Generation Z Artists

Chapter 318 Three Encounters in Cultivation
To say "tread the mountain" means to actually walk along the mountainside.

Fang Xinghe gave his assistants, makeup artists, and other staff a holiday, and only took a few senior brothers in charge of security with him. He set off from the capital, first entering the Qinling Mountains, then going up the Taihang Mountains, to personally measure the land of China in 2003.

In my past life, I fell ill in the prime of my youth and never had the chance to see the beautiful landscapes of my motherland again.

In theory, he was busier than ever in his life, but he was willing to put aside all his work and personally accomplish what no one had ever done before.

The journey was extremely strenuous and time-consuming, which many people didn't understand, but he enjoyed it immensely.

Wang Charlie stayed in the United States to handle business matters, while Dong Youde stayed at the company. The other apprentices traveled light, bringing only a video camera.

They were all Taoist practitioners, and once they entered the mountains, they inevitably became very talkative and began to discuss the Tao.

Master Huang asked, "Junior brother, you've personally made this trip, which has taken a long time and involved a lot of hardship. Surely there must be a plan for it?"

What he was actually asking was: Anyone can do the donation, so why is it necessary to do it personally?
Standing atop the main peak of the Lesser Qinling Mountains, which juts into Henan Province, Fang Xinghe gazed upon the vast land and a sense of tranquility suddenly welled up within him.

He replied, "A person's cultivation must begin from the inside out, and then from the outside in."

From the inside out, it is a process of climbing higher.

Fame and fortune are like fruits that can be found everywhere in the mountains. As you climb, you will naturally pick them and get them. The fruits are sweet, but they should not affect our fundamental goal—to stand at a high place and see the world clearly.

From the outside in, it is a process of convergence.

At first, the dazzling array of flowers made me want to see and taste everything.

Later, as I gained more and became busier, I finally realized that I needed to start considering what to keep and what to discard.

In the end, break free from obsession, focus on yourself, be decisive when picking flowers, and be at ease when letting go.

First give, then take; first receive, then give; first observe, then depart—these are the three stages of attaining enlightenment.

See the world, see all living beings, see yourself.

My trip is precisely to experience these three encounters firsthand.

As soon as he finished speaking, his voice was as powerful as a dragon or a tiger, and all the senior brothers clapped their hands and exclaimed, "Excellent!"

……

It took Fang Xinghe two weeks to finally complete a brief tour of the three Qinling Mountains in Henan.

After the Qinling Mountains plunge into Henan, they suddenly blossom into three branches, arranged from north to south.

Xiaoshan: The watershed between the main stream of the Yellow River and the Luo River.

Xiong'er Mountain: the watershed between the Luo River and the Yi River.

Funiu Mountain: the watershed between the Yellow River, Huai River and Yangtze River systems.

Nature's artistry has created countless beautiful landscapes, but it has also brought breathtaking sights that defy human control.

Henan Province has a total area of ​​only 16.7 square kilometers, but its arable land area ranks third in the country, and it has always been the granary of North China.

The abundance of the eastern Henan plains makes the Qinling Mountains in western Henan seem as desolate as if they were uncivilized.

The three major mountain ranges are high and steep, with little and fragmented land available for cultivation. The land is so small that it can only be used to grow corn and sweet potatoes, and the yield is extremely low.

Deep in the mountains, "seeing a house, one would cry upon reaching it."

At that point in 03, the country had neither sufficient technology nor surplus funds to build mountain roads and railways.

With transportation inconvenient, everything comes to a standstill.

The mountain people can only rely on their own two legs to move through the mountains, using eight parts of their strength to climb and two parts to do manual labor.

Even if there are some local specialties, they are difficult to convert into cash.

In addition, these mountainous areas are important ecological functional areas and water conservation areas. In order to ensure the ecological security and drinking water safety of the downstream areas, there are nature reserves everywhere in the mountains.

Large-scale industrial development is impossible, and resource extraction is also prohibited. Objectively speaking, there is no way to get rich through industry.

Let alone industry, even Lao Jun Mountain, which is now the most famous scenic spot in later generations, is currently only a religious pilgrimage site.

"Shall we go up and take a look?" The senior brothers wanted to visit their fellow practitioners. "It's the ancestral temple of the Zhengyi sect."

Fang Xinghe gazed at the mountaintop, stood still for a moment, then turned and walked towards another mountain path.

"On this trip, I only witnessed human suffering, and I didn't pay homage to the Heavenly Master... Maybe next time."

He saw it.

