Support teacher in Dashan: I would like to "show" forever
Yang Ming, a young man from Hangzhou, gave up his generous income and taught in the mountainous areas of Guizhou for 11 years; he traveled to more than 30 villages in western Guizhou
In Qianxi County, Bijie City, in the mountains of northwestern Guizhou, it was late in the morning.
At six o'clock in the morning, Yang Ming walked out of the dormitory and went to wash his eyes sleepily.
Last night, he stayed up to work until half past one.
Over the past ten years, this has been the normal state of his work.
This is the 11th year that Yang Ming came to teach. From the simple school building with blue brick tiles and wooden windows to the bright and open school, Yang Ming finally has a dormitory of his own.
For several years, Yang Ming lived in the classroom with a folding bed and a quilt.
Later, when the classroom was used as a dining hall, Yang Ming moved to a storage room at a corner of the stairs, which was less than five square meters.
Because of the power grid transformation, the school often cuts out, so Yang Ming works with candles.
He sent the students home, the villagers kept him overnight, and he ate all the meals.
Over the past 11 years, Yang Ming has traveled thousands of kilometers of home visits and more than 30 villages. “If you mark the place where I lived on the map of Qianxi, you can draw a summer night starry sky map.”
Almost no one in Qianxi does not know Yang Ming.
In the first few years, the faculty of the school was weak, and one person did several people's work, often working until late at night.
And because of this, I fell into trouble.
Because of low blood sugar, he will feel dizzy and weak when talking for too long, and he will carry candy with him.
There were also problems with the cervical spine, lumbar spine, and knees, but he still refused to go to the hospital for examination.
In recent years, due to media reports, Yang Ming has been questioned, "Is he doing a show?" "What's the purpose?" At that time, Yang Ming had passed the most difficult seven years, and he felt that criticism was normal. One or two years is for show, ten or eight years, I can continue to show."
In 2009, 25-year-old Yang Ming (first from right) went to Guizhou to support teaching with the love teaching team.
Hangzhou "Dad"
Work at the weekend is still busy.
Towards the evening, Yang Ming kept watching the time, because at night, he was going to watch a movie with his "son".
Yang Ming came to the house of "son" Wang Xiaogao (pseudonym). As soon as he knocked on the door, a chubby boy ran to open the door and shouted "Dad".
He has been looking forward to this day for a long time, and his father will take him to the theater to watch "My Hometown and Me".
Xiao Zao is ten years old this year and is a student in Yang Ming's class.
When he was eight months old, his father, who was a migrant worker, accidentally fell from the third floor. He was only twenty-three or four years old when he passed away. His mother later remarried and was raised by his grandparents.
A portrait of his father is hung on the wall at home, and the small reporter has only a vague memory of his father in the photo.
Yang Ming learned about the small report during a home visit, and he took the initiative to tell his grandfather, "Why don't you send your grandson to me".
Grandpa Xiao Gao was very happy, and said to Xiao Gao, "Now you finally have a father! You are still a teacher father."
Without hesitation or shyness, Xiao Jiao shouted "Dad" at Yang Ming, as if he had secretly practiced many times.
That day happened to be Xiao Gao’s tenth birthday.
He bought a ping pong racket as a birthday gift for Xiao Jiao, and also bought Xiao Jiao and himself a set of parent-child outfits that were exactly the same as him. "My child needs a father, and I also have a sense of happiness as a father."
This is the second time Yang Ming has watched "My Hometown and Me". "It seems to see myself in it. Every story resonates." After watching the movie, friends and relatives immediately sent a message saying that they saw Fan Wei The supporting teacher who plays is like seeing Yang Ming.
In the early 1990s, Yang Ming went to elementary school in a rural village in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou.
The school was rebuilt from an old ancestral hall, with blue brick houses and wooden windows, just like in the movie, "The times have changed so much. I can no longer see the shadow of childhood in my hometown, but in the mountains of Guizhou, I seem to have returned to mine. childhood."
After coming to Guizhou to teach for 11 years, Yang Ming’s Hangzhou accent has not changed, but he looks more and more like a Guizhouese. His complexion is darker, his hair is white, and his wrinkles are more numerous. He is 1.72 meters tall and weighs from 120. Jin is thin to a few hundred pounds now.
He recognized a lot of godsons and goddaughters. In the past, his monthly salary was only one or two thousand. In addition to his own food and accommodation, he basically spent his students buying stationery, tutoring materials, clothes and shoes.
