the other end of the spectrum - Part 2

so we've got the yy experience. thought that was enough to prepare me for what to expect at a town/village school. the only prior knowledge i had of the school was that it had 700 kids. cos when i was arranging with my prof, she asked me to plan some activities for them, and when i asked her how many were there so that i can plan properly she said "There are over 700 children at the school. You can have as many as you want." fwaa. 700 kids. with 17 pple at 100 plus per school, it was already more than enough for us to handle.. now got 700!

so when i reached the primary school, i got a shock of my life. it was an 80 million yuan school (according to the vice-principal. might be exaggerated figure). The story of the school was that everything was flattened. so they combined two village schools and put it in the town. (equivalent of combining Gan Tang Zi and Tang Fang, and relocating them into the Xing Jie Town) plus other random students, the total student population was 700.

the thing about the school was that the facilities are by far many times better than a singapore school. amazing stuff. before the earthquake.. there were village schools that were similar to the ones in yunnan. now they have took a technological leap of 50 years to arrive at this new school.

so.. intro u the sch first.


name of school!


main building of the school and assembly area. this is only half of the main building. the other part is on the right. cant take it in the photo cos its an l-shaped building. (if you look closely they even have a monument at the base of the flagpole.


they have a 5 lane track...... with 2 basketball courts on it. building in the left.. is a INDOOR MULTIPURPOSE HALL.


canteen is a multi-storey building....


the building at the far end is a hostel. all the students and teachers (except those who live nearby) stay there.


hostel room... staff get one room to themselves, although there are 8 beds in in there.. haha. students get 8 to a room. the hostel is big enough to accommodate about 700 kids.. and about 80 staff. outstanding.


corridor lights. and stairs lights... ARE AUTOMATED. WTH. so the part that you walk will be lighted up. and it will off automatically. every fllight of steps have one sensor at the start and one at the end. and the building is like 5 stories. whole corridor is filled with those sensors too.


stack of books tt jsut arrived that are yet to be sorted. massive stack. the mini stack (like 1/20 of the stack here.) we bought for the sch in yunnan was like 4000 yuan? these must have cost a lot more. and the best part of it... is those are the unsorted ones.


there are already 3 FULL shelves. (all double sided) and quite long. like nus book shelf length. ALL BRAND NEW BOOKS. and they even have a security system thing. the piece of barcode thing that is hidden in everybook and beeps if u try to steal it when u walk pass the sensors at the door. WTH.


ALL classrooms have a HDTV. (sch has 700 kids. each class has about 30 kids. you can do the maths yourself.) goodness me. what kind of tv programs do they have to watch. chalk board is brand new as u can see. and they all have proper tables and chairs.


school is powered by lenovo. brand new computers.. all dual core kind. and there are many many many many sets of them around...

and well the last thing...

our beloved toilets. despite the advancement (its a very big toilet. they have working taps. proper cubicles.) ... the smell is still the same. :)


so a little introduction of the school. a very different face from the village schools we visited in yunnan. some questions that you may have in mind.. will answer/explain two things here.

1) the thing about the chinese that is really interesting is that.. they like to build infrastructure (i'll explain this another day if i have time.). so they build this new 80 million yuan complex. (the secondary school costs 100 million yuan.) this primary school is way more advanced than any pri sch in singapore. maybe even better or comparable to a JC standard. everyone is excited. this great new school to go etc.

but.. the people are still villagers. they are farmers at heart. the biggest problem they face now is that they don't know how to fully utilize the technology. also, all the money has been spent on the infrastructure, but almost none on the heartware. all the teaching material, style of teaching, quality of food at the canteen (malnourishment for the kids.) remain the same. moreover, the principal has never managed such a large compound and this big a number of people. he gets headache everyday trying to solve the problems.

so in a way.. the chinese are a real mysterious lot of pple.

2) so.. 80 million yuan.. where did it come from? the money was donated by the 2nd artillery division (or battalion? not too sure.) of the People's Liberation Army (china army). so then. why does the defense ministry have to pay for such rebuilding works????? and also.. usually the civil servants always say they do not have much money, in terms of salary, etc. and they are also forever trying to push the central govt to increase their budget so they have more money for operating.. so second question is where does the money come from then?

speculated answer: the army unofficially runs a side business. like they invest in stuff, and therefore are quite well off. so helping to rebuild the school is a show of generosity of the 2nd artillery division, because education is very important. also creates the image thing. may include some altruism elements too.

to be continued..