The Rice Harvest

Besides Math, Language, Science, English, Art, P.E. classes, Pingmin also wants to instill and teach work ethic into these kids. Laziness is taken very seriously here and Principal Zhang wants to make sure that all the students learn the value of manual work, self dependency, and how to maintain our living environment. This is seen the moment you step onto the campus. No litter, sidewalks are swept and clean. The dormitories that all the students live in (since it’s a boarding school) are neat and tidy as well. Every bed quilt is folded neatly, towels are all hanging properly, washing cups and toothbrushes are all placed in exact positions. I find it amazing that even the 1^st graders are living so independent and far away from their families. There are 4-5 life-skills teachers (nannies) that facilitate and teach the students how to wash their clothes, fold their bed, wash up, hang their clothes, and wash their plates. It’s clear, nothing is taken for granted here and all the kids are taught discipline and hard work at an early age.

Every day at 4:00pm until 5:00pm, every student does manual work, a curriculum called 劳动课 that is unique to what Pingmin School tries to teach to their students. During this time, the first and second graders tidy around campus with a task that the teacher would assign them (cleaning the classroom, sweeping the steps, picking up litter around the buildings, etc.). The third to sixth graders do more manual type labor, usually in the fields or gardens. Since the land is big, students always have something to do in the fields (pulling weeds, sowing the field, picking out bugs, harvesting vegetables, cleaning vegetables, raking and plowing, and watering). These kids are really hard-working and already know so much about farming and agriculture, since they all come from poor, rural, agricultural areas.

Just the other day we harvested rice. I thought I would only see this in old Chinese movies, but there I was, right in the middle of the rice field with a sickle in my right hand and a handful of rice stalks in my left. It was very hot and humid, and after 30 minutes of cutting all the rice stalks, I was dripping with sweat. Next, we gathered the rice stalks bunched them in the same orientation and put them through a shucker which separated the rice grains from the stalks. Bags of rice grains would fill up a 100lb bag and needed 4 students to lift it. The bags were then wheel barrowed to the store room at the school. The next day, we spread the rice on any smooth flat ground there was and let them sun dry for half a day to prevent any germination. After all the rice had been dried in the sun properly (the kernels have to become hard and slightly more white, less yellow), they can finally begin to remove the rice bran, a fairly simple, but also time consuming step, in which a special rice bran removal machine is used. I asked one of the teachers and he said of all the rice we harvested (maybe 50 or more full bags?), it would only last our school for about 3 months!

The First Week

The first week has passed and I am soaking up the beautiful green environment. Misty mountain fog burning off in the morning opening up beautiful blue skies in the afternoon, lush bamboo trees and other vegetation everywhere, vast rice paddies and other gardening fields behind the school. It is everything I imagined a quaint, simple, slow-pace of life would be in a rural area. One night around 8, we walked outside to the small creek right outside the school gates. You could hear the river flowing slowly and the crickets chirping away. The air was crisp and cool and fireflies were flashing their light to and fro. There were no street lights or any lights for that matter, but it wasn’t dark. Because there were no distracting lights, the moon glowed a brilliant grayish blue and illuminated the night. It was the most peaceful night I have ever experienced. The days however are really hot and humid, and I'm constantly sweating and feeling uncomfortable even when I'm just sitting down eating a meal. Not to mention all the friendly bugs curious about this new foreign blood!

