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Tan Li joined the Gan Quan Library, a rural library in Chengde, north China’s Hebei Province, after graduating from the Shanxi University of Finance and Economics in July.
“This work has nothing to do with my major at university,” Tan said. “But this is something that I have wanted to do for a long time.”
Tan, a native of central China’s Hubei Province, came to the decision to work in a rural library because she wanted to help children enjoy learning. She believes China’s rigid, exambased education system prevented her from appreciating her high school studies.
“I didn’t have any entertainment activities at that time. Everything I did was for getting high marks in exams,” Tan said.“Study was no longer a pleasure at all. It is miserable and I really hate that system.”
Tan never stopped looking for a better method of education when in college. But the experience serving as a volunteer teacher in a rural middle school disappointed her.“All volunteer teachers do is to help students get higher marks under the current education system. This is not what I want,” said Tan, who one day happened to read about a program called China Rural Library (CRL).
The program impressed Tan so deeply that she applied to join it without any hesitation.
An ambitious program
CRL is a program initiated by Li Yingqiang, a postgraduate from the prestigious Peking University in September 2007, which aims to set up as many libraries as possible in rural areas.
Coming from a small village in Hubei, Li set up the first library–Huang Kan Library–in his hometown, Qingshi Town in Qichun County in 2007. The library is named after Huang Kan, a famous scholar who originated in the county. All the subsequent libraries set up under the program are named either after celebrated local scholars or major donors.
After leaving his hometown to attend college in 1997, Li rarely found the time to return to his hometown. In 2006, he graduated from Peking University with a master’s degree and started working for a Beijingbased NGO. The idea of setting up libraries in rural areas occurred to him during a business trip to Henan Province.
“On my way to Henan, I looked out of the window of the train and saw the desolate scenes of villages along the railway. They reminded me of my own hometown,” said Li.
At the time, an article titled Everyone’s Hometown Is Tainted was popular online and sparked heated discussions. The author, Ran Yunfei, revealed in the article how his hometown, a small village in southwestern Sichuan Province, lost its distinctiveness and beauty as a result of economic development. Almost all young villagers migrated to big cities and students in local schools spent most of their spare time either in filthy Internet cafes or wandering around and doing nothing.
The lack of access to learning resources is also evident in Li’s hometown. “When I was in primary school, there were quite a few bookstores in town, they weren’t great, but at least we had a place to go to buy books,” Li said. “But now, they have almost all gone and the only one left sells only a few outdated school textbooks.”
Li decided to do something to rectify the imbalance between the opportunities afforded to rural and urban students. After months of preparation, Li and his wife started the CRL program.
The Huang Kan Library was set up in the Qingshi Middle School. Li put a huge amount of effort into the program. “The school only provides rooms for the library. We have our own employees and we pay them independently,” said Li, who believes the independence of the libraries is a key part of the concept.
At the beginning of the program, Li asked almost everyone he met for donations.“I was more than crazy in those first days,”said Li, who finally received his first donation from CRL’s logo designer.
“We worked out a list of books that are suitable for primary and middle school students and we want each library we set up in the future to have at least 4,000 books for the students to read,” Li said.
More than reading
Teachers in the Qingshi Middle School are very supportive of the library.
“My teacher encouraged the students to go to the library often. She said that while the books might not be useful in getting high marks in the exams, they would have long-term benefits,” said Cai Xiaohai, who graduated from the Qingshi Middle School this summer.
In addition to offering a place for reading books, the library also shows films and holds various activities such as lectures by visiting scholars.
“We want it to be a communication center for the students. They can express their ideas here and learn things they can’t learn from academic classes,” Li said.
Cai used to attend the Economics class for Middle School Students in the library regularly. The class explains many seemingly sophisticated economic theories in a very understandable way by connecting them to people’s daily lives.
“Every time I went to the class I learnt a lot,” Cai said. “Before attending the class, I didn’t even know what economics was. The class made me realize it is relevant to everyone of us.”
Encouraged by his trips to the library, Cai, together with several schoolmates, founded a newspaper. They named the newspaper The Generation and Cai spent 200 yuan ($31.46) buying an old computer and managed to put together four issues of the publication.