Or rather, the human suffering he longed to see was everywhere in the mountains.

In a village school in Luanchuan County, Fang Xinghe saw a group of children who had to walk an average of 20 li (6 kilometers) of mountain road to get to school. The children ranged in age from 14 years old, who was in the sixth grade of primary school, to 7 years old. They only needed to walk 3 kilometers as the crow flies each day.

When Fang Xinghe arrived, about half of the boys were shirtless.

Despite it being the height of summer, it wasn't hot on the mountain. When Master Huang asked them why they weren't wearing shirts, they replied that they were afraid of getting them scratched.

The group looked at the bloody scratches and mosquito bites on the children's thin bodies and remained silent for a long time.

Fang Xinghe squatted down in front of the youngest little girl and asked gently, "Little friend, how old are you?"

"Seven and a half years old."

The little girl was timid and didn't dare to look up at Fang Xinghe, or even breathe deeply.

Fang Xinghe looked at her, who was only the height of a four-year-old child in the future, and hugged her with heartache.

"That's great! Walking to school all by yourself at such a young age!"

The little girl pointed to a dilapidated mud house halfway up the mountain and said, "That's my home."

Oh, this child is from this village.

That's right, given her physical condition, she probably wouldn't be able to walk on mountain roads.

So, how many children like her, weak and unable to leave their villages, live in the surrounding areas?
Fang Xinghe turned to the Luanchuan County staff member who was accompanying him: "How are schooling issues resolved for children her age?"

"It can't be solved."

The staff member looked bitter.

"The situation in the mountains is unique; it's impossible to build a school in every village. Aside from the issue of funding, the teacher shortage is simply too great..."

There is very little arable land in the mountains, so they are all small villages, with dozens or hundreds of households per village. Any more than that and they can't support the population.

Building a primary school specifically for such a village is nearly impossible.

Often, out of a dozen or so hilltops, only one village has the resources to build a primary school, which then attracts children from surrounding villages to study there.

Therefore, children in the surrounding villages have to bear the high cost of traveling.

This isn't commuting; this is staining the mountain ridges with blood and sweat.

A more typical example is that 14-year-old boy.

The child had a large frame but little muscle; he had thick calluses on his shoulders, and his dark, rough skin was covered with scratches.

Fang Xinghe wanted to chat with him, but the boy was very awkward, only answering one question at a time.

Have you heard of me?

He shook his head and chuckled sheepishly.

What grade are you in?

She lowered her head shyly: "I'm in... fifth grade..."

"What's the reason? Can you tell your brother?"

The boy pursed his lips tightly, looking somewhat bewildered, and turned to look at the principal, who was also his Chinese language teacher.

The principal nodded vigorously, encouraging him to answer boldly.

The boy lowered his head, gripped the sides of his baggy trousers tightly, and whispered, "My father is dead, my mother is seriously ill, and my grandparents can't work anymore, so I have to go to the fields to work."

After those four short sentences, the boy remained silent.

The principal quickly added, "Niu Zhuang is very smart; he only studied intermittently for three years..."

Three years of schooling, spread out, were crammed into every gap of eight years, turning me into a fifth-grade student.

At this moment, poverty and hardship became tangible in Fang Xinghe's eyes.

Xiao Fang was poor and suffered, but he was never trapped in the mountains, nor did he have to work in the fields under the scorching sun. He also had access to the outside world and could even make some money to dye his hair a gangster-like yellow.

But Niu Zhuang, even though Fang Xinghe has become so famous, has never heard of him at all from television or newspapers.

Fang Xinghe's expression was unusually unsettled, a mixture of confusion and seriousness.

As a Gen Z born after 2000, he grew up in a completely different environment.

Even if I were reborn in a small county town, the situation in Jilin Province would be much better than that in the mountainous areas of western Henan.

The educational foundation in Northeast China is built upon the heavy industrial system. The forest farms in Changbai Mountain are isolated enough, right? Children don't need to trek over mountains on foot.

So how did governments solve this problem in later generations?
Fang Xinghe tried hard to search his memory and vaguely remembered that it seemed to be a large-scale relocation of residents from the mountains.

In other words, even with the full strength of the nation, the only solution is to relocate people from the mountains, rather than forcibly building roads, pipelines, and teachers throughout the deep mountains.

As an individual, he is even less capable of doing so.

So, how exactly should we begin to address the education problems in the mountains?

Fang Xinghe carried the little girl and walked around the school campus, then began to stroll through the village. The school campus was really just three large, single-story houses.

