From the "Ladder" in the clouds to the smooth path at the foot of the "Cliff Village", the children's study path
In the early winter morning, the “cliff village” in Zhaojue County, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan is surrounded by mist, like a fairyland on earth.
On November 21, 2020, a 17-year-old Yi girl, La Zuo, got up early and started to clean up the house to help her parents kill pigs for the New Year.
From November 20th to 26th, it is the traditional festival of the Yi people in Liangshan-the Year of the Yi Nationality. The villagers of the Yi nationality in the "Cliff Village" where Lazuo is located kill pigs and walk to pay New Year's greetings to celebrate the annual Yi Nationality Year.
At the end of the week’s vacation, Lazuo took up his schoolbag again and returned to the middle school in Zhaojue County.
In May 2020, 84 poverty-stricken households in "Xianya Village" were registered and moved into a new home in a centralized resettlement site in the county seat, and the writer was also assigned a new house.
Nowadays, the school where she studies is very close to her new home, and she finds it easier to go to school.
In the former “cliff village”, due to the difficult and perilous roads in and out of the village, children in the village could not go to the mountain for enlightenment until they were 10 years old. The dangerous “ladder” became the biggest obstacle for children to study.
In recent years, thanks to more and more convenient travel conditions, folks have paid more and more attention to their children's education.
Especially after relocating to the county for poverty alleviation, two or three-year-old children can enroll in kindergarten in front of their homes.
From the rattan ladder to the steel ladder to the stairs, it is the change of Lazuo and his friends' learning journey, and it is also the epitome of the "butterfly change" of the education road of "Cliff Village".
From the cliffs in the clouds to the smooth journey of happiness, the triple jump, everything has benefited from the national poverty alleviation policy.
La Zuo believes that knowledge can change destiny, and the children of Daliang Mountain will definitely be able to write a completely different destiny from their ancestors.
"Cliff Village" on the Clouds
From "Xanadu" to "Remains of Time"
"Kushimusa (Happy New Year in Yi)!" The reporter greeted Lazuo, and she smiled shyly, her eyes bent into crescents.
This 17-year-old girl is one of the children with the best academic performance in "Cliff Village", and the walls of her home are covered with her awards.
La Zuo's home is in the Leer Society of Atuliel Village.
It is located on a slope halfway up the Lion Mountain, with an altitude of 1300-1500 meters, and a vertical distance of about 800 meters from Niujueshe at the foot of the mountain. Therefore, it is also called "the cliff village on the cloud" by netizens.
When did the mountain begin to be inhabited?
Even La Zuo’s father, certain Sedarti, couldn’t explain this problem.
"There are five generations of people in my family who live here," said certain Sedarti. He had heard from the old people in the village that their ancestors had migrated from other places to escape the war. "Some people say they have lived there for seven or eight generations. , Has a history of two to three hundred years."
According to a certain Sedar body, the land on the mountainside of Lion Mountain is fertile and has good light conditions. "Except for rice and buckwheat, you can grow everything else."
The villagers are self-sufficient, and food and clothing are not a problem. For a long time, the people here are not disturbed by the outside world and lead a life like a paradise.
However, time has changed, and in recent years, travel has become the biggest problem for the "cliff village".
Due to the special geographical location, the villagers want to go to the "outside world", usually need to climb the cliff with a drop of 800 meters, and cross the 13-level 218-step vine ladder.
The rattan ladder was originally made of rattan and wooden sticks. It is not allowed to carry things that are too large and heavy up and down the mountain, because accidents may occur, and the rattan ladder rots quickly due to the wind and sun.
Until 2009, when a local power station was under construction, rattan ladders were reinforced in the village, and the steepest sections of rattan ladders were turned into steel ladders.
But even so, it is still difficult for outsiders to enter, and it is also difficult for local elderly and children to enter and leave alone.
