A Tale of Two Cities Supporting Xinjiang

The classroom remained completely silent. Jiang Hengli considered whether he should call on someone randomly to break the deadlock.

Just then, Alimu timidly raised his hand, but quickly withdrew it halfway up.

Jiang Hengli nodded vigorously at him. "Alim, what do you want to say? Speak boldly! You can ask any questions you have, whether they're from the textbook or anything else you want to know. The teacher will answer them for you!"

"T-Teacher, I want to ask, who is Runtu? What...what does he do?"

As soon as the question was asked, many students nodded vigorously, their faces showing expressions that said, "I wanted to ask that too."

"That's right, teacher, who is Runtu? I've never heard of him."

The boy sitting next to Alimu immediately chimed in, his voice a little louder and more confident than Alimu's.

"And the Five Elements are lacking Earth, does that mean he doesn't have enough land to cultivate? Like our cotton and corn fields, not enough to harvest crops?"

"Those sentences were too long, I couldn't even read them smoothly. Something like 'A golden full moon hangs in the deep blue sky' made me breathless, let alone understand the meaning."

"I don't even know what a 'cha' is. Is it an animal like a rabbit? Or like the field mice we have here? How can I understand Runtu's 'cha' if I don't even know what it looks like?"

Jiang Hengli was completely stunned. He never expected that his carefully prepared lesson plan would completely fail before he could even get the students to understand the characters.

He thought that even if the students didn't know the deeper tragedies of the era, they should at least have heard of Lu Xun and Runtu, since these were classic pieces in nationally used textbooks.

The reality is that these figures and cultural backgrounds, which are familiar to students in mainland China, are completely foreign to the children here, who have never even heard of them.

Not to mention their limited vocabulary in Chinese, they can hardly understand even the literal meaning of the text, let alone appreciate the tragedy of the times.

Jiang Hengli quickly steadied himself, took a deep breath, and tried to explain in the simplest and most straightforward way possible, even using metaphors familiar to the students: "Runtu was Lu Xun's childhood playmate, a rural boy, just like the older brothers and sisters around us who farm. He worked in the fields every day, played in the fields, herded sheep, planted melons, and caught insects..."

But after saying only a few words, he noticed that some students below still looked confused, clearly not understanding who Lu Xun was, and unable to connect their playmate with the character in the text.

Jiang Hengli could only grit his teeth and continue the lecture, but without interaction and feedback, the class became a one-man show for him.

He spoke until his mouth was dry and his throat was practically burning, but the students were only half asleep.

He thought it was just an isolated case and that he could gradually adapt and get used to it by explaining it a few more times. However, a few days later, another problem hit him hard, leaving him completely bewildered and even making him doubt whether he had been teaching in the wrong direction.

That day, I was explaining a descriptive essay. The text depicted a water town in Jiangnan, where awning boats swayed between small bridges and flowing water, willows on the banks drooped to the water's surface, fish swam around the boats, neon lights flashed in the city, traffic flowed like a river, and the night was as lively as the day. The tall buildings were lit up, like stars falling down.

He described it vividly, even imitating the movements of rowing a covered boat, gesturing wildly, just so the students could imagine the scene.

But when I looked up, the students' faces were full of confusion.

Some were whispering to their classmates, "What is a covered boat? Is it like our horse-drawn carriage, with wheels that can move? Or is it like a fishing boat that can travel on the river?"

"What color are the neon lights? Are they brighter than the stars on our grassland? Can they illuminate the entire grassland?"

When grading the students' essays after class, Jiang Hengli felt even more disheartened. The students' essays were all empty and devoid of content. They either copied sentences from the textbook, changed a few words to make up the word count, such as changing "Jiangnan Water Town" to "our hometown" and copying everything else.

Or it's just a few words, dry and tasteless, like a diary entry, such as "Today I went to the river, saw the water and the trees, I was very happy," and that's it.

He specifically called Rehema to his office.