When the village chief and elders heard that a big boss from outside had arrived, they stayed by Fang Xinghe's side the whole time, explaining the situation to him in their difficult-to-understand local dialect.

"The surrounding six villages are all counting on our primary school!"

When the school is mentioned, a sense of pride rises on the village's face.

"Building these few rooms was incredibly difficult!"

Fang Xinghe nodded: "It really wasn't easy."

Unlike the plains, building materials are difficult to transport in the deep mountains, and most families have little surplus wealth. The fact that they could build several rooms specifically for their children as classrooms shows how much they value education.

Before long, the village chief's wife came to call for help.

"Leaders, the food is ready! Stewed pheasant and mushrooms..."

"I'm not going." Fang Xinghe waved his hand. "I'll just eat at school and see what the students are eating."

"Oh dear, that won't do..."

"listen to me."

Fang Xinghe insisted, so the village chief and others had no choice but to accompany him.

When they arrived at the school, they found that the children only had two kinds of food—flatbread without oil and cornbread.

Even in the sweltering summer heat, there's no need to feel hot; just dry, pickled vegetables and choking gulps of cold boiled water.

The village chief kept rubbing his hands together, and said awkwardly, "This is good enough. A few years ago, the cornmeal was even coarser, mixed with bran and wild vegetables to make cornbread. Even then, we could only bring two..."

Fang Xinghe knew the situation would be serious, but he didn't expect it to be this serious.

Compared to the primary school nestled in the foothills, this place has a kind of helpless primitiveness.

What to do in winter?

"The school provides hot water and you can cook on the stove, but there isn't enough firewood, so the children have to collect it themselves."

The county staff looked embarrassed, seemingly ashamed of their inadequate work.

But in reality, the grassroots governments in mountainous counties are not necessarily doing very well themselves, let alone being able to help those below them.

How many school-age children are there in the six surrounding villages combined?

"Well, from first grade to sixth grade, there must be around 200, right?" The village chief shook his head with a wry smile. "It's hard to say, it's really hard to say..."

The reason it's hard to explain might be related to unregistered residents.

This was another problem that Fang Xinghe had never encountered before, and it gradually came to light during his recent investigation.

He stopped asking questions and silently counted the heads, discovering that there were fewer than 80 students in total across the six grades.

The rest were mostly due to practical reasons such as not being able to afford it, needing labor at home, lack of attention, or the distance being too far.

Fang Xinghe distributed the ham sausages and AD calcium milk that he had specially carried up the mountain to all the children, and squatted with his fellow students under the shady wall, quietly eating bread.

Having ventured into the mountains several times, he had long since abandoned all unnecessary formalities.

In a civilized and prosperous modern society, an idol must be aloof, mysterious, and distant; this is the foundation of fervor.

But in the mountains, that would only lead to fear and alienation.

The accompanying staff stood to the side, looking extremely uncomfortable.

Looking at Fang Xinghe, who was ordinary and simple like a farmer squatting there, they could hardly believe that this was the same dazzling superstar and director.

The fellow apprentices ignored the stares of outsiders and began whispering amongst themselves, discussing their next move.

"Now that you've come all this way, how do you plan to solve the education problem in the mountains?"

"Let the village make room for a proper school building."

Fang Xinghe picked up a tree branch and started drawing on the ground.

"There is very little flat land in the mountains, so we don't pursue a large area. We just want to build as many stories as possible, use high-quality materials, and make sure it can withstand earthquakes of magnitude 8. Five to six stories will be enough."

Government staff quickly gathered around and listened attentively.

"A classroom of 60 square meters is more than enough to accommodate all the students in a grade."

The focus is on the canteen and dormitory.

We need to put a lot of effort into improving the canteen. We should allocate a special fund from our foundation to provide free meals for mountainous areas, including breakfast and lunch. Breakfast will consist of eggs and milk, and lunch will be a large meal of meat.

In this way, even just for the meat at noon, many mountain families would agree to let their children go to school.

The child is growing, and his family can't afford to raise him, so I will!
The dormitory conditions should be improved as much as possible, mainly to provide support for teachers.

In the remote mountains, skilled and enthusiastic teachers are a treasure. We cannot force impoverished governments to provide them with better treatment. The problem is not scarcity but inequality. Moreover, impoverished counties may not even be able to pay all salaries. Therefore, we should cover the cost.

With free room and board, at least teachers won't be left destitute.

This constitutes a standard comprehensive building for a primary school in a mountainous area—6 classrooms, teachers' dormitories, a few student dormitories, a canteen, a library, and a screening room.

