Profile: 97-year-old retired teacher's unwavering devotion to rural children

HEFEI, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Someone once told Ye Lianping that if he charged just 500 yuan (about 69.4 U.S. dollars) per student, he'd be a millionaire by now.

"What good would being a millionaire do me?" Ye posed this question in response to the idea, saying, "That's not what I'm after."

For the retired school teacher, nothing is more precious than time spent in the classroom with his students. Even amid national accolades, the nonagenarian would say modestly that he only did a teacher's duty -- what one ought to, can, and must do well.

In more than three decades since he left his post, Ye has never really stopped teaching. Now, at 97 years old, he still stands in front of his chalkboard, devoting his days to the children of Buchen Village in Hexian County, east China's Anhui Province.

In 2000, as more and more parents left their hometown to find jobs in cities as migrant workers, their kids ended up staying behind, usually with elderly relatives. Seeing the village children struggling with English and having no one to turn to, Ye took action by establishing a volunteer after-school classroom he called the "home for left-behind children." There, he has been offering free English lessons to rural students for the past 25 years.

Since then Ye has tutored more than 2,000 children without charging a single cent. He often said he was in a race against time to teach as many students as possible. For him, every extra day he spent in classroom felt like a gift that had to be cherished.

Ye's own life has been shaped by hardship, resilience, and an enduring love of learning. Born in 1928 in the coastal city of Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province, he grew up during a turbulent era.

As a young man, his father's job as a cook at the U.S. embassy in Nanjing prior to 1949 unexpectedly opened doors for him -- it was there that Ye picked up his English through odd jobs.

After years of hardship, including laboring in brick kilns and pigsties, he eventually landed a teaching post at Buchen School in 1978, thanks to the villagers' trust. Then already 50 years old, Ye threw himself into the role with passion, as if he was making up for lost time.

Retirement at 63 devastated Ye. Colleagues remember seeing him in tears in front of a desk in his empty classroom after handing in his teaching materials to the faculty office, utterly reluctant to leave.

In retirement, he remained a constant presence at the school, returning as a volunteer substitute teacher, unable to walk away from the children who still needed him. Not a dime of his substitute pay stayed in his pocket -- it all ended up with the kids.

"If you expect me to just laze around after retirement -- smoking, boozing, playing mahjong and traveling around... forget it," Ye said. "That's not me."

Now, Ye still teaches three times a week on Wednesday afternoons and weekend mornings. Even with failing eyesight and shaky steps, his teaching voice still carries a powerful tone, filling the classroom with undimmed vigor.

Critics once branded him "old fool" for undercutting paid tutors, but labels never bothered him. Instead, he poured his heart, soul, and savings into students -- funding meals, field trips, even a bike for one struggling parent.

"True love asks nothing in return. A teacher lacking love for both profession and students will fail," Ye noted. "Yet balance is key: nurture without overindulgence."

Having no children of his own, Ye has always lived a modest life, free from material desires. He neither smokes nor drinks, and his breakfast is typically quite simple -- just a bowl of noodles or two packets of instant black sesame porridge mixed with hot water. He'd even bring homemade food when going out to buy books, refusing to spend money on something as basic as bottled water.

His Spartan home holds relics: a 30-year-old teacup, threadbare shirts, a broken badminton racket-turned pointer, and a dictionary barely holding its brittle pages together. In his classroom, he saves every scrap of chalk -- even the tiniest chalk stubs are used until they're too small to pinch between his fingers.

While he may be stingy with himself, Ye is extravagantly generous when it comes to his students. In 2012, fundraising together with the township government and Buchen School, Ye seeded a scholarship with 21,000 yuan savings, now grown to over 400,000 yuan aiding more than 400 rural children. For 13 years straight, every award or donation he received went right to his scholarship fund.

Even getting sick was not enough to deter him from his passion. After cataract surgeries in 2010, he'd teach with one eye patched, never missing a single class. Later, he underwent emergency surgeries -- first for a cerebral hemorrhage, then a craniotomy -- yet demanded that he be discharged within a week, barely kept bedridden by such major procedures.

By late August 2024, a recurring back injury required daily acupuncture. Still, he showed up for the first day of fall semester.

"His doctor insisted on hospitalization, and I urged him to postpone classes," said Ju Pingshu, Ye's former student and now Party secretary at Buchen School. "But the moment he thought of the children, he flatly refused."

Moved by Ye's story, college volunteers from across the country flock yearly to his classrooms, expanding curricula to music and science. Walls bear accolades, with a silk banner hailing him as "the countryside's undying candlelight."

"Candles outshine me. I'm just a little firefly," Ye said. Yet to the many children whose lives he has touched, Ye's small light has carried a remarkable distance.

"I hope to draw my last breath right at my classroom podium," Ye said. ■