Evening Stars Chapter 14
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 14
There were only two days left in the week. On Friday afternoon, after assigning homework, Xu Nanheng held a meeting with the other teachers and the principal.
Since the school didn't have a projector, Xu Nanheng could only pass around his own laptop so the teachers could look at the placement test paper prepared by the main school in Beijing for the volunteer teaching posts.
After reviewing the paper, the teachers initially felt the difficulty was a bit high, but after some discussion, they still decided to use it. Then Xu Nanheng relayed some points that had come up in discussions with other volunteer teachers.
The meeting was held in the faculty office, where two desks were pushed together so everyone could sit in a circle.
Xu Nanheng said, “The volunteer teachers unanimously reported that the students have a very weak academic foundation. Catching up on foundational knowledge during the third year of junior high requires a significant amount of time, extensive practice exercises, and a great deal of memorization. But we agreed that we could adopt targeted remedial classes for art students in their final year of senior high, and apply it to teaching the final year of junior high in the volunteer teaching program.”
Teacher Tsering looked at him. “Targeted remedial classes for art students? You mean, in the third year, we also have to cover the material from the first and second years?”
“Targeted remedial classes for art students,” Xu Nanheng said firmly, meeting his gaze, “are taught solely for the sake of the academic subjects in the college entrance exam. So it's not about reteaching all the previous material, but rather to target the exam specifically.”
What he said was actually a bit harsh, because the junior high school curriculum weren't just about knowledge points but also a lot of content that shaped students' worldview, and even essential courses like health education.
Xu Nanheng spoke these words because he had a clear purpose in mind. He had driven over 3,500 kilometers by himself, in a single car, pushing hard to arrive in just four or five days. For a journey that long, what level of learning would it take for a child from these remote mountains to make it all the way to Beijing?
Sonam Tsomo hesitated. “Won't this put too much pressure on the students?”
Xu Nanheng blurted out, “They don't seem to have much academic pressure right now.”
“They have a lot to do after school,” Sonam Tsomo explained patiently. “They help with farm work and household chores. Take Dasang Choedon, for example. After eating at school, she goes home to cook for her bedridden grandfather. On top of that, she has to prepare pig feed and milk the cows. And now that it's almost September, the harvest season is coming. They……”
“Hold on a moment, I apologize, Principal,” Xu Nanheng interrupted. “I understand that the children here help with farm work and household chores, but they're in their final year now. Their future is at stake.”
Sonam Tsomo was a gentle woman. She always spoke softly and wasn't quick to refute Xu Nanheng's idealistic statement. She lifted her teacup and took a small sip before saying, “Teacher Xu, I truly appreciate your passion for teaching. And I understand that you're from Beijing, and after seeing the conditions here, the only thing you can think of is helping these children get out.”
She wasn't wrong. Xu Nanheng was very well-mannered. In recent days, during tasks ranging from cleaning the classroom to assisting in the kitchen with pots and bowls, he never showed the faintest distaste, even as an unconscious reaction, despite his lack of efficiency.
Sonam Tsomo genuinely appreciated him. She continued, “But change takes time. Most of their parents who can speak Mandarin go out to work, and those who can't speak Mandarin do manual labor for the construction crews down the mountain. These children, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old, are the main laborers in their homes. They plant potatoes, dig caterpillar fungus, and herd cattle and sheep.”
Xu Nanheng fell silent for a long time.
During that silence, a faint regret crossed his mind. Maybe he had gone too far scolding Zhou Yang yesterday. Maybe that was the only time Zhou Yang ever felt relaxed.
Sonam Tsomo deliberately left him that silence. She knew he needed time to digest everything. For a young teacher from the capital, it was likely that even his social media algorithms wouldn't push this kind of content to him.
So, many times, people found themselves stuck in a predicament.
That predicament could usually be seen as a dead end. Parents left home to earn a living, but with them gone, the children had to take care of the elderly and the little ones. Although Zhou Yang may seem lazy and careless, he was the one responsible for looking after his two younger brothers and one younger sister.
The meeting on Friday afternoon ultimately did not reach any concrete conclusion. Xu Nanheng lay on his dorm bed. Padded with several layers of mattresses, it felt soft and warm. As August drew to a close, Tibet was gradually growing colder, just as Fang Shiyou had said.
