"Taiwanese lady" Zhang Pingyi's love affair with Liangshan

　　China News Service, Chengdu, March 30th: Title: "Taiwanese Lady" Zhang Pingyi's Liangshan Love

　　China News Service reporter Wang Peng

　　"Liangshan has changed the trajectory of my life, and I also want to change the lives of the children in Liangshan." Recently, in a bakery in Chengdu, Zhang Pingyi from Taiwan told about his past. Not far behind her, the young store manager Li Yiyang was making coffee. He was a young man of the Yi ethnic group from Yuexi County, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

　　Zhang Pingyi is a native of Yunlin, Taiwan, and was a reporter for Taiwan's China Times. In 2000, she went to Yuexi County, Sichuan for an interview, and was moved by the children of Dayingpan Village, a local leprosy rehabilitation village. She quit her job as a reporter and devoted herself to education and public welfare. For many years, Zhang Pingyi traveled between Taiwan and Sichuan, investing the funds raised in Dayingpan Village. What once was a teaching site with only two dilapidated buildings became Dayingpan Primary School, and then today's nine-year consistent school - Dayingpan School in Yuexi County.

Zhang Pingyi presented awards to children from Dayingpan School in Yuexi County, Liangshan Prefecture. (Photo provided by interviewee)

　　In 2012, Zhang Pingyi was awarded "Moving China·Person of the Year 2011" and was the first Taiwanese compatriot to win this honor. The award speech read, "A blue bird of hope flew across the strait and landed in a forgotten corner of the mountains." Later, she compiled her experiences into a book called "Taiwanese Lady Goes to Liangshan".

　　Years later, the love affair between this "Taiwanese lady" and Liangshan continues. She just won the title of "National March 8th Red Flag Bearer" this year and is the founder of Silemata Baking Kitchen in Wenjiang District, Chengdu. Nine people in the team are from Dayingpan Village. They are children whose life trajectory was "changed" by Zhang Pingyi.

　　Li Yiyang met "Aunt Zhang" when he was 8 years old. He is now 30 years old. "Aunt Zhang is an interesting and serious person. She will cook us food with her own hands, play with us, and have fun chatting with the elderly in the village. But she is also very strict with our study." Li Yiyang said , it was with the help of Zhang Pingyi that he walked out of the vast mountains.

　　Today, Zhang Pingyi still goes to Liangshan several times a year. She said that after getting rid of poverty, Liangshan has undergone earth-shaking changes. Dayingpan School has advanced teaching equipment and green grass. "My charity at the school will continue in the form of scholarships, grants, etc., and I will often return to school. But At this stage, I will focus on the process of children from school to entering social employment."

　　In order to pave the way for children to enter society, Zhang Pingyi once established the Wings of Hope Vocational Training Base in Qingdao, Shandong Province, to provide work-study vocational education for students in Dayingpan School. Later, when these children grew up, in order to combine education with business, she came to Wenjiang District, Chengdu City, and Silemata Baking Kitchen was born.

Recently, Zhang Pingyi was pruning flowers and plants outside the Slemata baking kitchen. Photo by China News Service reporter Wang Peng

　　"Sile Mata" is translated from the Yi transliteration, which means "fairy candy". "Taiwan's baking is very famous. I hope to teach the children in Liangshan a skill." Zhang Pingyi said that she is also committed to promoting cross-strait cultural exchanges through baking. "When you come to the store, you can taste Taiwanese food and learn about the Yi people in Liangshan. culture.”

　　In the Slemata Baking Kitchen, Taiwanese pineapple cakes are packaged with Yi cultural elements, and the coffee cups are also the brilliant colors of Yi lacquerware. In Zhang Pingyi's plan, this place will also become a base for cross-strait cultural exchanges. To this end, she specially created a small art, cultural and creative living space to combine food with intangible cultural heritage and hold cultural lectures from time to time, ranging from the lacquerware of the Yi people to the weaving of Taiwanese ethnic minorities, to promote cross-strait dialogue on intangible cultural traditions.

　　Twenty-four years later, wrinkles have crept into the corners of Zhang Pingyi's eyes. She smiled and shared a short story with reporters: many years ago, children often used "willow eyebrows and big eyes" to describe her in their compositions, but recently she saw someone A child wrote, "Aunt Zhang is really hardworking. She is already a mature woman and is still running for us!"

　　"Perhaps Liangshan and I are destined to have a special bond! Now think about it, the most youthful years of my life are related to this land." Zhang Pingyi smiled heartily. She said that of course she hopes "Slemata" can always exist, "but maybe one day it will no longer exist. I hope these children can start their own future with full technology." (End)