“We hope that through the library, students will be able to expand their horizons and take action when they have new ideas,” Li said.
As the first library of the CRL program, Huang Kan Library has drawn a great deal of attention. “I know people have doubts about whether our program can sustain and many think I am a bit idealistic,” Li said.“You shouldn’t expect things to be smooth, of course not.”
Always optimistic
Tan said she had encountered many difficulties in running the Gan Quan Library.
“Before I went there, I thought the local people would be happy to have a library, and that we would be welcome as it’s such a wonderful project,” Tan said. “But the reality was that they were indifferent toward our presence and the teachers in the school didn’t want to talk to us as they believed the books we offer could not help the students to get higher marks in exams.”
It’s also a surprise to Tan that many students said they wanted the school to be even stricter with them. “But it is understandable as going to college seems to be the only way for them to find a better future,” Tan said
Tan has done her best to win over the teachers and began offering reading classes to the students. “We have to prove that reading books in the library would actually help improve their exam marks.”
The CRL program has also managed to set up reading stations in some village primary schools, but the efforts ended in failure. “Those schools don’t want to spare time and efforts on maintaining the reading stations and we don’t have spare volunteers to operate them,” Li said.
Speaking of all the difficulties encountered, Li said he never felt frustrated. “Of course we will have problems. We are here to make an effort to solve them.”
According to Li, there are now 33 full-times volunteers and five part-time volunteers working in 10 CRL libraries all over the country. One volunteer, a graduate from China Agricultural University, has been with the program for more than two years. All the volunteers’ salaries are paid with donations.
“The salary is not high at all,” Tan said.“In the first three months after I joined the program, I got 600 yuan ($94.51) per month. After three months, the number doubles, but its still not high.”
Despite this, Tan said she would continue working for the CRL program. “I am still very optimistic to its future,” she said.
“We are not alone,” Li said. In April 2010, he attended a conference on charity education in rural areas in China and met people from more than 80 other similar programs. “It is a big group involved in these programs. ‘Rome was not built in a day.’ I will spend my whole life working on this and I’m sure things will gradually get better.”
“This work has nothing to do with my major at university,” Tan said. “But this is something that I have wanted to do for a long time.”
Tan, a native of central China’s Hubei Province, came to the decision to work in a rural library because she wanted to help children enjoy learning. She believes China’s rigid, exambased education system prevented her from appreciating her high school studies.
“I didn’t have any entertainment activities at that time. Everything I did was for getting high marks in exams,” Tan said.“Study was no longer a pleasure at all. It is miserable and I really hate that system.”
Tan never stopped looking for a better method of education when in college. But the experience serving as a volunteer teacher in a rural middle school disappointed her.“All volunteer teachers do is to help students get higher marks under the current education system. This is not what I want,” said Tan, who one day happened to read about a program called China Rural Library (CRL).
The program impressed Tan so deeply that she applied to join it without any hesitation.
An ambitious program
CRL is a program initiated by Li Yingqiang, a postgraduate from the prestigious Peking University in September 2007, which aims to set up as many libraries as possible in rural areas.
Coming from a small village in Hubei, Li set up the first library–Huang Kan Library–in his hometown, Qingshi Town in Qichun County in 2007. The library is named after Huang Kan, a famous scholar who originated in the county. All the subsequent libraries set up under the program are named either after celebrated local scholars or major donors.
After leaving his hometown to attend college in 1997, Li rarely found the time to return to his hometown. In 2006, he graduated from Peking University with a master’s degree and started working for a Beijingbased NGO. The idea of setting up libraries in rural areas occurred to him during a business trip to Henan Province.
“On my way to Henan, I looked out of the window of the train and saw the desolate scenes of villages along the railway. They reminded me of my own hometown,” said Li.
At the time, an article titled Everyone’s Hometown Is Tainted was popular online and sparked heated discussions. The author, Ran Yunfei, revealed in the article how his hometown, a small village in southwestern Sichuan Province, lost its distinctiveness and beauty as a result of economic development. Almost all young villagers migrated to big cities and students in local schools spent most of their spare time either in filthy Internet cafes or wandering around and doing nothing.
