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.