The Beautiful Tree

by James Tooley

  And so I interviewed the principal of probably the most remote private school I had ever found, then and still. Xiang wrote all my questions in his notebook and translated; when he encountered difficulties, he wrote the Chinese characters in his book, and the two of them argued over their meaning. The school, he told us, had 86 students, precisely 43 boys and 43 girls. So why did he open the school? He said that he had been aware that the public school test scores were very low, and the villagers didn’t want all their children to be illiterate; they wanted him to help bring up the standard of education. He was the only person then in the village with a high school diploma, so he was under pressure to do so. He finally opened his school in 1996, and has since, he said, offered a higher standard of education than in the public school. Why did he say this? He said he worked hard and honestly to ensure that his good reputation was maintained. He and his wife also ensured that the students had food and drink, which didn’t happen in the public schools. The children took the public examinations in fifth grade—he had had five cohorts of students tested up to now, and their scores were always better than those in the public school. They went to the county to take these exams.

  Was this why parents sent their children to his school rather than the public school? He replied that it was one reason. But there were two others. The nearest public school was over an hour’s walk away. Children could walk that far at this time of year. But when it rained or snowed, the route was impassable. For most of the year, he told me, the public school was simply inaccessible to the children here. And when I asked the children themselves why they came to this school rather than the public school, all said that it was because of the inaccessibility of the public school.

  But second was the issue of expense. Tuition in his school was 60 yuan (about $7.50) per semester; on top of that was 25 yuan ($3.13) per semester for textbooks and exercise books. The nearest public school charged 75 yuan ($9.38) per semester, plus roughly the same charges for textbooks and exercise books. So his school was less expensive than the public school, even though it received none of the public school’s government funding!

  Getting fees from parents, all of whom were, needless to say in this remote village, peasant farmers, was a struggle. His biggest problem, however, was finding anyone able and willing to teach because people with high school diplomas didn’t want to come to a village such as his. Even young people from the village who had gained their high school diplomas didn’t want to return. So this year, because of teacher shortages, he had to “delete” the fourth and fifth grades, teaching only the first three grades with two other remaining teachers. They were both men with high school diplomas. They were each paid about 200 yuan (about $25) per month. So I calculated in my notebook while Xiang translated other questions, if he had 86 students paying 75 yuan ($9.38) per semester, his income was about 6,450 yuan ($806.25) per semester, or 1,075 yuan ($134.38) per month. So he probably took home slightly more than the other teachers and spent the remainder on school facilities, heating, chalk, books, food, and drink. Not a hugely profitable business, but nonetheless enough to keep it all running, if only he could find other teachers.

  What did he do before becoming a principal? Mr. Xing, translated Xiang, was “doing fieldwork”—that is, he was a peasant farmer in this village. His wife now did the fieldwork while he ran the school. They kept pigs (later I met them, sharing the same shack as the open-hole latrine) and bees for honey, and grew maize, potatoes, spinach, and beans. I didn’t see any chickens, which surprised me.

  I asked whether there were other private schools like his? He didn’t know, apologizing that he only rarely left his village. He thought there might be one or two, but not more: “Other people have different hobbies. This is my hobby, to run a school. It would be impossible for me to give up this occupation for any other!”

  When our interview was over and we had visited the school and spoken to the extremely shy and nervous children—all with very ruddy cheeks and a multitude of different-colored and irregularly fashioned clothes: no uniform here—the wonderful rural hospitality kicked in. No, we couldn’t leave yet. He herded us back to the warmth of the bed, insisting we remove our shoes again, and his wife nervously and shyly served us “pie,” broken-up, very greasy fried pastry, cooked in an oil called you bin, a culinary delight here, Xiang told me, but one which I found exceedingly bitter, rather too bitter to enjoy. A jar of honey was brought in, and Mr. Xing took a spoon and liberally spread it over the pastry. This was a real delicacy, said Xiang; I felt very guilty when Xiang told me that it would probably provide them with enough income for a month or more. But there was no stopping this hospitality. Mr. Xing then made us honey tea, over a tiny stove the size of a small teacup. In a filthy metal dish he heated up tea leaves and water, and then spoonfuls of honey were liberally applied. Relatives and villagers came to visit and share in banter and cigarettes while the children gazed in through the curtained windows.

  And for the next three days, we visited similar private schools, finding five in total. Only one was in a less remote village—meaning that we could reach it by car, although that still required an hour’s driving off the paved road. This one was founded by an ex-villager who had made some money through business in Sichuan province, giving something back to his community. It had one classroom, in which the head and only teacher instructed all age groups together. A tiny boy sat next to his big sister at the same desk. The children paid no fees; it was only for those who were too poor to attend public school. But all the others were in the remoter villages like Xu Wan Jia.

