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Trip to TianShui City, GanSu Province
By Jill Ji
Visit from July 11 to July 16, 2007
About TianShui
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TianShui City locates in southeast of Gansu Province, borders to Shanxi Province. It covers an area of 14,325 square KM and consists of Qin’An County(秦安县), WuShan County (武山县), QingShui County (清水县), GanGu County(甘谷县), ZhangJiaChuan County(张家川回族自治县), MaiJi District(麦积区) and QinZhou District(秦州区) is with a population of 3.45 million.
Our Companions
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| Wang Bo(王搏), was born in TianShui. He has been visiting poor students and barefoot teachers for 13 years. 12,860 students has been sponsored through his efforts. It is Wang Bo that take us to visit needy families. Without him, our trip to Gansu is impossible. | Diana Zhang(张颖), will start her study in Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University this August. She has founded a new NGO BaJin Hui(八金会) this June. To cooperate with Wang Bo to help students and bare foot teachers in western of China will be the first project of BaJin Hui. | David Hiebaum from Austria, is one of the friends of Diana Zhang. He is also the founder of BaJin Hui. When Diana is in Harvard, he will be responsible for BaJin Hui’s work in China. |
The First Day- School Visiting
On July 12, after bumping along the dirt mountain road for about 1.5 hours, we finally arrived in WangFu Township Elementary School.
In order to save time, we separated into 2 teams, I myself stayed in the elementary school to interview orphans recommended by the school,
while the others went to the middle school to visit poor middle school students.
With the interpretation of the local teacher, I talked to 7 families. The stories of the 7 families are similar: parent passed away due to disease or
accident, leaving the young children with the old grandparents.
The most serious problem these families met is that the children can not get enough nutrition. Some of these children only eat 2 meals every
day, and their food are only noodles or potatoes.
Family Stories
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His mother passed away when he was 11 months old. His father has got a deformed leg and is unable to do heavy labor work.
Li XuDong and his father live with his grandfather who are more than 80 years old.
Li XuDong seldom has his breakfast, his lunch and dinner are usually noodles, no dishes and even no oil.
His hands are deformed because of calcium-deficiency.
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His mother passed away when he was 6 months old, leaving 3 children with his father and grand- parents. His father is now doing labor work in WuShan County. His grand- parents both are in their sixties, they are doing farm work and take care of the grandchildren.
GaoHang’s oldest sister Gao Hui(高慧), is studying in grade 8. She is among the top students in her class. His older sister Gao YaHui(高亚慧), is studying in grade 5. He is studying in grade 2 and is among the top 3 in 43 students.
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His father passed away due to car accident 10 years ago. His older sister An YuRong (安玉荣), 14, is studying in grade 8. The whole family depends on their mother’s labor work. Usually, the family has two meals everyday. Their lunch usually is noodles and their dinner is potatoes or noodles.
An WangRong’s teacher told me that several month ago, An WangRong got a fever, but he didn’t have money to pay for the medicines which was about RMB3. It was the teacher that paid for his medicines.
The Following Days -- Barefoot Teachers and Poor Students
From July 13 to 15, we visited 7 barefoot teachers and 3 poor families.
Barefoot teachers are the teachers who are not recognized by the government. They usually teach in the remote villages where the government-recognized teachers are not willing to work in. It is estimated that there are about 2 million barefoot teachers in China. Without barefoot teachers, children in many remote areas will not have the chance to go to school.
In TianShui City, the average salary of the teacher sent by the government is RMB1,000 per month, while the salary of the barefoot teachers is about RMB120 per month.
Barefoot teachers work as much as the other teachers, most of them are the backbone of the school, some are the only teacher of the school. But because of the low salary, some of them can not even afford their own kids to continue their studies.
Families Stories
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| From Left: Zhang Ting’s father, Zhang Ting, Mr. Frank Yih and Zhang Ting’s mother Qin YuLan. |
Every month, Zhang Ting takes steamed bread to the school, she spends no more than RMB50 on meals per month. Her two younger siblings go home for meals everyday, they two together spend no more than RMB500 per year.
Zhang Ting's father has many diseases like heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. and does not have labor ability. Zhang Ting's mother Qin YuLan(秦玉兰) is a barefoot teacher. She has been teaching for 20 years, her salary is RMB1,500 per year. She teaches Chinese of grade two and three, and Mathematics of grade four. From Monday to Friday, she teaches 8 classes everyday. After class, she works on the farmland in the evening. She herself alone takes care of 10 Mu farmland( around 6,667 square meters) and she is the only bread earning of the family.
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Jian AiMei has two sons. The older son Sun QiFeng(孙奇峰), 7, is studying in grade one. The younger son Sun QiQiao(孙奇巧), 4, is taken care by her mother-in-law. Her husband does manual work in cities except harvest time and Spring Festival.
She had planned to give up her teaching last year when her salary was RMB1,200 per year. However, because the school is short of teachers, she was asked to come back to the school. Her salary has been raised up to RMB2,000 per year which is 5 times lower than that of the teachers sent by the government.
For teacher Jian, the happiest thing is that her students get good achievements, the saddest thing is that sometimes she is looked down upon by the villagers in her age because she earns less than those who wash dishes in the restaurants.
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The school is more than 10KM far away from Chen’s home. Every week, in order to save money, Chen YaWei walks along the mountainous road for about 2.5 hours to home.
Chen YaWei is extremely filial towards his parents. He cooks food and feeds his mother when he is at home. Sometimes, his mother beats him heavily, but he still looks after her patiently.
Conclusion
We have not visited many families in 4 days due to bad road conditions, but like before, we experienced sadness, happiness, tears and smiles during our visit.
Different from Henan I visited, there are many barefoot teachers in the western areas of China who need help urgently.
Without barefoot teachers, children in many remote mountainous areas will not have chance to get school education. However, the salary of the barefoot teachers are too low to support their families. So, to support the barefoot teachers and their children to continue their study will probably be the first step to support the education in the poor areas.
Reported by:
Jill Ji
HuaQiao Foundation
www.huaqiaofoundation.org
Tel: (8621) 3209- 5514 (Jill)
Fax: (8621) 3209- 5578
Email: hellojihui@gmail.com
HuaQiao Foundation
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