Book To The Future

A former headmaster has spent a decade building libraries to improve the prospects of illiterate children in Hunan province, as Wang Yuke reports from Hong Kong.

The children couldn't read. That was the first thing Leung Waiming, a former headmaster from Hong Kong, noticed when he visited a rural school in Shaoshan, a city in Hunan province, in 2007. What possible future could they expect in the modern technological era? he wondered.

When Leung asked to visit the school library, he was taken to a small room - practically a closet - where books sat on a narrow shelf, covered in dust. He was shocked by the apparent indifference to reading.