  On our second day, we found ourselves back in the town of Zhang County by midafternoon. Rather than try to find other schools, which would take hours, Xiang suggested we go to the Education Bureau, as a courtesy call, to begin the process of getting permission to do an in-depth study, and also to see if there was a list of private schools. The Education Bureau in Zhang County was just off the main street, close to the hotel, and seemed a superior-quality government office compared with those I was used to in India and Africa; but it was no more helpful. After waiting for awhile to see someone who might be responsible for private education, we were told that we first must go to the Government Office for “Helping the Poor” (Xiang’s translation) to gain permission before the list of private schools could be released to us. Fortunately, this was the imposing public building set back across the road right next to the hotel. We climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, to the “Office for Helping the Poor.” While cooling off outside, it was very warm inside; benefiting from the heat of paraffin heaters, two senior staff were reading daily newspapers. Along the wall, two brand-new computers, a printer, and fax machine sat, unpacked, and unused. The office contained no books, no files, just the unused computers and newspapers.

  The man and woman were friendly and helpful, making us hot tea in paper cups, but said there were no private schools in Zhang County, rural or urban. In any case, they couldn’t give us the permission required from the Education Bureau; in fact, they didn’t see why we need its permission at all. They called in the “Helping the Poor” bureau chief, a very young, very smiley, and pleasant official. He concurred that there were no private schools. In any case, he couldn’t give permission; we’d have to talk to the regional office in Ding Xi first, and if they gave permission, he might then consider it. Xiang cajoled him for some time, even gently stroking his arm as appeared to be acceptable here in rural Gansu, but he left the office without agreeing, purportedly to ask his supervisors. When he returned, he was not smiling: what we needed was not regional permission from Ding Xi, he reported, but permission from the province itself, in the capital Lanzhou. His advice, however, was to simply return to the Education Bureau anyway, as they might let us have the information now that we had visited him.

  Feeling relatively buoyant still, we headed back to the bureau, where we were told to wait while the dean of the office finished his meetings. We waited an hour. Finally, we were told that the dean of the o
ffice was not in today after all. Anyway, the junior official who had kept us waiting said that there were no private schools, so why did we want a list that didn’t exist? While we were waiting, I wandered around the spacious open office and stood admiring a map of Zhang County. When Xiang joined me, the junior official had coolly motioned for us to sit down. Outside, Xiang informed me that, on the map’s legend, there was a symbol for private school and there were two marked on the map, both of which we had already visited! Clearly, the local government knew at least some of these private schools. Equally as clearly, they didn’t seem to want us to know about them.

  The final private school we visited was the one that had initially drawn us to Zhang County—for apparently some journalists had visited and publicized its existence, and that was how Xiang had heard of it. We drove a few hours from the town, over mountain roads where our vehicle served to thresh the villagers’ corn as we went—they would lay it out in the road for any vehicle or animal to pass over. Harvesting was under way everywhere. Villagers were also threshing their corn in their courtyards and fields, horses and donkeys moving slowly around in a circle pulling a heavy weight behind, often guided by a young child. Ahead of us, children herded ducks, pigs, and chickens in the road. Again, at a relatively prosperous-looking village on the paved road, we negotiated the hire of a three-wheeler for the final leg of the journey. We left again up a riverbed, then over more mountains, crawled along a valley floor where the track merged with a fast-flowing stream, and entered a gorge, with imposingly high rocky sides only as wide as the track itself. Then we headed through verdant pastureland on the other side through more villages, past a nice looking public school (one with no foreign signs indicating support), and, finally after another hour of moving slowly over the bumpy, meandering track, we reached the village hosting Xin Ming—People’s Hearts—Primary School.

  Zhan Wang Xiu (the proprietress) greeted us warmly and ushered us into her tiny living room, again making us take off our shoes to sit comfortably on the earthenware bed. Although the late afternoon was cool, no fire warmed the bed this time. There was also no light; although the village apparently had electricity, there was no supply tonight. The classrooms were also very dark—we peered in and saw children working hard at their desks. The living room was wallpapered with newspaper. And she told us her story. Zhan Wang Xiu and her husband started the school in 1998. Now it had 52 students—38 girls and 14 boys. There were three teachers—the husband and wife and their 18-year-old son, whom they had persuaded to stay in the village and teach with them.

  Why did they start the school? Their village was very poor, she said, and the public school was over an hour away (we saw later when we returned that children could walk the route almost as quickly as we could drive it). The villagers especially do not pay attention to their girls, who cannot attend the public school because their parents don’t want them to travel that far or because they cannot afford the school fees. So the aim was to start a school mainly for these girls. She had seen how the girls “got cheated”—Xiang’s translation; I suppose she meant “harassed”—when they traveled on foot or on the three-wheelers to the school and wanted to spare them from this. The best way to eliminate poverty, she said, was to reduce women’s illiteracy, not to build a road (for which the local government, far from the village, was apparently agitating).

  She told a complicated story of how she and her husband were once public school teachers; she was hospitalized for a while, and her husband wanted to look after her; he lost his job too as a result. Returning to being peasant farmers, they realized that their true vocation lay in teaching and so decided to start the school. Every day they were happy, she says, because the children were around them. But before they started the school, the adults in the village wanted evening classes in literacy for themselves. Once the county saw the success of these classes, she said, they were given permission to open the school. They put all their own money into the school, which they set up in their own home after moving their own parents into another house in the village to make room for the classrooms. They charged 18 yuan (about $2.25) per term, but if three children were from one family, the third attended for free. (It was noticeable how little purchase China’s “one-child” policy seemed to have in the remote villages.) She said that 60 children in her village were still illiterate, and she wanted her school to expand. Some village children did go to the public school that we had passed, but its fees were 75 yuan ($9.38) per term, plus textbooks—too exorbitant for most of the villagers.