13-level 218-step vine ladder:
The "umbilical cord" connecting the "outside world"
Razuo still remembers the first time he walked on the vine ladder. "I was scared to walk by myself. Dad tied my waist with a rope." Later, after he became familiar with the road, his father no longer tied the rope. She, but also to accompany, let her walk slowly.
It is precisely because the rattan ladders and cliffs are difficult to navigate and extremely dangerous, the children of the "cliff village" basically reach the age of 10 or even 11 before starting to enlighten to the elementary school under the mountain, and they have basically never attended kindergarten.
Jike Shila, a 17-year-old boy from Tetushe, and Jike Shiwei, a 18-year-old girl, are currently in the second grade of Zhaojue County.
If it weren't for the hardships and dangers of studying in their early years, they would have already entered high school at this age.
Jike Shiwei’s sister Jike Shima is 15 years old, and she should have entered junior high school, but she is still in the fifth grade of elementary school.
La Zuo went to Shanxia Leer Elementary School at the age of 10.
She still remembers the daily routines of herself and her friends in those few years: they had 15 children living in the mountains, and every time they went to school, the younger students had to be picked up by their parents, and the older students would follow them. In dangerous places, parents use ropes to tie their children on their backs and walk, "We students walk in the middle, and parents walk one after the other to protect us."
13 steps and 218 steps steel ladder
"Cliff Village" villagers have "high-speed roads"
In May 2016, a number of media reported the situation of children climbing vine ladders in the "cliff village" to go to school and the villagers' difficulty in traveling. This once little-known mountain village quickly attracted the attention of all walks of life.
In order to improve the difficult travel situation of the "cliff cliff village", Liangshan Prefecture and Zhaojue County allocated a total of 1 million yuan.
On November 19, 2016, the longest continuous ladder was 105 steps, and the shortest was only 4 steps. The project was completed with 13 steps and 218 steps. The children living in Shanding Leer Club climbed the new ladder for the first time and returned safely to " Cliff Village".
Razuo still remembers the first time he walked home on the steel ladder.
She recalled that she was a little scared when walking the steel ladder for the first time, but when she was halfway through, she felt much more relaxed and much better than the previous rattan ladder.
"There are guardrails on both sides of the steel ladder, which is much safer and more convenient. It can save at least half an hour in one trip."
After the steel ladder was completed, Lazuo felt that great changes had taken place in the village: there were commissaries, farmhouses, full coverage of mobile phone 4G signals, and tourists from other places came...
At the same time, La Zuo also discovered that there were suddenly more brides married to "Cliff Village".
The reporter learned that only 4 months after the steel ladder was built, 6 brides from other villages married into the "cliff village."
The villager Jikra married a wife after the steel ladder was repaired.
“The rattan ladders that we used to enter and exit the village were very inconvenient and dangerous. We would not go down the mountain as a last resort. The steel ladders nowadays are simply'highways' for Cliff Village, very fast.” He told reporters.
There are also educational facilities that are "upgraded" with the rattan ladder.
At the end of 2017, the five-story new teaching building of Leer Primary School under the mountain was completed, and Lazuo and his classmates moved into the new classroom.
The school implements a completely closed boarding system management, and when going to and from the school, parents, village leaders, and teachers are also picked up and picked up.
In addition to compulsory education, the village has also begun to attach importance to pre-school education, implementing "one village, one child" and "one community, one child".
Set up a kindergarten class in the village school under the mountain and set up a preschool education point on the mountain to solve the problem that children on the mountain cannot go to the mountain for pre-school education. Young children can receive pre-school education at home.
Stairs to the new home
They became new residents in the small buildings in the county seat
What Lazuo never thought was that they could still move out of the "cliff village", completely out of the mountains of life for generations.
From May 12th to 14th, 2020, the Lazuo family and the villagers had a total of 84 impoverished households with registered cards, and they were successively relocated to new homes in the centralized resettlement site of Zhaojue County's relocation poverty alleviation county.
They walked out of the "cliff village" and started a new life in the county seat.