Jiang Hengli pointed to the composition book, his tone as gentle as could be, afraid of hurting her self-esteem: "Rehema, you're usually quite observant and your descriptions are vivid, so why did you write this so hastily this time? Has something come up at home lately, and you haven't had time to write properly? Or is there some other difficulty?"

"Teacher, it's not that I don't want to write well, it's that I really can't write anything. It's like a grassland in winter, there's nothing there, it's bare, and I simply don't know how to begin writing."

Jiang Hengli then finally realized that he had been too naive before.

He brought his mature teaching methods to Xinjiang, fully expecting that simply reading from the textbook would allow the students to keep up. However, he forgot that the content of textbooks in the mainland and the students' living conditions here were completely different, like two completely different people on different wavelengths.

The students here are used to grasslands, deserts, grape trellises, the joyful songs of Eid al-Adha, and the bumpy rides on horseback. But their textbooks describe things like Runtu's hedgehog hunting, the water towns of Jiangnan, and the subways of cities. They have never even seen these things, let alone experienced them.

It's like asking someone who has never seen snow to write about a snowy scene; they'll rack their brains but still can't imagine what a snow-covered landscape looks like. Or asking someone who has never been in water to write about swimming; they can only imagine the movements of paddling. Or asking someone who has never ridden a horse to write about galloping across the grasslands; they can't even describe the taste of the wind.

How could they possibly write with genuine feelings? How could they possibly resonate with such unfamiliar content?

Repeatedly being unable to write or understand things completely dampens students' enthusiasm for learning.

At first, I would try to raise my hand to ask questions, but later I found that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep up. Gradually, I lost interest and felt that Chinese was both useless and difficult to learn, so I simply gave up. In class, I would either lower my head and remain silent or have unfocused eyes. The lively atmosphere of the past was gone.

But that wasn't the most frustrating thing for him.

Before Jiang Hengli arrived, he was determined to organize a meaningful activity. He discussed it repeatedly with his old colleagues from No. 58 Middle School and finalized the Pomegranate Seed Letter Activity, which allowed students in Xinjiang to correspond one-on-one with students in other parts of China.

He was full of anticipation, thinking the idea couldn't be better: the children here could tell their classmates from the mainland about the sheep on the grasslands, the sweet grape valley, and the lively Eid al-Adha.

The children there can share the vastness of the sea, the convenience of the subway, and the joy of the amusement park.

It can not only improve children's Chinese writing skills, but also help children from both places get to know each other and promote cultural exchange. What a wonderful thing!

On the day of the registration deadline, Jiang Hengli brought some milk candy with him and excitedly went to the classroom, thinking to himself: even if not the whole class signs up, at least half of them should sign up, right? He would give each of the children who signed up a piece of candy and encourage them to write their letters carefully.

But when he picked up the register, he was instantly stunned. There were only three students' names on it.

Such a great event, why is no one willing to participate? There must be some misunderstanding!

Jiang Hengli found a few students who were usually quite active and willing to speak in class, and pulled them into the corridor next to the office. "Tell me the truth, is the pomegranate seed letter activity not fun?"

Still find writing letters too troublesome? If there's another reason, please let me know. We can work together to fix any problems; don't keep it bottled up inside.

A tall boy, who always liked to interrupt in class, bluntly said, "Teacher, it's not that we don't want to participate, it's just that our Chinese writing is too bad."

Sometimes, it takes a long time to think about what to say. When you write it down, it's either full of typos or the words are wrong. Even though you think the same thing, it doesn't mean the same thing when it's written down.

If we sent a letter like this to our classmates in mainland China, they would definitely laugh at us, saying we can't even write a complete sentence properly, it's so embarrassing.

Another girl next to her whispered in agreement: "Yeah, teacher. I tried writing something down and reading it to my family before, but they didn't understand what I was trying to say, let alone my classmates from the mainland. They might even think we're stupid."

Jiang Hengli then realized that the children didn't dislike the activities; rather, they were held back by their inferiority complex about not being able to write well. That little bit of self-esteem prevented them from taking that step easily.