Pingmin has about 15 teachers total for 150 plus students. Wang Lingling, the English teacher for 4th-6th grade is one of a handful of young teachers around my age, but there are still not a lot of people to interact with. But there are a bunch of energetic kids here (six grades total from 1st-6th) and they are all super curious about America. It’s incredible how innocent they are. They ask me every little thing about America (Do they have bikes in America? What color is the sky there? Do you eat hamburgers and steak every day? Is there rice over there?). I haven’t started teaching yet, right now I’m just shadowing 4-6th grade with Wang Lingling, as I listen to her teach and conduct class. The students are also very disciplined. As soon as class starts, they stand up, bow to her, and say, “Laoshi hao” (Hello teacher). Even their body language and posture during class are proper and attentive. They sit up very straight in their backless seats (stools) and do not slouch or fiddle around. When they listen to the teacher lecture, they’re elbows rest on the table, forearms folded on top of each other, and when they want to raise their hand, they pivot their elbow to bring the top arm 90 degrees straight up. I couldn’t imagine American students showing this much respect and self-control in class. But outside of class, they were just like any other 10-year olds. Running around, laughing and playing hula hoop, and wrestling on the grassy field. The best part is between classes when they see me and say "hello" or "good morning, Mr. Jared" to me everytime they pass by.

Goodbye Big City, Hello Rural China!

After arriving in Shanghai and staying a night at my Auntie Rosita’s apartment, I left the next day at noon for my next adventure: teaching English at a charity-run elementary school in rural China. I wasn’t nervous, more anxious. I had a good 2 months to prepare mentally for this trip, and after watching a segment of the BBC documentary on this school and listening to accounts of this school from a couple people, I had a good picture of what I could expect, not only the environment but also the lifestyle.

The school is called Pingmin Elementary School (平民小学), located in the rural agricultural province of Anhui (安徽省) in China. The school itself is about an hour's drive from the famous Yellow Mountain (黄山) and about a 15 minutes drive from the next biggest town called Xiuning (休宁). Opened 5 years ago by a Chinese businessman, the school was created to provide a good, free education to those in the area that come from poor villages. What also makes Pingmin School unique and different than other Chinese schools is the focus on good moral ethics and life skills. In order for a child to be admitted to Pingmin School, the principal herself goes to each of the prospective student's house to not only personally assess their financial level, but to interview the guardians to make sure they are of good moral standing as well. Pingmin School wants to teach respect, honesty, hard work, etc... so they want to make sure that the guardians will reinforce, not tarnish the values that Pingmin School wants to instill. I say guardians because many of the kids either have no mother, no father, or whose parents are working far away in big cities like Shanghai to make more money. These kids as a result are primarily raised by other guardians including grandparents who do not have the resources or energy to look after the kid's education. The children that do get admitted to Pingmin School receive a free education, free room and board, and free school materials.

The bus from Shanghai took about 7 hours, and it was already nighttime when I arrived at Huangshan train station. After getting picked up by the school’s primary taxi driver, we arrived at a restaurant in the town of Xiuning, where I was greeted by Principal Zhang and English Teacher Wang Lingling. They were both very friendly and although I hadn’t spoken Chinese in over 2 months, I was able to communicate with them, albeit probably not very well. After dinner, we took the same taxi back to the school. On the way, all I could think about was how dark it was outside and how progressively darker it got the more we drove out. I have definitely arrived in the middle of nowhere! The school was dark and quiet when we arrived as all the students were already asleep. Principal Zhang showed me my room which consists of a desk, bed, chair, desk lamp, and wardrobe, better furnished than what I imagined! I was especially happy that I have a Western style toilet (no need to squat for the rest of my time here!).

I woke up early in the morning, walked on my balcony and waved across to my friendly smiling neighbor directly across from me. Then I looked around and noticed how blue the sky was, and how green the trees were on the mountains right near us. I walked around the school and it felt so cozy. The buildings and classrooms were very crude and probably not up to American safety codes, but were refreshingly simple and not clean-cut, perfectly fitting for the type of country/rural image I was expecting. The medium sized school garden in the back was growing well as seen by all the green sprouting from each row. Red and yellow chili peppers were dotted along the side. And the sounds of the school were refreshing as well. Birds were chirping between the school bell dings (ringed manually) and you could hear from outside the classrooms students rehearsing they’re morning reading exercises (which consists of EVERY student reading out loud as loud as they can at the SAME TIME). I feel good and am ready to be a part of this school and this way of life.