QIEMO COUNTY, Xinjiang, May 12 (silubaba) -- Wang Jianchao, a sports science major, admits having been "hoaxed" into her teaching job in the hinterland Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region 23 years ago.
A graduate from Baoding University in Hebei Province, about 150 km from China's capital Beijing, Wang came to Qiemo, a desert county in southern Xinjiang, as a PE teacher in 2000.
"Duan Jun, then president of the No. 2 Secondary School in Qiemo County, came to our university, hoping to recruit new teachers for his school," said Wang. "He said the school had a well-built gym with professional running tracks, but not enough PE teachers."
That impressed Wang, a student athlete, who joined 14 other graduates from the same university that year to work in Qiemo, 5,000 km away from Baoding City. They traveled for five days and four nights.
Wang remembers her first impression of the workplace as "shockingly disappointing." The only sports facility she could find was a dusty open area with a shabby basketball hoop. The promised new gym was still on paper, the school president explained to her, pointing to a construction drawing.
The tough, arid climate was a nightmare for Wang. Located on the southeastern edge of the Taklimakan, China's largest desert, Qiemo County is extremely windy and dusty, with sandstorms sweeping through the area 200 days a year.
"When we first arrived here, many of us suffered from nosebleeds and sore throats," she said. Wang thought about leaving, but eventually stayed, because she loved the children. "The school had more than 1,000 students but only 40 teachers. If I quit, the children would have no more PE classes at all."
A LIGHT OF HOPE
Wang and her city peers stayed on in the desert county over the past 23 years, despite all the difficulties in life and at work.
Pang Shengli said he was motivated to stay at his teaching job because he wanted to be a light of hope for the students. "That's what makes my job valuable and important."
Ilminur Emerjan, a native of Qiemo, entered the finals of a high-level anchors' competition at China's state TV in 2019. In one round of the competition, she recounted the story of her teachers who had given up the comfort of urban life to work in Xinjiang.
"My hometown has tough natural conditions, but my teachers have taken roots there. Their work is like planting willows in the desert and I myself am one of those young trees," she told millions of audiences who were watching the televised event.
Pang, a social studies teacher, said he has experienced changes in his own way of thinking after witnessing more students grow up.
"Ten years ago, I used to tell the kids to leave their desert hometown and see the big wide world. Nowadays, I encourage them to see the outside world, equip themselves with adequate knowledge and skills, and come back to build their hometown into a better place," he said.
The central government has taken measures to boost growth in China's west in the recent decades, and these regions are in dire needs of professionals, said Pang.
He is delighted that one of his students, Yang Fang, has chosen to become his colleague.
Yang, a graduate from Xinjiang Normal University in 2016, now works alongside Pang as a social studies teacher at No. 2 Secondary School in Qiemo. "I'm inspired by Mr. Pang. In him I see the meaning of life."
KEEPING THE LIGHT ON
Sun Tongtong followed the footsteps of her role models, arriving in Qiemo in August 2017. A graduate from Baoding University, she teaches history at the No. 1 Secondary School in Qiemo.
School facilities are much better than they were 20 years ago, with modern classroom buildings, a library, a gym and dorms.
Sun soon won the love and respect of her students. "She uses vivid examples and colorful PowerPoint presentations, and tells us stories to help us memorize complicated historical facts," said Turdi Eni, a teenage girl.
Six years into her job, Sun sees Qiemo as her second hometown. "Its people, its streets and even its wind and sand, have all become familiar and inseparable."
Of all the 26 graduates from Baoding University that are working in Qiemo County, there are seven couples. "Life here is not easy, but nothing is too difficult when you are with someone you love," said Zhou Zhengguo, a chemistry teacher since 2000.
His wife Liu Qingxia has quit her job in Hebei Province in order to work in Xinjiang and be at his side.
Some 340 graduates from Baoding University are working in Xinjiang, Tibet and other underdeveloped areas in China's west.
"Teachers play an important role in cultivating the next generation," said Han Huiling, president of the university. "We'll continue doing what we can to foster the development in the west." ■
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