The head of Fuping County, Mr. Cao paid an inspection visit into the mountain. In the Shangsi Village in Shouchang County, when passing a sheepfold, he heard the sound of reading rising from it — the truth was that a classroom fell down. Therefore students had to have class in the sheepfold. Above their heads, black water was dripping from the mashed rice straw; on the ground, piles of shits were sending out a foul stench. Mr. Cao couldn't help crying and asked related departments to solve this problem within certain time. Even so, there are almost one thousand dilapidated and dangerous school-houses in the Fuping County while all over the country, there are nearly millions of square meters of school houses which needed to be urgently renovated. The above problems cannot be solved by any cadre's instant order.
Standing in front of the small yard, which was the general headquarter of the Henan-Chaha'er-Hebei Anti-Japanese Base, I stared at the slogan on the eastern wall for quite some time, "No matter how poor, education comes first; no matter how difficult, children come first." In the Taihang Mountain area, this slogan can be seen everywhere. How beautiful this wish is! However, without economic development, such a beautiful wish can only be a wish. It can never come true!
How many of these children's dreams had been torn by poverty!
Xie Hailong's Records through Photos
If my interview notes are not enough to comprehensively and vividly present the basic education situation in the povertystricken areas in China of that historical period of time, then here is a photographer called Xie Hailong who spent several years on truthfully recording the situation with his camera.
Xie Hailong was an ordinary photographer of the Cultural Center of Chongwen District in Beijing at that time. In 1990 he went to the rural areas in Hebei Province to collect source materials. Accidentally, he discovered so many children who couldn't go to school because of poverty in the mountain villages. Finding this, he had no mood to take pictures of scenery, like the mountain, the stream, the flower or the grass any more but chose to take photos of these children.
Soon after that, for the first time that he heard Project Hope, which particularly aimed at helping dropout children in impoverished areas and he got connected with the China Youth Development Foundation. The China Youth Development Foundation was badly in need of photos, which could show the situation of dropout children in poverty-stricken areas for promotion. Xie Hailong offered to undertake this task.
With the distribution map of the national-level poverty-stricken counties given by the China Youth Development Foundation, Xie Hailong packed and went on his journey. From autumn to winter, from spring to summer, without breaks, Xie Hailong rushed through remote villages and trudged over hill and dale. It was an arduous interview and it was one deeply engraved on his bones and heart…
It has been nearly twenty years. Xie Hailong left a number of old pictures for us.
These precious old pictures have become the most truthful record of the basic education situation in the poverty-stricken areas in China during that time.
Old Picture One:
In April, 1991, a bus was driving on the mountain road in the Qiliping Town, Hong'an County, Hubei old revolutionary base area. Black clouds were gathering overhead, the rain was getting heavier and heavier and the whole world was turning into dimness.
Through the curtain of rain outside the bus window, Xie Hailong faintly saw a red flag outstanding in the rain. "Stop! Stop!" He called in a hurry. According to his experience, there must be a small school wherever there was a red flag.
As expected, there was a row of school houses under the red flag. Xie Hailong bent down to protect his camera and then darted into one classroom. The scene in front of him totally shocked him: It was raining heavily outside while it was raining lightly inside. The children were busy in ladling out the water with dustpans and washbasins…
Old Picture Two:
At the end of December of 1991, a cold wave was coming.
Xie Hailong was trudging at the foot of Jinshanling in Hebei Province. He walked in Dadianzi Village Primary School inLahaigou Township in Luanping County-a dilapidated house. The ramshackle beam was supported by a stick and the wind was shaking the newspaper plastered on the door and windows with a clash.
Through the window, Xie Hailong saw something that he would never forget for all his life:
Children, with pink ears and running noses, were breathing into their hands to warm themselves up from time to time and some were stamping their numb feet…
Old Picture Three:
In March, 1992, one day after the snow, Xie Hailong arrived at the Nanyantou Village, Shenyugou Township, Jingle County, Shanxi Province. On a millstone at the entrance to the village, three children were bending over it, doing their homework and a man above forty years old was reading on the side.
Xie Hailong asked the man, "Are you a teacher?"
"Yes."
"You have classes here, don't you?"
"Yes, they are all our students and teachers."
Xie Hailong asked again, "Do you have a school in the village?"
The teacher pointed at a collapsed cave not far away and said, "The cave house has been used for more than twenty years and fell down in a heavy rain this summer. We've lost our school house."
Old Picture Four:
In the summer of 1992, on the way to make an interview in the Linquan County in Anhui Province, Xie Hailong passed a brickfactory. He saw a little girl walking with difficulty with dozens of bricks on her back. Her back was pressed into the shape of a bow…
