(Ecns.cn)--"There comes Mr. Shi!" shouted the kids, as they watched a middle-aged guy in a brown shirt approach in a boat. Shi Lansong helped the kids onboard and pushed off after they had gotten seated.
Shi has served as a "boatman" for about 26 years, and ferried over 1,000 kids. He is also a teacher at a rural school in Dalongdong of Shanglin County in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Shi still recalls what his teacher, who lay on his deathbed, told him back in 1985: "The kids in the mountain villages cannot be without a teacher. Come back and teach them, okay?" At that time, young Shi was working hard to prepare for the college entrance examination.
"Okay," he replied.
However, Shi was hesitant about the offer, worrying that he might never create a better life in the world outside the impoverished village.
But after battling with himself, he eventually decided to accept the offer in order to help later generations get out of the poor area.
There was only one classroom and one office at the school where he started. Without a teacher, students could only try to learn by themselves through the illustrations in their books. They did not understand Mandarin, and did not trust Shi the first day they met.
"Do you know why you study?" Shi asked.
"No," answered the kids, which shocked Shi, though he knew that even their parents did not know how important studying was.
Realizing that only education could change the fate of these poor rural kids, Shi went door to door to persuade parents to allow their children to go to school.
Eventually he won the support of the village. But in addition to the traditional stereotypes towards education, transportation was another tough problem.
Though only one kilometer from a local village, the school might as well have been miles away, as the steep path to get to it wound through hills and required the crossing of a deep lake.
To make it easier for kids to get to school, Shi built a wooden boat and began ferrying them back and forth across the lake every day.
Since then, Shi has found it hard to leave the village, though he could have had a better life somewhere else.
As a substitute teacher, Shi is paid very low, but still spends most of his salary on his students. His own son had to give up on college due to the financial strain.
In 1994, Shi's brother, a migrant worker in Guangdong Province, found a job for Shi in the capital of Guangzhou, which offered a monthly salary of over 1,000 yuan.
"That's many times higher than my current wage," said Shi, who only made about 200 yuan a month at that time.
"With that money, our son could go to school again," his wife said.
Though the offer aroused Shi's interest, he finally turned it down. "If I leave, who will ferry the kids to school?" explained Shi, adding that he felt deeply sorry for his family.
"I'd better stay. Before, the kids needed me, but now I need them," Shi told his wife.
After settling down to be a rural teacher, Shi put more effort into escorting his students safely, especially after a rainstorm nearly wrecked the boat.
"As long as I am with them, nobody will fall out," vowed Shi.
He has kept his word. For 26 years, no accidents have happened.
In September 2010, Shi's ninth boat was put into operation with donations from Beijing. He named the iron boat "Hope."
Currently, there are about 10 kids in Shi's class, all about six years old. The youngest can barely hold a pen.
"These are left-behind children, who desperately need to be loved by adults," said Shi.
Every year after Spring Festival, many parents go to cities to do odd jobs, and leave their kids with Shi. "We may not be back for years. Please take care of our kids," some of them say.
In the countryside, some kids, especially those who live with their grandparents, are often slovenly dressed and suffer from hunger. Shi does his best to help them, by tidying their clothes and cooking for them.
"He is a teacher, a boatman and a babysitter," commented the grandfather of one of his students.
