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Children in remote Qinghai county desperately need warmth

By Lisa Carducci (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-23 08:33

Editor's Note: Canadian writer and artist Lisa Carducci, who has make China her home, is calling on our readers to help 270 students enjoy the first warm winter of their lives.

In 2003, I visited Tongren Tibetan autonomous county of Qinghai province and met a Tibetan university student who could speak some "understandable" Chinese with a strong accent.

Rinchen Shanggya was helping his cousin with the teahouse, where I could finally rest and have butter tea while chatting with him. We remained friends, but I was always too busy to visit the place again.

Students at Gyelto Town Boarding Primary School in Zadoi county.  [Zhang Min]

Recently, I felt a strong tug from the bottom of my heart. I tried to shut off the voice, but it was stronger than my will. I felt I "had" to go to Tongren, but I didn't know why.

The train that runs from Beijing to Lhasa stops in Xining after 20 hours. From there, I took a bus to Tongren.

The price of the bus had doubled from 16 to 32.8 yuan ($2.3-4.9) since my last visit, but I was glad to see that the traveling time reduced from seven hours to four. The road has been improved and allows for high speeds, and a 3,340-m-long tunnel has been dug through the mountain.

The road followed the Yellow River, which is yellow because of the sand it carries. To my great surprise, I discovered the most beautiful waterscape where the river was as large and blue as the sky.

Lisa Carducci(2nd from left) with a local teacher and Tibetan children.

I found Rinchen Shanggya had become a handsome, 29-year-old young man with dark golden skin, snow-white teeth and black, shining eyes.

He had arrived with the headmaster of Lancai Tanglhaka Technical School where he was hired as a teacher several months ago. Both of them greeted me with a white hada. I felt then that I was in Tibetan region.

Headmaster Shau Jigme, 43, started teaching at the school in 1984, when there were only 60 students. The school has now 270 students and 15 teachers, all of them Tibetans.

The teachers are all university graduates and their salaries vary from 600 to 3,000 yuan a month. Tibetan and Chinese languages are taught from first grade, and English from third grade. Half of the children board at the school, and there are a dozen orphans among them. Most parents are illiterate.

Rinchen Shanggya teaches Chinese, computer skills (but without access to the Internet), and mathematics. He works 10 hours a day for 10 consecutive days, followed by four days off, for a meager 600 yuan a month. With his conditions, it's easy to see why he is still single.

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