Editor's Notes: 
Albert Zhongyang Hu, 12th Grader at San Marino High School, California, and his father Scott Hu visited Zidu Village, Beishan Township, Yi Nationality autonomous prefecture, Sichuan Province from June 19 to June 26, 2011. Following is part of Albert's diary and photos that he wanted to share with China Daily website readers. "To be honest, after experiencing life in this village, I felt like I had not really lived in San Marino." said Albert. 

Day 1 (Sunday 19 June 2011): 

These people are known as the Yi people. Their language sounds and looks different from Mandarin, but lucky enough for Dad and me, Teacher Luo (Yi name: Bufu Chee’er) speaks fluently enough to communicate with us. Everyone here is so nice; Teacher Luo says everyone is very welcoming and kind-hearted unless they’re mistreated. We’ve also been briefed on the corrupt politics here. The Zi Du village head  doesn’t even live here; when he made enough money he moved into the city and now the Zi Du denizens have a really hard time contacting him with any concerns of theirs. They need roads built and their electricity system has to be fixed but the village head can easily brush away their needs when he lives three hours away by foot. 

Their house is a one-room mud building. There are three beds in Teacher Luo’s house; Dad and I are going to sleep on the ground in the middle. We had a simple dinner of buckwheat bread and boiled lettuce. Mrs. Luo (Yi name: A’ze Wuger)cooked it in a huge iron over a campfire-like thing. The bread and lettuce were bland but she made a soy sauce+ chili pepper mixture on the side for flavoring. After she was done cooking the dishes, she served them in plastic bowls and we gathered around and scooped food into our mouths with ladle-like spoons and chopsticks. 

They have chickens, pigs, a horse, a cat, and a kitten. They have an unlimited water source coming down from the mountains and it’s fresh and safe to drink but risky for outsiders who aren’t used to it. I’m sticky and I’ll only get stickier over the next few days. Although they have an unlimited water source, the water stream is very small, and the flow of water is frequently interrupted by other users upstream. There’s not really enough water for full-body washing. 

Day 2 (Mon 20 June 2011): 

Dad made me a poster board to raise awareness for this whole trip, and that was back in the end of May/ Beginning of June right before school was out. He stumbled upon Mr. Huang’s blog and saw pictures of this village and once we had finalized the trip, he wanted me to get my friends and classmates to help out with donations of any kind. On the board, he pasted pictures of the children, their eyes staring at you, their faces splotched with mud and sun-tanned to a dirt-brown. One can tell they have nothing, whereas San Marinians have iPads, Janoskis, Priuses. While the villagers here don’t even have much furniture. The best things are the three beds off to the sides of the room. The school’s walls are cracked and eroded. 

Back in my school in San Marino, California, before the schools ends on June 14th, the poster board stood in the breezeway during snack breaks and lunch time for a few days. I’m willing to bet that at most, one or two people actually took the time to glance over those pictures. But even I, the person responsible for the board, didn’t understand the slightest bit as to what the children in the pictures actually go through. Without the actual experience, it’s so hard to empathize with such a different lifestyle. 

Teacher Luo teaches at Lai Luo elementary school from Monday to Saturday. He took Dad and me along today on his 1 ½ hour walk to the school. The whole school grounds covers as much land as a house in San Marino. It has three rooms on one side and two more on the other. Each room has one window that barely lets in any light, but the kids are positioned with their backs to the window so that the books get some light. Still, their desks are way too high and the stools are too low. 

The buildings are all mud. Even the children look like they’re made of mud. 

Teacher Luo and Teacher Li both work at Lai Luo elementary. Teacher Li starts the day off because he lives right there on school grounds. He mainly teaches language- mandarin. Most of the Yi children don’t have an understanding of mandarin because it’s a totally different language to them. Teacher Li has them write the Chinese characters as well as the pin yin, and he helps them repeat the pronunciation over and over, often sounding extremely frustrated. Later in the day, Teacher Luo works with the students on math: addition and subtraction. 

The kids do this for hours. Some of them catch on really quickly because they’re a little older and a little more mature or because they’ve repeated the grade. These kids are perhaps eleven or twelve. The younger children ages seven to ten, often have difficulty learning new material and rely mostly on rote memorization. They get a short break every now and then and find unlimited fun in throwing around a basketball or kicking a soccer ball aimlessly, tripping over each other and getting up again. The girls play jump rope in the corner. 

At lunch, Teacher Li cooked for the children. He fried some shredded potatoes and distributed a few bites to each of them. They barely have anything to eat- a few mouthfuls of rice or a buckwheat bun is all their parents pack for them; and these kids are considered lucky because volunteers had donated lunch bins for each student. The unluckier ones bring a handful of steamed rice in a plastic bag. When Teacher Li called “LUNCH TIME!” the children rushed into the classroom and grab their lunch bins. Every third student dragged out the stools. They lined up along the middle of the school grounds and got ready to eat. 