The building area is three to five hundred square meters, and the building height is four to six stories, which can be flexibly adjusted according to different geological conditions.

It should be applicable to both the Qinling and Taihang Mountains, as well as the Qilian and Wuyi Mountains.

Although the construction is more troublesome, the subsequent material transportation costs are higher, and the fund management is more difficult, it can play the role of encouraging and supporting students to study to the greatest extent.

That's all we can do.

At the end, Fang Xinghe shook his head, smiled bitterly, and sighed.

But the staff members' eyes lit up, and their faces flushed with excitement.

No one understands the significance of doing so better than they do.

The challenges of popularizing education in remote mountainous areas lie in three aspects: mindset, resources, and the sustainability of investment.

Once the children pass the exams and go to junior high school in town, the troubles actually decrease.

However, how many children in the western mountainous areas of Henan can attend junior high school each year? The data is alarming, and it is not necessarily better than that of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Jiangxi.

Fang Xinghe's measures are almost the best solution at present, basically solving 80% of the problems.

The only downside... is that it's expensive.

So it's not that the government can't come up with a solution, it's just that even a skilled cook can't make a meal without rice.

Fang looked directly at the staff, exuding domineering confidence: "As private capital, I don't need to be polite or afraid of high prices. I will entrust the construction to a special construction company for Project Hope. I only have one request for you: make sure the children have enough to eat and stay in!"

The staff member hurriedly gave his guarantee, but it didn't count. That night, the deputy leader in charge of education in Henan Province went straight to Luanchuan and personally gave Fang Xinghe his guarantee.

"Anyone who dares to ask for the children's food money will have their hands chopped off!"

Fang Xinghe replied meaningfully, "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away, so it's difficult to manage those below. I completely understand."

I usually don't get involved in the self-governance of each province, but the situation in mountainous areas is different. The children in the mountains suffer too much, so I will keep an eye on it.

Hopefully this will be a good story, not a Waterloo for our Xinghe.

As you know, I love writing and making movies, which become my source material. Some are good, some are bad, and most people probably wouldn't be able to accept them..."

The leader's expression was somewhat stern, thinking to himself: Let alone ordinary people, even an entire province couldn't accept this... I certainly won't give you the chance to put pen to paper!
After settling the matter and reaching a preliminary agreement, Fang Xinghe declined the invitation to a banquet and continued westward along the mountain range, continuing his ascent.

The Qinling Mountains extend all the way to Shaanxi and Gansu.

The Taihang Mountains run diagonally across Shanxi, Hebei, and Henan provinces.

The Hengduan Mountains tear open the clouds and mountains of Sichuan.

The Qilian Mountains stretch to Qinghai and Gansu.

The Wuyi Mountains trap Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.

The Nanling Mountains have relatively few problems, but they still traverse four provinces and are dotted with revolutionary bases that have now fallen into disrepair.

Fang Xinghe disappeared from the public eye for more than two months, wore out four pairs of shoes, and finally saw most of the mountains in China.

Occasionally, someone leaks his whereabouts online, but due to the limitations of the times, it's hard to tell the truth and no one dares to believe it.

Until early October, he finally emerged from the mountains, quietly updating a simple statement on the Xinghe official website in the most low-key manner, bringing a huge, speechless shock to the world.

Galaxy Pictures will donate all proceeds from the film "Hero" to a special educational aid program in mountainous areas.

This project will collaborate with Project Hope to build 588 primary schools in mountainous areas within two years, covering 4351 extremely impoverished remote mountain villages in 17 provinces across the country.

This activity is limited to school construction; subsequent funding for education will be handled by the Fang Family Education Foundation.

Thank you for your attention. Galaxy Pictures does not accept external donations. If any organization attempts to solicit donations under this name, please immediately call the police. Please be aware of this.

Finally, there is a small line of text: This special educational assistance activity is only the first batch. In the future, Galaxy Pictures will continue to spread hope for children in mountainous areas to the best of its ability.

The statement was so simple and crude that it went unnoticed and unnoticed at first.

Faced with Fang Xinghe's firm refusal, CCTV News deliberately downplayed the matter.

But the Youth League and Project Hope always have to do things, and no matter how low-key they try to be, they are still making things public. Then, the situation became uncontrollable.

Unofficial, social public opinion, like a runaway horse, has overwhelmed the entire Chinese-speaking world.

So how much revenue did "Hero" actually generate?!
(End of this chapter)