In Qianxi area, the villagers' cultural level is generally not high. Most children drop out of school and go to work in other places after completing nine years of compulsory education.
In 2018, when Yang Ming was teaching at Jingshan Elementary School in Guanyindong Town, he learned that poor student Yang Zhiyuan (pseudonym) in the Miao village had good academic performance, but his parents had no money to pay for high school fees.
After graduating from junior high school, his father wanted him to go out to work. He couldn't bear to burden his family and decided to give up the entrance examination.
Yang Ming came to Yang Zhiyuan's home and decided to support him in high school.
Today, Yang Zhiyuan is in his third year at Shijie Middle School in Qianxi County, and his grades are among the best in his class.
When stressed, he would send WeChat to Teacher Yang.
In the parent conference for the past three years, Yang Ming's name was signed.
In Yang Zhiyuan's heart, "Teacher Yang is the person who is most important to him apart from his parents. He has long been regarded as his father."
Yang Ming is on his way to visit home.
Thousands of kilometers of home visits
In May of this year, Yang Ming was transferred from Qianxi Pingzi Primary School to the newly built Jinxiu School in Qianxi County.
This is a school built for children who have been relocated for poverty alleviation and relocation, helping 1,650 children who have been relocated for poverty alleviation and relocation to go to school nearby.
Most of the children are left-behind children, and their parents work outside and live with their grandparents.
Yang Ming teaches the children every day before sending them home.
This is the sixth school where Yang Ming came to teach in Guizhou. There are more than 70 teachers, almost all of them local teachers. The average age is about 32 years old. "A 36-year-old like me is considered old. There are a few," Yang Ming said with a smile, with deep wrinkles on his tanned face, "Some people even asked me if you were born in the 70s."
In 2008, the 24-year-old Yang Ming graduated from Chongqing and returned to Hangzhou from Chongqing.
Majoring in Chinese as a foreign language, he works in a local foreign trade company with a monthly salary of over 10,000. He was also stationed in Dubai by the company. In the eyes of his relatives, he is a successful career.
But Yang Ming didn't like it, "No matter how high the income is, it's useless."
In 2009, without telling his parents, Yang Ming came to Guizhou with a caring support team.
Yang Ming still remembers the first time he went to Guizhou. The road was extremely long and there was no high speed. The bus from Guiyang to Qianxi took an old road along the mountains, bumping all the way.
After entering the countryside, it is like riding a boat, swaying and driving, and a large amount of dust can be raised behind the car.
It was not until dark that I arrived at Wachang Primary School in Jinbi Town, Qianxi County.
Yang Ming was shocked by the scene before him.
In 2009, this elementary school seemed to be sealed by time in the 1990s.
The old brick wall, jingle bells, "I already had an electric bell when I was in elementary school." There are nearly 300 students in the school, and a pair of immature and bright eyes are inlaid on the red face of the plateau. The pupils in the city are older, and they are curious about teachers who come from afar.
Zou Anquan is an old teacher at Wachang Primary School, a dozen years older than Yang Ming.
In his impression, Yang Ming was the first teacher to come to this small mountain village to support education. "He is tall and thin, and handsome, a sunny college student. But he is a native of the province, it is impossible to stay in this place. of."
Yang Ming also thought that he would return to Hangzhou in a year.
He and his companion rented a house on the side of the road with only a bedboard and an electric light.
There is a bullpen next to it, and mice often visit their residence.
If there is no way to take a bath, simply wipe it with a towel.
Unable to bear it, Yang Ming went to take a bath in the nearby underground river.
The biggest difficulty is carrying water. Although he grew up in the countryside, Yang Ming has never carried water.
Water for food and accommodation must be taken from a kilometer away. Mountain roads are difficult to walk. The shoulders of the shoulders are so painful that he can't speak.
Because it is inconvenient to buy vegetables, the children often bring vegetables and eggs to Yang Ming.
At the beginning of September, a student was transferred to the class. Every day he came to school wearing rain boots and carrying a long wooden stick. Sometimes his whole body was wet. Yang Ming was surprised.
Before the National Day holiday, he followed the boy home. The journey was muddy and bumpy. He had to walk forward with wooden sticks and chase away wild dogs and snakes that suddenly came out of the grass.
The weather in the mountains often rains, and there are many sinkholes along the way.
After walking a short distance for more than an hour, it was dark when I got home.
