One's heart goes out to teachers in rural areas
Yesterday's People's Daily carried a moving photograph: a woman pushing a tricycle in the rain. She was drenched but the goods on the vehicle were well covered by plastic sheets. A placard hung on the handle read: "I buy reading materials, magazines and auxiliary teaching materials for primary school students."
The woman in the photograph is Li Ling, headmistress of a primary school in Huaiyang county, Henan province. She was in Zhengzhou, the province's capital, collecting second-hand books for her students back in the Hope School she set up seven years ago in her hometown after she graduated from a local normal school.
Her deeds began circulating online a few days ago, and netizens lauded her as the "most beautiful rural school headmaster born after 1980". In fact, the 27-year-old woman is not pretty and looks much older than her age - apparently a result of her hard work and the harsh conditions she lives and works under.