While they worked, I came around with some Utraman and Mickey Mouse stickers. Whoever showed me a problem solved correctly got one on his or her pencil case. If they didn’t get it on the first try, I’d point it out and show them an example. 

Ma Jianyong is a twelve year old kid at the school who repeated the second grade. He’s one of the more understanding and knowledgeable kids. He can speak and understand quite a bit of Mandarin and he knows to be clean. 

Teacher Luo’s daughters are so cute! All the children here are actually really pretty. They tend to have huge round eyes. Teacher Luo’s daughters are smaller than the other kids in terms of both age and size, but their small physiques are due to poor nutrition. Teacher Luo believes it’s okay to sacrifice money and nutrition as long as his children are receiving a good education. 

Around here, babies drool all over their clothes, and a lot of the smaller kids have pants that are ripped down the middle. Kids are really easy to raise here though. When they cry the adults rarely mind them. Kids of ten or eleven learn to take the horse out. Even Teacher Luo’s three year old son passes out rice and helps with the dishes. 

I was tired today. No lunch, not enough sleep, stomachaches, diarrhea, diarrhea, vomiting, homesickness… To be honest, after experiencing life in this village, I felt like I had not really lived in San Marino. All those AP tests, SATs, gossiping with friends, fooling around with Kenneth… They all seem slightly less meaningful in comparison to these experiences. When I go back I really need to open myself up and live and appreciate life. I miss everybody. 

Day 3 (Tue 21 June 2011): 

Teacher Bufuleetee came over in the morning and took the three of us, Teacher Luo, Dad and me, to his place for a visit. We didn’t know that he wanted to treat us to a fantastic meal. In his mind, we probably weren’t going to visit him again for the duration of the trip, so he prepared some of the best foods he has: a fresh chicken and some smoked pork. In the villages on the mountains, people rarely eat meat. They kill pigs during the New Year festival or on very special occasion. Villagers will all share the pork, big or small. The family that owns the pig will also save some by smoking the meat. But Teacher Luo said by this time of the year, not many families will still have any pork left. Teacher Luo has long ran out of smoked pork. 

They usually don’t eat meat on a regular basis. Teacher Luo said that it’s important to kill a chicken as a sign of respect, and let the young people who are visiting eat the wing as good fortune - in this case, me. 

I’m awfully emotional today. I think Teacher Luo is really getting to me. While he was talking to Dad about yet another Yi tradition and yet another poor, tragic fact of life for them, I teared up a little. How can they do this? How can these children do their homework by a fading campfire light? How can these people skip lunch every day and eat only potatoes and grains? How can they wipe their faces on mud-caked clothing? How can they trek across rocky mountain paths for hours just to go to a poorly-lit, poorly-staffed, poorly-equipped, one-room school? These children need opportunity. These children need help. It’s a shame. 

For some reason, the more days I’ve been here the more I feel like an outsider. I feel like my presence is more and more of a bother and I don’t know how to behave anymore. These people have such different customs and I can’t seem to get myself to fit in. My Chinese is bad so I can’t communicate well. 

A thunderstorm broke out of nowhere and Teacher Luo’s family sat with us around the fire and Dad got the kids to start singing some of the songs Teacher Li taught them. Teacher Luo showed us some Yi songs and translated them for us. They’re beautiful. He even started teaching me some of it. Sitting around the fire that night was so fulfilling. 

Day 4 (Wed 22 June 2011): 

Teacher Luo has been wearing the same shirt since I first met him. I haven’t changed either. He also wears a jacket that fits him pretty well and looks nice and warm, but I don’t know how much that counts for when he has to wear it for pretty much 365 days a year. Today he ditched his sneakers for rain boots because of the thunderstorm last night. That storm was intense. Teacher Luo had us turn off our flashlights and phones and whatnot to avoid lighting strike. He had a bad experience once involving a lightning strike and half a wall blown down. 

When we arrived at Lai Luo elementary today, the rain still poured and Teacher Li was preparing a fire to dry the kids off, right there in the class room. The rain started to erode parts of the building so the teachers were getting worried. Donning my rain coat, I helped shovel pounds and pounds of mud that blocked the rain water from washing away out the side of the building. While standing around the campfire in the classroom, Dad tried to get the kids to sing again. This one girl, La’er Huoyi was especially good. Her voice has depth and tone inflection. Hearing her sing while crowded amongst twenty-eight other children who were smiling despite the rain and mud and poverty, with Teacher Li struggling to keep the fire going, I almost cried. 

Day 5 (Thur 23 June 2011): 
 
I got three bug bites on my left arm. Dad thinks they’re flea bites. I’m curious as to why Teacher Luo and his family haven’t been bitten. My left arm is completely swollen and it’s scaring me. I’ll just have to wait it out.