Liangshan is actually not that remote, but when people think of Liangshan, they still feel a sense of desolation. The cultural attractions and natural scenery here are both very good, giving people endless beautiful fantasies. Here is a guide to Liangshan travel.
It was already past two in the afternoon when I arrived at Zhuhe Middle School. It was a middle school on the side of the road, and its gate was closed. The gatekeeper was an old man, sitting in a small house next to the gate, blowing a fan. I told him my purpose.
He said, “You have to wait a while. Teacher Hu just went out not long ago.” He took a sip of water and continued, “He took the students to see a doctor. You can come in and sit down if you want.”
I was unmoved, without any emotion, like a machine, I said, “No, I’ll wait outside, it won’t be in the way.”
The old man opened the door, and I found a slightly shady corner to sit down, looking around, surveying this school. I didn’t know what grade the students were in, but they were having a PE class, doing warm-up exercises under the scorching sun. They were quite curious about me, an uninvited guest, and often cast clear glances my way. But when it was time for free activity, they treated me as transparent. When they could play, they naturally threw everything else aside. But I couldn’t. I always felt that time was shrinking, as if I were still one of them. The campus life was so familiar. But it had been five or six years since I left school.
I don’t know how long I waited, but Teacher Hu and the students came back. Without further introduction, he took me directly to his dorm room. It was like a long-lost reunion, meeting an old acquaintance in a foreign land. Of course, this was largely due to the girl who was still distributing supplies at another school.
It was a large dorm room with only two small iron beds, one for the girl to sleep on, the other empty, presumably Teacher Hu’s.
Teacher Hu said, “You can stay here tonight. I can sleep in the student dorm.”
I said, “I feel bad for bothering you. It’s alright for you to sleep with the students, right?”
He said, “It’s fine. I’ve gotten used to sleeping in the student dorm, and it’s convenient to keep an eye on the students. But you have to be careful when you sleep at night. The school isn’t very willing to let outsiders stay overnight. Especially now that there’s one more person. If someone comes to check on you at night, try not to be noticed.” As he spoke, a little girl came to him to ask for a pencil.
He said, “Go ahead and make your bed. I’ll be back in a bit.” As he was leaving, he seemed to remember something and turned back, saying, “If you need to take a shower or go to the bathroom, you have to go downstairs. There are water taps and public toilets downstairs. The water is from the mountain and can’t be drunk directly, but you can boil it. There’s a kettle here to boil water.”
Standing in the hallway looking down, I saw a row of faucets standing upright, with public toilets next to them. Students were constantly coming to get water with big buckets. The mountains in the distance were beginning to turn yellow, but the grass on the playground was green.
The girl came back, covered in sweat. It turned out that she was from Zhejiang and worked at a radio station in Shanghai. She had raised over 30,000 yuan in donations through her WeChat Moments, initially thinking she could only raise a few thousand. This result was a bit of a surprise to her, thanks also to her friends’ contributions. All the money had already been used to buy related items, and the logistics had arrived in Chengdu. She had been waiting here for several days. She said, “It’s very difficult to buy things and donate them on your own. A lot of the money goes towards shipping costs.” She also said, “This kind of thing is not as simple as having a heart and money. A key part is finding a reliable organization. Otherwise, it can backfire.” Then she went on to say a lot of unflattering things about Teacher Fang, the person in charge of this organization’s handling of these matters. She was often stood up when it came to her arrival and accommodation arrangements. She ended up choosing to stay in a hotel out of anger. Teacher Fang no longer teaches but works for this organization in Xichang. She learned this from her. Her name is Feifei.
When the students had quieted down a bit, Teacher Hu suggested going to dinner. He said to try not to be seen by the school leaders when going downstairs. It was a big deal to let outsiders stay overnight, especially since he was new here. We had dinner at a small restaurant at the school gate. It seemed like this was the only restaurant nearby, and it seemed like it was opened specifically for the school. Although this was the case, there weren’t any customers in the restaurant, except for us. Even the owner didn’t know where he had gone. As soon as Feifei entered the door, she shouted, “Boss, boss.” A middle-aged man finally emerged from somewhere. Feifei said, “I’ll make it myself. Boss, you just watch and collect the money, ok?” The Sichuanese boss said, “Ok, ok.” Seeing that the water bucket was empty, he rushed out of the side door and brought us two buckets of water. Feifei made braised pork for us. As she cooked, she said, “I usually don’t cook, but once I made braised pork. My boyfriend thought it was delicious, so I tried making more dishes. Since then, I’ve been able to handle both the kitchen and the dining room.”
At night, Teacher Hu came over to chat and even brought me a new cotton blanket that someone donated.
I asked, “Your students don’t seem to be afraid of you.” He said, “Yes, the students come to me for anything. We’ve gotten used to it after a while.” I said, “They were even asking you for pencils just now.” He said, “I told them to do that. It’s an exchange program. That way they won’t lose their pens so often. Usually they only come to exchange them when they can’t hold them anymore.” He asked, “Did you come here to teach or something else?”
I said, “I thought about teaching, but now I’m mainly here to learn.”
He said, “That’s good too, but the security here isn’t that good. People who come here often lose things. So you have to keep your valuables with you. Sometimes the students come here and see no one and take things they think are good. The students’ families are all very poor. Once I went to visit a student’s home and saw that there was only a sick grandmother in bed. There was nothing in the damp, low-lying room. They were just relying on each other. You see, this afternoon, if I hadn’t gone to see the doctor with the sick student and given her money to go by herself, she wouldn’t have gone. The money would have disappeared in no time.”
We talked for a long time, and Feifei was so sleepy that she started yawning. As Teacher Hu left, he reminded us, “Lock the door and go to sleep at night. Safety first.”
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