After work, Yang Feifan plays guitar, reads, and sometimes livestreams to share his teaching experience with online followers. 

Yang Feifan was affectionately called “Big Yang” by his students. To them, many of whom are left-behind children from poor families, Yang is not only their teacher, but also their hairdresser, roller skating coach, and life instructor. He is a friend who listens to their secrets and enlightens them about the unknown world beyond their mountainous village.

Yang teaches in Changdong Primary School, Dongshan Township, Bama Yao Autonomous County, Hechi City of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. This year is the 10th year he has been working as a volunteer teacher in the remote village school.

A pedagogical psychology major in college, Yang posts short videos on Kuaishou app, recording the lives of his students and showing how his educational methods are improving their lives. The sincerity of the children has touched the hearts of many viewers, bringing the number of followers of his account to over one million.

Students are wandering around the supermarket that is filled with donated goods from all over the country.

Abandoning Urban Life

Yang, 35, hails from Fuzhou of Jiangxi Province. In 2010, he went to Beijing to try his luck after graduating from Qiqihar University. However, the hustle and bustle of that great metropolis did not ease his feeling of loneliness. He always felt as if he was at sea.

Yang, also a left-behind child himself, always relates to the group. In 2011, he came across a news report about left-behind children and decided to work as a volunteer teacher in rural areas. In order to better prepare himself, he spent a year working as a teacher’s assistant at an educational institution in Beijing, during which he learned how to think like children.

Abandoning an urban job and going to a remote village was no easy decision. Coming from an ordinary family, making money and planning a career was a more realistic choice, as most of his peers did. However, the desire to follow his heart burned like a fire inside him. He thought of his childhood when he was a left-behind child staying with his grandmother while his parents were away working in Shanghai. “I missed and needed them so much that I always hoped one day my parents would appear on the road that led to our village,” Yang recalled.

“That kind of loss is something that you will carry for years,” Yang said. Therefore, he was eager to help children in similar circumstances with his professional knowledge.

Another catalyst for Yang’s decision is his unrequited love for a junior schoolmate back in college. They shared many common interests and promised to work as volunteer teachers in the future if there was an opportunity. After graduation, the young lady went on to pursue a graduate degree at a school in Guangxi.

In April 2013, he took a bold step forward. He quit his job in Beijing and set off for Changdong Primary School in Guangxi.

Yang’s colleagues are making dishes in the Dai ethnic group style on April 25, 2022.

A Versatile Teacher

Unlike many young men who volunteer to teach in remote villages out of curiosity, Yang had his own views on rural education from the very beginning. Over the past nine years, apart from textbooks, he has also taught students a variety of courses, including sports, music, art, roller skating, dance, cooking, gender education, etc.

The children love him. His teaching venues are not limited to classrooms. He often takes them around the school campus and helps them to relax through dancing to cheerful music. He also spends time having conversations with them, which would otherwise not take place among children living with their grandparents.

Yang also has a lot of creative teaching methods. He dedicated most of his spare time and energy in a special campus “supermarket.” The school Yang worked in receives lots of donations every year. He created the supermarket to distribute the donations and teach students to earn their living by honest labor and show them how society functions.

The supermarket program began in 2014 in Yang’s dormitory. He made some coupons used as currency that could be circulated on campus, and created job positions including sales clerks, cooks, artists, housekeepers, hairdressers, librarians, dance assistants, and so on. The donated clothes, books, toys, and other items are goods sold on the shelves of the supermarket.

Yang encouraged every student to participate. Students are paid by working in the supermarket, and then they can purchase anything they want there. In this way, students understand that if they want something, they need to work for it.

“The slogan of the supermarket is ‘Give full scope to talents, and make the best of everything.’ I hope every student can find their value in the program and gain confidence knowing who they are as a person,” Yang said.

Every year during summer and winter vacations, with his own savings and money he raised, Yang takes students beyond the mountains on study tours, not only to broaden their horizons, but also to give them a chance to experience the outside world. “I hope they grow up to be patriotic, grateful, hardworking, and brave people,” he said. “The trips also aimed at helping them connect knowledge from the textbook with real life, and teaching them to stay optimistic whatever they experience in their future life.”

A vast array of items on the shelves of the “volunteer teaching supermarket” in Changdong Primary School.

Empowering Rural Education

“Early childhood memories will permeate people’s grown-up years,” said Yang. He said that over the past decade, he has been looking for the root causes why some of left-behind children were unable to live a good life after growing up.

“Some say the lack of educational resources in mountainous areas, the absence of parents, and the dominant exam-oriented education system are to blame. I agree. But these are not the fundamental reasons,” Yang said. He cited Li Ziqi’s case as an example. The rural girl was referred to as a “real-life princess” by some foreign media reports as her wordless, meditative videos about an idealized pastoral rural life went viral on social media platforms. “She is way more unfortunate than most left-behind children, but she has a strong determination and is able to live a happy life,” Yang said. “Her case gives people a lot to think.”

Thanks to the country’s poverty alleviation efforts over the past few years, the infrastructure of rural schools, from teaching buildings to campus facilities, desks and chairs, and multimedia teaching equipment, is now on par with schools in the cities. “The biggest problem facing rural children is that they cannot have a correct worldview without proper guidance and company of their parents,” said Yang.

In his eyes, the educational authority ought to be aware of the circumstances left-behind students are going through, and take actions to make up for the absence of parents in a more focused, practical approach. “For example, when we teach a child to be kind and friendly, we also need to tell them there should always be a bottom line.”

Over the years, he has learned lots of practical methods to deal with concrete problems met by students at different ages or from different families.

“In the future, I am planning to set up an education base to test some innovative education methods. For rural revitalization, education must come first, and only education that is suitable for rural areas will be truly effective,” Yang said.

After spending Teachers’ Day with his students in September, Yang will leave and start the next chapter of his life. He said that in retrospect, he has solved many of his own problems by devotedly helping others. It is time to leave, but he will keep in touch with the students and help them as much as he can.

As for the young lady, Yang said, they did not end up together, but he is about to fulfill the promises he made 10 years ago. “Ten years ago, I promised to be a volunteer teacher for a decade, to write a song for her, and to travel around China. Now, except for a tour to Lhasa, I am about to fulfill all of the promises,” he said.