Leaving Lanzhou in the early morning, our team rode by mini-bus over narrow, winding roads for about 2 and 1/2 hours to reach the first of the schools we would visit that day. As the bus turned into the entrance of the school, we were all momentarily stunned by the sound of drums and trumpets and the waving of brightly colored flags. The entire population of the school was either lined up along the driveway or assembled in the front yard, waiting in the bright sun for our arrival. This was the scene once we got out of the bus.
While we had tea with the principal, tables were set with the books we had brought and the children were re-assembled in the front yard; drummers and flag-bearer front and center. View from our table:
While the students were excited to see us, they seemed less than engrossed by the lengthy and rather staid donation ceremony. Thankfully the introductions provided some amusement. No one had given our Chinese names to the principal and his pronunciation of our English names was unintelligible, thus a few of us (ahem) stood up more than once, and poor Dan stood up after hearing what sounded like his name followed by 女士 (Mrs.), leaving the entire school in gleeful hysterics. 
A group photo was taken after the ceremony and before we were delivered into the classrooms. The principal and some school administrators are standing, seated from left to right are Dan (who is actually older than the 14 year-old he appears to be here), myself, Alan (Professor of Law teaching in Beijing), Professor Wei (Sociologist at Lanzhou University), Dr. Cook (head of the China division of a large environmental NGO), Gwen (Epidemiologist teaching in Beijing), Frank (reporter for CCTV's English language station), Monica (student at Beijing University), Adrien (Working at a start-up in Beijing), Rachel (IUP classmate), and Doan Nhu (married to Adrien and working at a French hydro- and solar-power company in Beijing). A pretty amazing crowd, all in all, with an impressive 5 1/2 PhDs between us.
I should probably take this opportunity to explain the purpose of our visit in greater detail. This was my first trip with the Yale Book Club and to be honest I was a little skeptical about the utility of bringing a bunch of English books to rural Chinese kids who have enough of a hard time learning Mandarin. It turned out that the books that we brought were mostly Chinese, and had been specifically requested by school teachers and administrators. As I was to discover, most of the kids only had the most rudimentary of English skills. The idea behind bringing us white folks in to teach classes was that it would give the kids a chance to hear English spoken by a native, and that interacting with us in a classroom setting would boost their confidence. As Professor Wei explained to us, having had the experience of communicating with a foreigner might give them the extra confidence to land a good job, or encourage them to improve their English skills and give them a competitive edge.
I'm not entirely convinced that the money and resources couldn't be used in an even better way, but the cause was good, and from the point of view of the volunteers, it was an extraordinary experience.
The classroom:
I started my class by introducing myself and showing some pictures of my hometown, friends, and travels in China (Halloween with Blammo and Emmy+Montana+myself in a human pyramid were some of the examples I used -- those poor kids must be so confused about America). I tried to speak really slowly but ended up just translating after every sentence.
When I ran out of things to say I had all the kids in the room introduce themselves and their hobbies. Watching television and playing basketball or ping-pong were the clear favorites, but there were a couple of very unique selections. This boy loved eating food and had endless questions about what kind of food we ate in the U.S. and what my opinions of Chinese food were. He also asked for my phone number and then if he could get his picture taken with me.
The camera ended up being a godsend. Because most of the kids were much too shy to ask questions, I offered the reward of a picture for an question posed in English and that kept the discussion from drying up completely. I wasn't a very good teacher, partially because I really had no idea how to prepare and partially because I was just so freaking nervous. The kids were sweet and well-behaved as can be, but they were also clearly sort of mesmerized by me. I'm admittedly quite sensitive, but still the weight of what I must have symbolized to these kids was heavy on me. It isn't fair that I have had so many opportunities in life and that they have hardly had one. I couldn't stand in front of them talking about all the places I've been and not feel vaguely ashamed and uncomfortable, but I tried... to reach out, to praise their hard work, and to tell them I believed they were capable of anything.
They must have been somewhat amused by my company as they were quite reluctant to end class, insisting that it ended 10 minutes after I had been told to dismiss them.
So we took some more pictures....
Most of the kids in my class were about 16 or even 17 but were still in junior high as they don't normally start school until age 9. Many of the students have very pink cheeks because of the altitude.
The girl on my right was my star pupil. She tracked me down when we were touring the school after lunch and we spoke a little longer about her life at school, her family, and her hopes for the future. Later I received a text message from her and a few of the other students who had apparently borrowed someone's cell phone in order to write to me. I hope they stay in touch.
This first school we visited is one of the nicest around and many of the students live in on-campus dorms, going home only on the weekends (usually about a 3, but sometimes as much as a 5 hour walk). This room sleeps 14 girls.
Adrien getting his ass kicked at ping-pong on the playground.
The old schoolrooms from the 1950s. The rooms that we taught in were quite new, part of a grand renovation paid for in part by a generous donation from Seth's mother (Seth did his PhD village on agricultural technology in the village several years ago). We were quite excited to see how much solar energy technology was being used in the new facilities.
A very dusty game of basketball.
Loess soil terraces stretching as far as the eye could see from just behind the school, or, er, the "toilets" actually.
As it was a beautiful day, most of us decided we would walk part of the way to the next school. The bus followed us slowly and picked us up after about an hour.