The parents saw Yang Ming look surprised, "You are the first teacher to come to our house."
From this time on, Yang Ming started his long home visit.
The mountain road is rugged, one kilometer in a straight line, and it takes hours to walk up. "A child shouted on this end, and the other end can hear it, but he has to go up and down the mountain." The farthest time he walked for more than two hours, there were seven. Eight kilometers.
In 11 years, countless pairs of shoes were worn out, and sometimes a pair of new shoes was worn for less than half a year.
"I have been to dozens of nearby villages. It's not an exaggeration to take a Long March road." Yang Ming said.
Yang Ming's feet are full of wounds. Every winter, it cracks like frostbite. Every step I take is painful. After using a lot of medicine, it doesn't work.
Once he was on the way to visit home, a student’s grandmother greeted "Mr. Yang, come and sit at my house." She took out a pair of knitted shoes and said in dialect, "Your feet are cracked. This is frostbite. Try it. My pair of shoes." Yang Ming put them in. They are not too big or small, and they fit perfectly.
The temperature spreads upward from the sole of the foot.
During a home visit, Yang Ming found an unattended elementary school on the mountain. It took more than an hour to climb up.
The school has a hundred students and only five or six old teachers. It is still under construction. It is very simple and the lights are dim. Rabbits and chickens are running back and forth in the yard. There are several children who look very young and are harvesting corn stalks.
This school is the Jingshan Elementary School in Guanyindong Town where Yang Ming taught for seven years.
In 2018, Yang Ming visited his home in Xiongdong Village.
Hard choice
A year later, the support team members left.
To everyone's surprise, Yang Ming was admitted to a special post teacher in Qianxi County, Guizhou Province, and chose to stay and teach at Jingshan Primary School.
Zou Anquan was also very surprised. "None of the local teachers walked the mountain road for a few hours to do home visits like him. A foreign teacher is so desperate, I dare say that there is no one like him in the distance." Zou Anquan also chose Jingshan Elementary School, and Yang Ming continues to be a colleague.
Yang Ming teaches teachers to use computers. He is also the only person in the school who has a smart phone and understands English. He is required to help with school affairs. He doesn't know how to refuse, so he often stays up late to work until the early hours of the morning.
"Now his hair is whiter than mine. Compared to when he first came, he is a different person. We have long treated him as a native of our hometown." Zou Anquan said.
Yang Ming couldn't bear these children.
He remembered a student’s home, which was a small brick bungalow with only a few empty walls.
There is not even a decent cup at home, just a cup cut from a plastic mineral water bottle.
The roof of the rural village is high and there is only one chandelier. When the child is doing homework at night, the light is very weak and he keeps rubbing his eyes.
On the wish card, many children wrote "I want a lamp", "I want a desk", "I want a box of watercolor pens".
"In fact, some people can't afford it, but they just didn't expect that they don't have this kind of educational philosophy." Yang Ming sighed.
There are also some children whose parents work outside and were brought up by grandparents or other relatives. On the wish card, they wrote "I hope my grandparents can have a footbath for massage", "I want to buy a thick dress for my uncle and run away." Wear it."
Yang Ming will help the children realize these wishes. When he was a teacher in the early years, his salary was only one or two thousand a month, but he spent most of it on the students.
He bought his clothes for dozens of dollars on Taobao, and he has worn them for several years. The short sleeves that he just came to teach are still wearing.
In addition to basic cultural education, Yang Ming also took the children to labor classes.
The original ecological tea in the countryside is very good. Yang Ming took the students to pick tea in the mountains, choose tea, and make tea together. He sold the prepared tea for several hundred yuan in the circle of friends, and it cost one or two fifty yuan. People in the village usually sell more than ten times the tea without choosing.
He distributed the reward for selling tea to the children, and everyone was very happy.
Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, he bought molds online, watched tutorials, and taught children how to make mooncakes and mung bean cakes.
Make zongzi for Dragon Boat Festival and tea for Qingming.
Liu Tingjiang was the first principal of Jingshan Elementary School. He was overwhelmed with joy when he saw a young college student coming from a remote elementary school. "Not to mention Hangzhou, it is from other cities in Guizhou. We are all very happy. He ate with the students and together Live and play together, and teach literacy to the elderly of ethnic minorities. The children like the things he brings to the outside world and their grades have improved significantly."
Yang Ming had a chance to leave Dashan.
In 2012, he bought textbooks for postgraduate entrance examinations and wanted to use his free time to study more.
