Over the past four years, a French lady called Fangfang has helped 1,500 girls go back to school in the remote area of Mt. Damiao in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Before Fangfang helped establish 11 schools in this poverty-stricken area, these girls could barely continue their studies. Apart from opening these schools, she has also helped build a three-story building along the bank of the Danian River in Danian Town, and has since settled down in the region.
Fangfang is not rich, yet she has managed to finance most of her campaign by renting her house in France.
A Professional "China Fan"
As a child, Fangfang was curious and interested in China, a beautiful, large country in the Orient. After graduating from high school, she went to a college in Paris and obtained a master's degree in Chinese. She later worked as a tour guide for a travel agency in Paris. Fangfang began to take tourists to China in 1989, and since then, has spent almost half of each year in China.
During her stays in China, Fangfang has been deeply impressed by the unique lifestyle and customs of the country's ethnic groups, particularly those in South China. "She is now a China hand, especially with respect to ethnic groups," says her friend.
There is an international organization called Medicins Sans Frontiere that consists of doctors who provide humanitarian aid to poverty-stricken areas lacking in sufficient medical services. In 1996, the branch of the organization in France undertook a campaign in the Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, Guangxi. It was by chance that Fangfang met Mr. Marsel, a member of the organization, in the spring of 1997, when she was working as a tour guide in Guilin. At the time, she was divorced and living in Guilin. She was very happy to come across someone from her own country. It was through the organization that she learned about Mt. Damiao and Danian Town, places that can't even be found on a map. She later joined the organization and served as their interpreter.
Do Something for This Piece of Land
Everything in Mt. Damiao is amazing: the green mountains and rivers, the blue sky and white clouds, the reed-pipe wind instrument, and the caitang dance. How Fangfang wished she could take in everything with her camera and write everything in her diary! She, who came from a busy metropolis, was deeply impressed by what she saw and could not tear herself away from the place.
She had arrived with her French-style romanticism, but soon realized she had to be realistic. In the depth of the mountains, most people live in remote, alpine areas and are very poor. Isolated from the rest of the world, their way of thinking is often outdated. It was still tradition for men not to work and for girls not to go to school; and while most families looked up to men, and they looked down on women.
Therefore, the only thing for a girl to do, no matter how clever she was, was to embroider, knit, or herd cows or ducks, and then get married. There used to be only two or three girls, at most six, in a school. Some schools didn't have any girls at all.
"I must do something for this place!" Fangfang told herself.
Her Footprints Along the Mountain Paths
It was a hot summer afternoon in 1998. In her rubber shoes, with a small black bag tied around her waist, Fangfang knocked on the door of the Education Office in Danian Town.
"I have an idea. I want to finance girls here to go to school," Fangfang said to Wei Yucheng, director of the Office.
Looking around the impoverished villages, Fangfang found that many of the school buildings were unstable and dangerous. The students who were longing to study would have gone back home if measures weren't taken to solve the problem. She was in a rush to raise funds and restore the uninhabitable school buildings, as well as provide financial aid for girls who could not afford schooling. During 1999 and 2001, she raised a total of 180,000 yuan for the construction of 11 new schools in villages such as Linlang, Guishe, Xiangtang, and Shangzhai.
Trying different kinds of shoes to walk the sheer mountain paths, Fangfang finally decided to wear a pair of rubber shoes named Jiefang (meaning Liberation in Chinese). It is these shoes that have carried her to almost every corner of Danian, and it is Fangfang who has helped 1,450 boys and girls in the townships of Danian and Liangzhai go to primary and middle school.
"I'm the Most Wealthy Person in Mt. Damiao!"
Fangfang published a magazine in France, La Couleur de Chine, which introduces the beautiful landscape of Mt. Damiao as well as the terrible situation of those girls who can't afford an education. She then organized her readers to visit Danian. Almost every month, she would invite a number of French people to visit Guilin with the sole purpose of informing more people about the situation, so they too could offer their help to the area's children, especially the girls.
Over the last few years, more than 1,000 foreigners, mostly French, have participated in Fangfang's campaign to finance the children in Mt. Damiao.
These past few years of endeavor have led Fangfang to believe she is the wealthiest person in Mt. Damiao. She has learned to speak the local people's language, and the people here have accepted her as one of their own. Students warmly welcome her wherever she goes. Whenever she leaves a village, the villagers see her off with their best food, such as glutinous rice and eggs.
Fangfang wanted to build a wooden building in Danian. Without any hesitation, the local government provided her with a piece of land. In February 2001, the building was completed. The villagers came to celebrate the completion as if it were a festival. They conveyed their blessings to the French lady who has made great contributions to the education of their future generations.
(China Pictorial May 22, 2003)