Along the way, Alan and I stopped to greet and talk to some people we passed by, asking questions about their houses and farms that appeared to amuse them. Most everyone was extremely friendly.
Especially the kids:
They were standing outside of their house in front of a propaganda sign like this one, omnipresent in the Chinese countryside. One-child policy is an especially popular topic. This sign promises a reward of 600 yuan (about $85) for anyone who turns in a family who has violated the policy.
The welcome at the second school was similar to the one at the first, but the kids looked more tired and we worried that they had been waiting too long in the hot sunshine while we engaged in our bourgeois ambulations through the village.
The book donation ceremony was identical to the first, including the name confusion. After introductions and speeches, students representatives were sent up to our table and the books we had brought were formally presented.
I was nervous about teaching again, in part because I had foolishly let the kids at the first school keep the pictures I brought when they asked for them, and in part because this time I had to keep them occupied for a full two hours.
They asked me to sing, but I insisted that I was a terrible singer and that I couldn't think of anything appropriate (one girl helpfully suggested the theme song from Titanic). Where the hell is Siano when you really need him? Instead I got a couple of students to try and teach me some Chinese songs. I was so impressed at how willing they were to stand up in front of the class and sing and how supportive and encouraging the rest of the class was.
This student was teaching me a song line by line, but then got either carried away or embarrassed and finished it off on his own. I asked him if he had decided he didn't want to teach me after all and there was a lot of giggling.
We took a group photo after class was finished. You can tell that I am the lone weakling that can't stand to look directly into the sun without my sunglasses.
I don't know who this old man was, but he is standing in front of class rankings board where all of the classes of a certain age level are ranked on the basis of grades and performance. Group competition is still a very important part of Chinese schooling.
This girl was one of my students and was so incredibly sweet. She told me she had always thought foreigners were very strange, but that she liked me very much and was very happy to have met me. We talked about the obstacles she faced growing up in poverty and the pressures she felt to be a good student and help the rest of her family. I felt my heart wrench as she told me in choppy English: "When I have good grades, my parents think I am a good child; when I have bad grades, my parents think I am a bad child". I told her about how I used to hide my bad report cards from my parents and she was visibly delighted by the idea.
Here is another one of my students standing between two of her teachers. She had by far the best English of any of the students I met all day and dreamed of going to the foreign language high school in Lanzhou to pursue her studies. She expressed herself extremely well in English and I was very impressed. I look forward to the day when she gets access to a computer and I can get an e-mail from her hearing of her successes.
There is so much more that I could say. So many more impressions, conversation fragments, and feelings about entering the worlds of these kids, wishing very deeply that they could have everything they dreamed of and knowing that is quite impossible. Many things are much easier to confront and effectively dismiss when they come in the form of statistics on disparities in education and income and not in face-to-face conversations with industrious, sweet, marvelous kids.
Cave dwelling makes a lot of sense on the Gansu plateau as the soil is soft and malleable and the homes stay very warm over the long winter. Lao Zhang's compound also had some more modern structures on one side of this traditional courtyard, one of which was a room where Lao Zhang's son and daughter-in-law slept with their young son, and another which housed a very basic shower with solar-heated water. None of the homes had any plumbing however, and the outhouses were wisely kept at a distance from the compounds.
In the center of the room is a Kang, a traditional Chinese bed on a raised platform heated from within by burning coal. 
The photograph above the chairs showcases a proud moment; the visit of China's ex-Premier to the village and his meeting with Lao Zhang (pictured on the right next to Premier Zhu Rongji). We were later told that in addition to having a successful farm and comfortable home, Lao Zhang had quite a bit of political clout in the area. His was considered a "model village", in large part because of its implementation of both traditional and innovative agricultural techniques (particularly in the important area of water harvesting). This is one of the reasons for Premier Zhu's visit as well as a factor in its selection as a site for Dr. Cook's dissertation research.
Me and Lao Zhang:
The entrance to the Zhang family compound: 
Lao Er (son of Lao Zhang) and his son:
In his role as protector and arbiter of courtyard justice:
Lao Zhang's compound wasn't large enough to sleep all of us, so us ladies headed down the road to the home of a family headed by a man who, after a great deal of anthropological interrogation, Rachel and I decided was Lao Zhang's nephew. Here, he and wife sit on the Kang where we slept. So warm, so nice, so much tasty burning coal.
Arriving at their home, one of the first things we noticed was the ceiling, which was papered with a interwoven combination of strips of foil-like paper and strips of packaging that would have otherwise become bags of Hain Rice Cakes (I've never, ever seen these in China and have no idea how they ended up here). The ceiling of a similar room in Lao Zhang's house was papered with strips from some random potato chip or some such.
We asked a lot of questions about why this was done and why this particular product packaging was used, but didn't learn much more than that it was just what everyone did. Darn foreigners and their crazy questions!
When you removed the tea kettle, you could feel the strongly concentrated solar heat and imagine your seven year old self killing countless numbers of bugs using the heat dish of death.
After a filling country breakfast Lao Er and Dr. Cook took us on a tour around the village where they talked about terrace agriculture, loess soil, and water collection and irrigation. It was fascinating stuff, but I'll spare you the details. At least for now.
