Rural teachers make the grade

Young educators forgo good job prospects to bring learning to remote villages. Hu Yongqi reports in Huize, Yunnan.

When his mother passed away three years ago, Long Yongzheng, now 8, was too young to understand the tough road that lay ahead for him, his brother and his father, a farmer in Longjia village, located in one of the most-remote parts in Huize county, Yunnan province. Long broke his arm last year while harvesting corn, and his father Long Shunjin, 38, could not afford to pay 300 yuan ($51) for an X-ray. Instead of going to a hospital, he took the boy to an old villager considered a "doctor" of traditional Chinese medicine. The man bound the boy's arm in two splints and applied some herbs to it.

After Liu Yuliang, the boy's teacher, discovered why he had been absent for class for so long, he angrily reprimanded the father. Liu donated 300 yuan, and Long was taken to the hospital for treatment, but his bones would never fully recover.