A Tale of Two Cities Supporting Xinjiang

A few minutes before the car started moving, Jiang Hengli was the last to jump on. He turned around, waved to the crowd, and patted the roof of the car. "Driver, let's go!"

Just as the driver shifted gears, a woman wearing a floral headscarf suddenly rushed out from the crowd.

She ran so fast that one corner of her headscarf came undone, but she didn't care and clung tightly to the passenger window with both hands.

"Teacher...teacher!"

She slipped the package, wrapped tightly in blue-printed cloth, through the window.

The cloth bag was bulging and still carried the warm, comforting scent of freshly baked food.

"Freshly roasted naan, to eat on the way. And, there are dried apricots, sun-dried at home."

Chang Peng quickly reached out to take it, saying repeatedly, "Thank you, you've gone to so much trouble."

But those hands wouldn't let go.

She didn't look at Chang Peng, but stared at her son Abudu outside the car window.

"Good teachers... are like migratory birds in the Tianshan Mountains, they come in spring and leave in autumn."

Her eyes instantly welled up with tears. "If you all fly away... will you ever come back?"

She gasped for breath, her voice trembling with barely suppressed pleading and panic:

"You've really brought the kids' hearts to life, made them wild."

If you fly far away and don't come back.

The children's hearts, it seems, will follow you; they'll never return to this land.

Upon hearing this, Abudu's face flushed bright red.

He squeezed forward two steps, his voice both embarrassed and anxious: "Apa, what nonsense are you talking about? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."

"Abudu".

Chang Peng yanked open the car window and leaned almost his entire upper body out.

"Come here!"

Abudu squeezed to the car window, and Chang Peng reached out and pressed heavily on his shoulder.

"The poetry society was established by you, Reheman, Tursun and others."

Those poems grew from your hearts and from this land, not copied from me and Teacher Jiang.

Got it?

Abudu nodded vigorously, squeezing out a "hmm" from his throat.

"Let's work together to keep the poetry society going!"

It's not about imitating anyone, it's about writing your own Tianshan Mountains, your own ocean, and the storms and sunshine in your heart.

Let the roots of the poetry society grow deeper than the red willow, do you hear me?

"I heard you!"

The car finally started moving slowly.

Chang Peng and Jiang Hengli leaned out of the window again and waved vigorously.

The wheels rolled over the dry earth, kicking up a cloud of yellowish dust. The young faces and the shadows of those floral headscarves gradually blurred and shrank in the dust, eventually blending into the background of the Gobi Desert.

Jiang Hengli slumped back into his seat, and the carriage suddenly fell silent, with only the roar of the engine. "This damn road... it's so dusty, it's blinding."

Chang Peng remained silent.

He silently placed the warm blue-printed cloth bag on his lap and slowly opened it.

Two golden-brown, glistening naan breads were stacked together.

Beside it was a cloth bag containing amber-colored dried apricots.

He picked up a dried apricot and chewed it vigorously.

Teachers' meeting at Tacheng Vocational College.

Guzalinur slammed a stack of design drafts on the head of the teaching and research group's desk: "Teacher Ma, our group must enter this Cotton Field Memory series for this skills competition."

Teacher Ma slowly took a sip of tea. "Little Gu, I'm not trying to be mean."

Students come here to learn cutting and sewing so they can get jobs in factories and secure stable employment.

You spend all your time leading them on these fancy cultural and creative projects—painting, writing poetry, fiddling with old objects…that’s not doing their proper job!”

"Not doing your proper job?"

Guzalinur raised her voice: "Using textbooks from twenty years ago to teach students to work on assembly lines for a lifetime, is that what you call a proper job?"

Teacher Chang and his colleagues taught us that knowledge is alive; it must be connected to the land beneath our feet.

"Don't mention your Teacher Chang."

Teacher Ma slammed his teacup down. "They're from the Flying Pigeon brand; they'll stay for three years and then leave."

We are a permanent brand, and we have to be responsible for our students for life.

"What you've done may bring you awards and temporary glory, but can you guarantee that every student can make a living from it?"

Guzalinur snatched back her design draft. "Alright, let's see if your permanent plaque rusts away first, or if my flying pigeon can hatch a golden phoenix!"

