Recently, a rural teacher in Dahua Yao Autonomous County, Hechi, Guangxi passed away due to illness. Many villagers came to see him off, and the mourning scene was tear-jerking. In the eyes of the folks, he is the most amiable and respectable person.
In Wenwen Village, Yalong Township, Dahua Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi, there are more than 2,986 people, including 2,336 Yao compatriots, one-third of whom are poor households.
There is a Badingtun teaching site in Wenwen Village, which is 17 kilometers away from Yalong Township. It is one of the remote teaching sites in Yalong with inconvenient transportation and the most difficult conditions. It mainly provides students from preschool to third grade. Students are enrolling nearby. A classroom, an office, a kitchen, and a building of more than 50 square meters constitute the Badin teaching site.
Teachers here came one after another, but they all left one after another due to the difficult conditions in the village. The shortest tenure was less than a week. Until 1994, 23-year-old Meng Zhinian came. At first, the folks in Badingtun thought that he would despise the village for being poor, so they soon left the children behind. However, no one expected that Meng Zhinian would stay for 23 years.
There is no road in Badingtun. Every year when school starts, students’ books can only be transported to the roadside, and then Meng Zhinian carries them bundle by bundle to the school in the mountains. "Sometimes it takes three days to pick, and if you include some daily necessities, it takes a week." Meng Zhinian's wife Wei Yueji said that he has used more than 20 baskets over the years because of picking books.
In the past, the conditions at the Badin school were even more difficult than they are now. Meng Zhinian would always use the winter and summer vacations to buy some teaching supplies for the teaching site. On weekdays, he chops firewood, burns it into charcoal, and then goes to the countryside to exchange for chalk and ink; during summer vacation, he goes to Mashan County to dig coal and brings back homework books and basketballs for his children.
After staying in the village for a long time, Meng Zhinian gradually became familiar with the villagers. Sometimes, when the old man in the village ran out of salt and oil at home, he would always ask him to help bring some, so the basket he brought into the mountains would also contain items needed by the villagers.
In recent years, Meng Zhinian had the opportunity to be transferred to Wenwen Village Primary School, less than 100 meters away from his home, but he did not. He said he was reluctant to let go of his fellow villagers, but he was more worried that if he left, no one would want to go to Badin Campus.
In the past, villagers chose to give up the opportunity for their children to study due to poor economic conditions.
Wei Jinhua once asked her eldest son, who was more than 10 years old, to drop out of school and go to Mashan to dig coal. When school started, Meng Zhinian didn't see his child, so he used his weekend time to walk, hitchhike, and travel to various mining sites to look for the mother and son.
"He reasoned with me, saying that my son was still young and could not do child labor. He had to study and asked his son to go back with him. It didn't matter if he didn't have money. He didn't want money. It was okay for him to go to the classroom to attend a class. OK." Wei Jinhua recalled crying.
The students in Meng Zhinian are as young as 6 years old and as old as over 60 years old. Wei Zhifeng, a 62-year-old villager, said that it was with Meng Zhinian that he learned to read.
In the early years, Meng Zhinian encouraged villagers to use their evening time to attend lectures. The magic weapon that attracts villagers to attend lectures is the wine and food that Meng Zhinian brings with his own money from time to time.
"More than 20 villagers worked during the day. I heard that there was wine to drink, and they were willing to go." In this way, Meng Zhinian's "night school" was held for two consecutive years without charging any fees from the villagers. .
On March 7, 2017, Meng Zhinian suffered a sudden stomach bleeding and almost lost his life. Under such circumstances, Meng Zhinian only took one day off from Wei Yuyang, the principal of Wenwen Village Primary School.
"It was one day at first, and then he asked for two more days. After two days, he asked for two more days. I was angry at the time!" Wei Yuyang said, he was not angry about asking for leave frequently, but because he asked for leave frequently. Even if Meng Zhinian was seriously ill, he didn't want to delay the children in the mountains. He wanted to return to his children as soon as possible.
"Teacher Meng is back!" When he returned to school again, the children who had been out of school for more than 10 days shouted excitedly. Listening to the laughter echoing in the mountains, Teacher Meng frowned and raised the corners of his mouth. His wife looked at him and smiled, but tears flowed from the corners of her eyes.
The time in the mountains was leisurely... The cicadas lying on the glass windows of Badin Teaching Point suddenly tore through the village's mournful cries with their voices.
"He vomited half a bucket of blood..." Her daughter Meng Yanmei's eyes were red. My father had stomach bleeding again and was sent to the hospital for treatment that day. He passed away soon after. The day Teacher Meng passed away was July 9th.
"He's gone, Teacher Meng, he's gone..." Pan Meicheng, an old woman in her seventies from Badingtun, Wen Wen Village, burst into tears and burst into tears.
With her back arched and her feet trembling, she told the villagers the news from door to door.
On July 13, Meng Zhinian was buried halfway up the mountain. The house was packed with villagers who saw him off, including 7-year-old students, elderly people in their 70s, teachers from Wenwen Village Primary School, and wreaths sent by the Dahua County Education Department... The villagers tied them on the trees along the road. Put a white cloth on it, tied with thoughts of Teacher Meng.
Meng Zhinian’s eldest daughter Meng Yanmei has just finished her college entrance examination, and her younger son is about to enter junior high school. The family doesn’t know who to rely on.
“I want to be a teacher.” Meng Yanmei said that after the college entrance examination, her father talked to her once and hoped that she could apply for the rural primary school teacher orientation training program of Hechi College.
On July 15, she went for an interview. If you can get admitted, you will be exempted from tuition for three years and stay in the mountain village to be a rural teacher. This was her childhood dream and her father's last wish.
Pay tribute to all the good people who contribute silently. It is because of them that the world will be a better place.