Work takes up most of the energy and there is very little time for review.
Yang Ming didn't expect that he would be admitted.
But the following year, he received a letter of acceptance from the Philosophy Department of the Party School of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee.
Zou Anquan and several teachers advised him to consider his future and go to graduate school, and his family also hoped that he would go to graduate school.
But the leaders of the school wanted to keep him.
Throughout the summer vacation, he stayed in school and struggled whether to go.
The day before deciding to go to graduate school, the children gave a message card with red eyes to Teacher Yang, with the lyrics of Zhou Huajian’s "Friends" written on it, "Friends go together for a lifetime, no more in those days. In one sentence, a lifetime, a lifetime Love." Yang Ming held the heavy paper and shed tears.
Finally he stayed.
Yang Ming and children from Jingshan Primary School in Guanyindong Town, Qianxi.
A12-A13 version picture/photo courtesy of interviewee
The biggest regret is sorry for my parents
2000 kilometers away, in Dai Village, Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, Yang Ming's mother usually grows land and his father makes wine.
Both old men are in their 60s and miss their son in the distance day and night.
When I first learned that Yang Ming had taken the exam for a special post teacher in Guizhou, his family opposed it.
My parents heard that the rural conditions in Guizhou were not good and the transportation was inconvenient, so they called Yang Ming every day to ask him what's going on there, "It's better to go home early."
Some relatives asked directly, "How much can you earn now and how much can you save?" The question made him speechless.
My cousin said to him, "If you can't find a job with a salary of seven or eight thousand yuan in Hangzhou, I will help you arrange it." My sister did not support it, but knew that my younger brother liked to be a teacher. Schools, private schools, or even training institutions are fine, and the income will not be very low."
But Yang Ming made his mind firm, and thunder couldn't move.
For many years, he reported the good but not the bad.
The old people always save the money Yang Ming gives his parents.
Sister Yang Feiling works in a bus company in Hangzhou and lives in the town next to her parents, so she can take care of four elderly people.
Last year, my father had stone surgery and spent more than ten days in the hospital. My sister Yang Feiling stayed by the bed day and night.
During that period, Yang Ming was very tortured and hated that he could not be with his father.
When the epidemic was the worst this year, his mother contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized. Yang Ming was unable to come back because of the isolation policy.
He was worried every day, couldn't sleep, and felt sorry for his parents.
"I miss my son, every day I want him to come back, but what he did is really great." When he mentioned his son, Yang Ming's father's voice was full of excitement and pride.
Five years ago, his family began to see Yang Ming's story in media reports. They saw his wounded feet and simple school buildings in the photos, and only then did they know what Yang Ming has experienced over the years.
It was also because of the report that Yang Ming began to be questioned by some netizens, "Are you doing a show?" "What's the purpose?" Yang Ming felt that it was normal to criticize, "If the show can continue to do it, it will do."
In the first few years, Yang Ming was very afraid of attending class reunions.
The classmates all work in companies, have a house and a car, and he is still using the first-generation smartphone.
He felt that he was in a very closed environment, and the outside world was developing too fast, and he could not keep up with the times.
The classmate said, "In the mountainous area, you can buy a domestic four-wheel drive vehicle with a price of 200,000 yuan. The performance is also good." Yang Ming could only smile awkwardly. "In their eyes, 200,000 is like a very light number, but It's almost impossible for me." Right now, Yang Ming's only means of transportation is a bicycle.
After each gathering, he felt a sense of incompatibility.
Last year, Yang Ming bought a house in Qianxi County, and the old man used the money his son gave him and gave him a down payment of more than 100,000.
Yang Ming took the longest loan and repaid more than 1,000 every month.
Last month, Yang Ming took his parents to play in Guizhou. This was the first time the old couple went to work for his son. He took his parents to see his school for teaching.
After returning, the parents never mentioned about letting their son go home. They saw the mountain with their own eyes and understood Yang Ming.
Yang Ming’s WeChat name is "Shanhua". He expects the children in the mountains to bloom like flowers, to walk out of the mountains and come back again, and have a colorful life.
With seven months to go before the college entrance examination, Yang Zhiyuan, a child sponsored by Yang Ming, has already set his target college-the Central University for Nationalities.
For children in the mountains, Beijing is the place they most yearn for. "Go to the best place if you want to go." He has to study education-related majors and then return to Qianxi to become a teacher after graduation.
Beijing News reporter Xie Lei