  Again, her big problem is finding teachers. Once they employed a woman teacher, at 800 yuan ($100) per year, but she decided that the salary wasn’t enough so she left for a job in Zhang County town. Their fifth-grade students were now facing graduation, but they needed teachers. So they asked their eldest son, who had passed high school, to come and help, and he agreed. He seemed happy enough. They didn’t pay him, except in kind, she joked, and he—coming to join us on the family bed—laughed too. They wanted to help him to go to university, but “What can I do?” she said. So he stayed to help the poor in their village. He has worked there for two years now. And he just received a prize from the government as the best third-grade teacher.

  Her husband, Chen Wang, arrived at nightfall. He taught all day and then left to work in the fields. “The fields still need us,” he joked. His warm greeting touched me deeply. He implored us to stay the night; I was really disappointed, but Xiang said we couldn’t, as our driver was waiting on the main road and we needed to be in Lanzhou the next day. But we must stay for dinner? Reluctantly, we told him we couldn’t; boarded our hired three-wheeler, which fortunately had a headlight; and went slowly down through the dark, negotiating the gorge, to driver Wang, who met us by the roadside and was very agitated because he thought something bad had befallen us in the mountains.

  Nemesis

  We arrived back in Lanzhou in time for lunch, then went to the Provincial Education Bureau to gain permission to do the study. The head of the Education Bureau was not in his office when we arrived; but when told by phone that a foreigner was waiting to see him, he said he would be there in 30 minutes. He actually arrived within 10 minutes, gave us scalding hot tea in paper cups, was very friendly, but told us, apologetically, that he had to follow the regulations, and so we must talk to the director of international cooperation and exchange first, a Mr. Ming Ding. Then he would happily do all he could to help our interesting project.

  Sitting at the computer, Mr. Ming’s assistant Mr. Zheng was rather put out that we arrived without an appointment; in any case, Mr. Ming was away and was far too busy to see us. He greeted me in impeccable English—as the interview progressed, I was very pleased that I realized his English was excellent, for otherwise I would have tried to speak with my student Xiang behind his back. Unfortunately for his story, Mr. Ming then arrived and greeted me in a very friendly fashion, waving aside Zheng’s scruples. He invited me into his office, all smiles. “Let them talk, I’m here now, they’ve come a long way!” Xiang translated. Zheng joined us with his notepad.

  Xiang introduced me and the project. Through him, I tell Mr. Ming that many people believed that private schools were only for the elite, but my research in India and Africa had shown private schools for the poor, and so forth. Was the same true for China, I wondered? To answer this question, I told him, we went to the mountains in Zhang County. “Who gave you permission?” interjected Mr. Ming, as he jerked forward in his seat at this point in the translation, deeply concerned. “Who did you report to there?” I reassured him that it was not a research visit, just a tourist visit to see if the research was possible, and we did pay courtesy calls, as was the truth, to the Education Bureau and other bureaus. So I continued, but the atmosphere had changed now, and Xiang’s voice became more hesitant and nervous. So, I continued, we found five private schools for the poor, and now that we knew the phenomenon existed, we were seeking permission to do a wider study.

  Mr. Ming was si
lent for a while. Then he leaned forward and said that he had some questions and comments. First, what are the aims and objectives of your project? I asked Xiang to explain them again. Ming looked very puzzled. Zheng then asked in Chinese, who was funding it? I told him of the John Templeton Foundation. He asked of its aims and objectives, and I tried my best to describe an American philanthropic foundation. Then Ming took over the questioning again. He spoke slowly and coolly: “We will need to be convinced that there is a research project to be done. In your case, it is hard to see how this is possible because the People’s Republic of China has achieved universal basic education. This means that public education serves all the poor as well as the rich. So there are no private schools for the poor, because the People’s Republic has provided all the poor with public schools. So what you propose to research does not only not exist, it is also a logical impossibility.”

  I felt suddenly immersed in George Orwell’s 1984. Black was white, and white was black. What I’d seen did not exist because it was logically impossible. I had not expected anything like this. My mouth got dry, my body tensed. And as English-speaking Zheng was sitting there, I could not ask Xiang what on earth we should do next.

  He continued: “Of course we are pleased to welcome research that helps the poor. We are not saying that everything is perfect in the public schools that the People’s Republic has provided for all. A good example of research”—I couldn’t believe that I was going to hear this again—“is the DfID’s Gansu Basic Education Project, which is providing SDPs, school development plans, which are a valuable way of helping the poor, and we are grateful to the British government for sponsoring this important and worthwhile project. Why don’t you find a good project to do, like school development plans, rather than your strange ideas?”