better than anyone else, that we should never take the comfortable life we're now living for granted. That's probably why he's restless till now.