That night, Xu Nanheng couldn't sleep for a long time. He began to doubt the significance of his volunteer teaching here.
Here, the concept of a distant ‘future’ held little motivational power. A far more potent and immediate force was at work. It was called ‘survival.’
Xu Nanheng let out a long sigh.
The young master rarely felt so powerless or lost. But the world was a massive pyramid, and that was simply how it worked.
His phone buzzed.
Xu Nanheng lifted it up to his face and unlocked it.
A WeChat message from Fang Shiyou: [Done for the day?]
[Just finished the meeting. Lying down now.]
[Can you come downstairs?]
“Hm?” Xu Nanheng sat up, then remembered that Fang Shiyou told him he'd be back in two weeks. Which meant that next week, Fang Shiyou would be on duty for a week at the small hospital.
Xu Nanheng: [Sure. You're downstairs at the school?]
[I am now.]
Xu Nanheng quickly put on his shoes and used the front camera to check if his hair was sticking up from lying down.
Fang Shiyou had just walked over from the small hospital. He didn't go upstairs, just stood under the front porch outside Class 1, holding a bag that looked fairly heavy.
When he saw Xu Nanheng coming down, he smiled. “The county hospital handed out fruits today. I brought you some.”
Once Xu Nanheng accepted someone as a friend, he became incredibly open and comfortable with them, just like he was at home. Hearing that Fang Shiyou had brought him fruits, he grinned. “Hey, no need to be so polite! What did you bring? Let me see.”
Then he reached his finger out to hook the plastic bag Fang Shiyou was holding and peeked inside.
Due to the high altitude and climatic conditions in Tibet, only a few types of fruit could be grown in the past. Later, with better cultivation techniques and transportation from places like Sichuan and Xinjiang, the variety of fruit in the city and county areas greatly increased.
But the villages still didn't have such access. Since coming here, the only fruit Xu Nanheng had eaten regularly were apples.
“Dragon fruit, muskmelon, and oranges,” Fang Shiyou replied, holding the other handle of the bag. “I wasn't sure what you like, but fruits are pretty scarce around here. Once it gets cold, there'll be even less, so I grabbed a bit of everything.”
“I like all of it.” As Xu Nanheng spoke, he picked out an orange. It was the peelable type, not one that needed a knife, which was perfect.
Fang Shiyou had initially worried he might be too embarrassed to accept them, but now he relaxed as he watched Xu Nanheng dig his thumb into the peel and begin to strip it away.
While peeling, he said, “We had a meeting tonight.”
“Mm.” Fang Shiyou turned around, went into Class 1, and brought out two stools. Xu Nanheng glanced at them, didn't stand on ceremony at all, and plopped down onto one.
Xu Nanheng continued, “The kids here really go home to do farm work?”
Fang Shiyou nodded. “Yeah. Most of their families have both the elderly and the young to look after. Oh right, I almost forgot.”
He pulled a flat box from his jacket pocket and handed it over. “Dasang Choedon's in your class, right? Can you help me give this to her on Monday when you have class? It's a medicated plaster to promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis for her grandfather's back.”
“Got it.” Xu Nanheng split the peeled orange in half and handed one to him. “You can just drop it in the fruit bag.”
Fang Shiyou did, then asked, “So what made you ask about that?”
“Don't even mention it.” Xu Nanheng bit into a slice of orange and looked up at the stars. “We had a meeting this evening, and I let slip that I wanted to intensify the teaching pace. The kids' foundations are too weak. For this year's third-year junior high students, I am considering adopting the targeted remedial classes typically used for art students preparing for the college entrance exam.”
“That won't work.” Fang Shiyou wasn't half as tactful as Sonam Tsomo. “They wouldn't be able to handle it.”
“But what if they don't study, Dr. Fang?” Xu Nanheng turned to him, meeting his eyes. “What could be done? If they don't study and if they don't take the exams, would they spend the next several decades just……just living out their lives here? Or maybe go work as a migrant laborer? But with only a junior high school diploma and no further education, what kind of job can they even get?”
Fang Shiyou lowered his head. He knew Xu Nanheng was an educator and understood his perspective. In fact, he could even guess that these words were something Xu Nanheng only dared to say to him. He wouldn't have said it that bluntly in the meeting.
“Teacher Xu,” Fang Shiyou said, turning slightly toward him, “let me tell you something that happened during one of our medical outreaches.