The resettlement houses have yellow walls and gray tiles. Small buildings with Yi architectural characteristics are neatly arranged. Supermarkets, small squares, basketball courts and other facilities are all available.
Lazuo’s new home is located at No. 4 resettlement site, with three bedrooms, two living rooms, one kitchen and one bathroom. It covers an area of 100 square meters. The furniture and home appliances are all available. The folks move in with their “bags”.
"We all have our own rooms, and it feels very good. The key is that it is very convenient to go to school in the county. The newly built school is opposite the community, very close to home, and less than ten minutes' walk." Lazuo said.
In the past, the average educational level of the villagers in "Xianya Village" was relatively low. The middle-aged and elderly people were basically illiterate or semi-illiterate. Most of the young and middle-aged people only went to primary school, and very few people completed junior high school.
However, letting children go to school and learn more knowledge is the consensus of the villagers of Leer Society.
When Lazuo first came to study in the county seat, she obviously felt that she couldn't keep up with the new pace of learning. She was 5 years older than the youngest student in the class, which made her very uncomfortable, "feeling too much to breathe." .
However, after a semester of hard work, she gradually adapted to life in the new school.
Like Lazuo, most of the children in "Cliff Village" go to school in the county seat, and some go to the Leer Primary School under the mountain. All school-age children in the village go to school.
Travel + E-commerce
"Cliff Village" opens up a new path of happiness
In Lazuo's eyes, from the steel ladder to the country's poverty alleviation policy, the fate of the villagers in the "cliff village" has been completely changed.
The change of "learning road" is manifested in the change of rattan ladder, steel ladder to stairs, and the change of "mind road" is manifested in the change of thoughts.
"Before, my parents didn't speak Mandarin or even understood them. Now, they can simply communicate with tourists in Mandarin. The hygiene conditions in the village and home have been completely improved, and the quality of life has been significantly improved." In 2020, the year of the Yi nationality, La Writer's Rooms and tents were booked out early, and the family slaughtered chickens and sheep to entertain guests, which brought tourism income.
Every weekend and holiday, tourists come to "Cliff Village" in an endless stream.
Relevant statistics show that the annual tourist reception of "Cliff Village" exceeds 100,000.
In addition to the development of tourism, "Cliff Village" is also vigorously developing the cultivation of cash crops such as olives.
At present, the elders and children of the "cliff cliff village" have moved to resettlement sites to live and study, while the young and middle-aged people stay in the village to develop industries and engage in tourism, homestay reception, and e-commerce.
Take the Muguo family of villagers as an example.
In May 2020, Mu Guo's family was also allocated a resettlement house in Zhaojue County. His wife and two daughters went to kindergarten in Zhaojue County and occasionally returned to the village.
Muguo stays in the "Cliff Village" and broadcasts live online every day, selling local walnuts and honey. At present, he has more than 400,000 fans and his monthly income is basically stable.
Mu Guo told reporters that due to the difficult roads, neither he nor his parents had gone to school, and "illiterate, and suffered from the loss of no culture."
Through self-study, Mu Guo can now recognize and write some Chinese characters, "you can write your own name very well".
Most importantly, Mu Guo's thoughts have also undergone earth-shaking changes.
He realized the importance of knowledge and determined to get his two daughters out of the mountains and admitted to university.
To alleviate the poor, first aid the wisdom, and cure the poor first.
The Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter learned that in recent years, Liangshan Prefecture has been vigorously carrying out targeted poverty alleviation through education, taking the implementation of 15 years of free education as an important starting point for poverty alleviation, and fundamentally blocking the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Students like Lazuo can not only study for free, but also enjoy living allowances, just for the children to study at school at ease.
Nowadays, Lazuo is changing. Not only her life, but also her heart and future are changed. Her dream is to be admitted to an excellent high school in Zhaojue County or Xichang, the state capital, and then to university. "I hope to also Be a teacher and pass on knowledge to more children."
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Luo Min Jianglong