Before Chang Peng and his team's car had completely disappeared over the Gobi Desert, cigarettes were already lit in the conference room of the county middle school.

"Good riddance."

Teacher Li, who has taught Chinese for thirty years, took a puff of his cigarette and flicked the ash into a disposable paper cup. "These two teachers who came to Xinjiang to provide assistance are quite capable of causing trouble."

But their method of learning math in cotton fields and mixing dialects into poetry—does it even count in exams? Does it even care about college entrance rates?

Sitting opposite, the young teacher Zhang Fan placed his lesson plan on the table: "Teacher Li, the children's eyes light up when they're in their classes. Aren't Abudu and Guzalinur the ones they've mentored?"

"Bring it out?"

Teacher Li snorted through his nose, "In the end, Abu Du will still come back to be a herdsman."

"Guzalinur, a girl, what kind of future can she possibly have dabbling in needles and thread?"

He tapped the table. "Our duty is to thoroughly instill textbook knowledge into students' minds, so that they can pass the exams and change their destiny."

"It's not about doing folk customs one day and practical activities the next; it's about letting your mind wander."

"Education is not about simply filling your mind with knowledge!"

Zhang Fan's voice rose as well: "It's about lighting it! We can't let this fire that Teacher Chang and the others started go out!"

"Ignite a fire? I think it's more like igniting your own body!"

Another elderly teacher slowly spoke up, "They were like monks from afar, chanting their sutras and then leaving."

Who's going to clean up the mess they leave behind?

Students have become more ambitious and feel that the old methods are no longer interesting. How can we teach in such a way?

"Grades have slipped, parents are coming in, who's going to take the blame? You, Teacher Zhang?"

Zhang Fan's face turned bright red. He wanted to retort, but couldn't find the words to reply.

Teacher Li stubbed out his cigarette. "I think we need to be more cautious in our teaching from now on."

Those Liaoning-Xinjiang integration courses and extracurricular practice groups they organized should be taken back if necessary.

We'll discuss everything after the final exam results are released.

The meeting ended unhappily.

Zhang Fan stormed back to his office and saw a handwritten collection of poems that Abudu had secretly left for him before leaving school. The cover had childish but earnest handwriting: "Soil and Distant Places".

He opened it, and on the first page it read: "To Teacher Zhang: Don't forget to take the next batch of younger students to see the cotton fields."

Chang Peng placed a withered cotton stalk on the podium.

There were more than 30 local teachers from Liaoning sitting in the audience; some were dismissive, while others sat upright.

"These were planted by my students from Xinjiang last year. We use their growth cycle to teach functions and statistics."

This is called cotton field mathematics.

A young female teacher raised her hand and said politely, "Teacher Chang, your idea is very novel."

But we don't have cotton here, so how can we promote it?

"We can't possibly start by planting two acres of land just to prepare for classes, can we?"

A few soft laughs rang out from below.

He picked up the chalk, turned around, and drew a large greenhouse on the blackboard: "No cotton? But there are vegetables, right? Corn, right? The key isn't cotton; it's about letting knowledge grow from the soil!"

He raised his voice: "My students can use both languages ​​to help their families calculate costs and find sales channels. This is called bilingual assistance to farmers."

"Could our children use math to help their parents calculate the input-output ratio of the greenhouse?"

A middle-aged male teacher shook his head, his voice not loud but clear: "All show and no substance."

The situation in Xinjiang is unique; their methods won't work nationwide.

We still need to focus on getting good grades, that's the reality.

Chang Peng snapped the piece of chalk in his hand.

When he got home that night, he opened the book of poems covered in signatures and stared at it for a long time.

Then he picked up the phone and called his old colleague from Dalian Normal University.

"Old Liu, do me a favor and organize an online exchange..."

Yes, let your teacher-training students hear the voices from the front lines...

What? The other school isn't very interested? They think the communication costs are too high and the benefits are unclear?

Chang Peng raised his voice: "Then it's free, I'll give the presentation."

If once doesn't work, try twice; if twice doesn't work, try ten times!

Two months later, the first online lecture took place.

Chang Peng faced the camera and told stories, not theories.