“On one occasion, we went to a very remote village. The road there wasn't even wide enough for a car, so we had to load the medicine onto an ox cart. There was a Tibetan doctor in that village, the kind of unlicensed practitioner you mentioned. Do you know how outdated their methods were? They still used ‘hot stone therapy.’ What's that, you ask? Say you have pain somewhere. I'd heat a smooth stone until it's hot, then press it against that spot.”
Xu Nanheng frowned instinctively, finding it hard to believe.
It truly was unbelievable. Even without any medical knowledge, he could tell that this kind of method was ridiculously primitive.
“But ‘hot stone therapy’ was the best they could do,” Fang Shiyou continued. “A few years ago, their way of treating illness was still exorcism. The people in that village commonly suffered from severe joint diseases, skin conditions, and gynecological problems. You remember we talked about Dolkar, right? Healthcare here is heavily subsidized, but villagers still refuse to go to hospitals for checkups. That's because they're the main laborers at home. If they leave to see a doctor, who'll take care of the children, the fields, the livestock? Many of them barely have time for a hot meal. They eat tsampa, yogurt, or dried raw beef.”
Xu Nanheng more or less understood.
Ultimately, this was the predicament.
Xu Nanheng wanted the children to focus solely on studying, while Fang Shiyou hoped his patients would go to the hospital for proper treatment. Both of them wanted the people they cared for to be able to leave the village.
But things were never that simple. In this world, very few things ever were.
Principal Sonam's ‘understanding’ came from recognizing Xu Nanheng's intentions. Fang Shiyou's ‘understanding’ came from truly feeling them. The two were on the same wavelength.
“I'm too idealistic.” Xu Nanheng sighed, then popped another orange slice into his mouth. “This is quite sweet.”
Seeing that his mood was still decent, Fang Shiyou also relaxed a bit . “Anyway, these things don't change overnight, nor can they be changed by just one or two people. The people here have to ‘stay alive’ first, and only after that can they ‘live well.’ I can't really advise you on anything, Teacher Xu. All we can do is our best.”
“Mhm.” Xu Nanheng nodded.
After sharing the orange, the two sat quietly under the starlit porch for a while, then returned the stools to the classroom. They said goodnight and went their separate ways.
Fang Shiyou thought that after this talk, Xu Nanheng would finally let things go.
But at exactly nine o'clock on Saturday morning, Xu Nanheng showed up at the hospital looking for him.
Fang Shiyou was startled, thinking something had happened to Xu Nanheng. After all, this was the kind of person who usually slept in till the afternoon on a weekend. “What's wrong?” Fang Shiyou asked when he ran into him in the hospital corridor.
“I need to borrow the printer. I'm printing a set of papers,” Xu Nanheng said. “The principal said we print papers at the hospital.”
“Oh.” Fang Shiyou said, “Go to the nurses' station. They have one there.”
“Got it.”
Fang Shiyou asked, “Why are you here printing test papers so early in the morning?”
Xu Nanheng didn't bother hiding it. He followed Fang Shiyou into the consultation room, closed the door behind him, sat down on the stool beside Fang Shiyou's desk, and took out his phone to show him. On the screen was a chat with Teacher Tan Xi. Fang Shiyou glanced at it.
Xu Nanheng gripped his wrist. “Even the kids in Daliang Mountains are starting remedial classes. How can a teacher in the Himalayas sleep! I have to compete to death with Teacher Tan!”
“Remedial classes?” Fang Shiyou asked. “Didn't the Ministry of Education ban that?”
And why did all these volunteer teachers have to compete with each other? Was this some big-city specialty?
Xu Nanheng narrowed his eyes, leaned closer, and smiled mischievously. “I asked Teacher Tan about it. He looked it up too. The ban is only on paid remedial classes. The Ministry of Education document is titled, ‘Regulations Strictly Prohibiting Paid Remedial Classes by Primary and Secondary School Teachers.’ Ours is unpaid, so we're fine. As for the kids' home situations, I'll figure something out.”
He leaned even closer and added, “Besides, with the sky high and the emperor far away, who's going to report me? I'll just stick a sign on my dorm door that says ‘Academic Affairs Office’ and see who dares to accuse this official!”
Fang Shiyou: “……”
Were volunteer teachers this audacious nowadays?