Love spreads - TECH-LONG's love travel in ancient phoenix town in the West Hunan

 

Ancient phoenix town is Shen Chong Wen’s hometown, a famous literator. West Hunan is a delicately beautiful land. Phoenix Town was called town pole in ancient time, which is located in the southwest of Xiang Xi Zhou, Hunan, a place where Miao and Tujia people dominate.

The ancient town was constructed naturally and elegantly. North and East Gate Towers, Miao’s footsuspended buildings on Tuo River side and bluestone board paths in parallel make the town with a strang simple ancient vibe. Moreover WanShou Palace with overhanging eaves, Dacheng Palace Hall, TianWang Temple, XiaChang Pavilion and WanMin Tower outline a beautiful picture scroll. It is usually called “Most Beautiful Chinese Town” and “Picture Town”.

Rewi Alley complimented Phoenix Town as “Most Beautiful Chinese Town”. This reputation was broadly spreading through literatures written and pintings scrolls written and drawn by Shen Chong Wen and Huang Rong Yu.

ShanLiWan Hope Primary School is located in a small village beside the ancient Phoenix Town. After having driven more than 15 hours, we finally arrived at a small village where the Hope School was located. The road from the highway to the school was devious and muddy. In a rainy day, small kids have to climb upwards to reach their school. When we were approaching, teachers and students already waited on the mountainside. All kids were brimmed over with bashful smile. They looked at us in a curious way, felt happy just like celebrating a festival.

There are more than 200 teachers and students in the school where a 2-story building with several poor classrooms . They had no complete desk and chair sets; best teaching equipment was a outdated desk computer that had been thrown away by urban children.

The respected teachers put candies and melon seeds on desks to express their warm welcome to our arrival. While several students presented local home-brewed wine cup after cup, both of which affected us deeply.

After having donated schoolbags, notebooks, sports goods, stationeries and etc to kids, we played together with them, reminded of games, in our childhood, such as hawk catches chicks, dropping snot-rag, traffic light……; kids always vied with each other to answer our questions, “Which city will hold Olympic Games?”, “Beijing!”,“right, award you a pen.” “Who knows the names of Olympic mascots?” “Happy Baby, Beijing welcomes you!” “Yes, right, give you this Happy Baby” …… before coming here, we imaged their mopish and sad eyes due to the hardships; to our surprisied, their naivety brought us to our the childhood.

We exchanged our minds with teachers and students heart to heart and listened to them with patience. We had a happy afternoon with teacher and students there. When we were leaving, teachers expressed grateful thanks to us again and students were reluctant to part with us. Maybe someday, these kids will bring their indebted hearts to others.

After back to Guangzhou, we raised funds to buy desks and chairs, blackboards, computers, stationeries and etc for the kids. We promise we will hand down this love forever to enable these kids to grow up happily.