The lack of access to learning resources is also evident in Li’s hometown. “When I was in primary school, there were quite a few bookstores in town, they weren’t great, but at least we had a place to go to buy books,” Li said. “But now, they have almost all gone and the only one left sells only a few outdated school textbooks.”
Li decided to do something to rectify the imbalance between the opportunities afforded to rural and urban students. After months of preparation, Li and his wife started the CRL program.
The Huang Kan Library was set up in the Qingshi Middle School. Li put a huge amount of effort into the program. “The school only provides rooms for the library. We have our own employees and we pay them independently,” said Li, who believes the independence of the libraries is a key part of the concept.
At the beginning of the program, Li asked almost everyone he met for donations.“I was more than crazy in those first days,”said Li, who finally received his first donation from CRL’s logo designer.
“We worked out a list of books that are suitable for primary and middle school students and we want each library we set up in the future to have at least 4,000 books for the students to read,” Li said.
More than reading
Teachers in the Qingshi Middle School are very supportive of the library.
“My teacher encouraged the students to go to the library often. She said that while the books might not be useful in getting high marks in the exams, they would have long-term benefits,” said Cai Xiaohai, who graduated from the Qingshi Middle School this summer.
In addition to offering a place for reading books, the library also shows films and holds various activities such as lectures by visiting scholars.
“We want it to be a communication center for the students. They can express their ideas here and learn things they can’t learn from academic classes,” Li said.
Cai used to attend the Economics class for Middle School Students in the library regularly. The class explains many seemingly sophisticated economic theories in a very understandable way by connecting them to people’s daily lives.
“Every time I went to the class I learnt a lot,” Cai said. “Before attending the class, I didn’t even know what economics was. The class made me realize it is relevant to everyone of us.”
Encouraged by his trips to the library, Cai, together with several schoolmates, founded a newspaper. They named the newspaper The Generation and Cai spent 200 yuan ($31.46) buying an old computer and managed to put together four issues of the publication.
“We hope that through the library, students will be able to expand their horizons and take action when they have new ideas,” Li said.
As the first library of the CRL program, Huang Kan Library has drawn a great deal of attention. “I know people have doubts about whether our program can sustain and many think I am a bit idealistic,” Li said.“You shouldn’t expect things to be smooth, of course not.”
Always optimistic
Tan said she had encountered many difficulties in running the Gan Quan Library.
“Before I went there, I thought the local people would be happy to have a library, and that we would be welcome as it’s such a wonderful project,” Tan said. “But the reality was that they were indifferent toward our presence and the teachers in the school didn’t want to talk to us as they believed the books we offer could not help the students to get higher marks in exams.”
It’s also a surprise to Tan that many students said they wanted the school to be even stricter with them. “But it is understandable as going to college seems to be the only way for them to find a better future,” Tan said
Tan has done her best to win over the teachers and began offering reading classes to the students. “We have to prove that reading books in the library would actually help improve their exam marks.”
The CRL program has also managed to set up reading stations in some village primary schools, but the efforts ended in failure. “Those schools don’t want to spare time and efforts on maintaining the reading stations and we don’t have spare volunteers to operate them,” Li said.
Speaking of all the difficulties encountered, Li said he never felt frustrated. “Of course we will have problems. We are here to make an effort to solve them.”
According to Li, there are now 33 full-times volunteers and five part-time volunteers working in 10 CRL libraries all over the country. One volunteer, a graduate from China Agricultural University, has been with the program for more than two years. All the volunteers’ salaries are paid with donations.
“The salary is not high at all,” Tan said.“In the first three months after I joined the program, I got 600 yuan ($94.51) per month. After three months, the number doubles, but its still not high.”
Despite this, Tan said she would continue working for the CRL program. “I am still very optimistic to its future,” she said.
“We are not alone,” Li said. In April 2010, he attended a conference on charity education in rural areas in China and met people from more than 80 other similar programs. “It is a big group involved in these programs. ‘Rome was not built in a day.’ I will spend my whole life working on this and I’m sure things will gradually get better.”