Song Fangrong still remembers the day when she first arrived at Dingping Primary School in Houhe Village, where she began her teaching career 16 years ago.

The rain was pouring down. Several villagers had gone a long way to meet her, with their faces beaming with joy.

Located atop the 1,800-meter-high mountain, the village was one of the most remote and poverty-stricken areas of Wufeng Tujia Autonomous County in Yichang, central China's Hubei Province.

Dingping Primary School had been abandoned since the last teacher left several years earlier. The arrival of Song had been great news for the local villagers who had expected a new teacher for a long time. In spite of the villagers' hospitality, Song was hardly overjoyed once she finally got to the school -- a small and dilapidated diaojiaolou, a kind of two-story wooden house built on the hillside.

The first floor was for domestic animals and on the second floor was a 20-square-meter room which was divided into a bedroom and a classroom with simple boards. There were no desks, no chairs, no blackboards, not even chalk. When night fell, the wind was rising and moaning round the house. Song felt scared and lonely and wept all night.

"All I wanted to do at that time was leave early the next morning," recalled Song, now 31.

When Song opened the door at the daybreak, she was dumbfounded: a group of children, together with their parents who were carrying desks and chairs on their backs, stood in front of the house.

"Their eyes glistened with excitement and expectation, which made me change my mind right away," recalled Song.

She decided to stay and do something to help these children. On her third morning, she went on foot to the county, which was over 20 kilometers away from the village, to buy teaching materials. When she returned late at dusk, she carried a large basket of textbooks for the children. Then the school opened and the 15-year-old started her teaching career.

"I did not have much in the way of expectations about the job at the very beginning," Song said. "For me, it was only a means of making a living."

Born in a farmer's family in the rural area of Wufeng County, Song had gone through a bitter childhood. Her father, who had suffered from a mental disorder for many years, killed himself when she was 9.

After graduating from junior high school, she was unable to further her schooling due to the family's poverty. She then heard of the job opportunity as a primary school teacher.

"An income of 50 yuan (US$6) every month seemed to be the biggest attraction to me," recalled Song, whose older sister earned only 20 yuan (US$2.40) as a babysitter at that time.

Since she was too young for the job, she lied about her age in the exam. Unexpectedly, she passed and then was posted to the school in Houhe Village.

Over the next six years, Song lived and taught in the diaojiaolou, which in her words, was the most unforgettable period of time in her life. Without any money to buy teaching facilities, Song tried to solve the problems in every possible way. She painted a board into black and hung it on the wall as a blackboard. When the class was over, the board was placed on a desk and the children could play table tennis on it. She also taught the children to make simple toys by themselves, such as making shuttlecocks with chicken feathers.

The young teacher became more and more devoted to her work. She began to spend part of her salary buying teaching tools and helping poor children complete their education.

But her salary was too small to cover all the expenses. During holidays, she went to cities like Wuhan, Yichang and Longshan to seek part-time jobs.

Since the village was nestled in the forest high on the mountain, Song walked for hours down to the county to buy food and daily necessities every two weeks. Due to the lack of tap water, Song had to carry water from a spring about a kilometer away.

"But most unbearable was the feeling of loneliness," Song said. "There was no television, no radio, no newspapers. I was completely isolated from the outside world."

She had thought of leaving time and again, but she gave up the idea eventually. She was worried that no other teacher would come afterwards and the children would drop out of school again.

"Daily life was then filled with tears, laughter and unexpected accidents," she said.

On a snowy day, Song went down the mountain as usual to shop. It began to snow when she was on her way back. The mountain path became slippery and treacherous.

Song became increasingly worried as the night was falling. Suddenly, she found a giant black figure approaching her. She was shocked and fell to the ground. When she realized it was a brown bear, it was too late for her to run away.

The bear stopped a few steps away from her, staring at her for a few seconds, then turned around and went away.

When the bear went out of her sight, Song burst into tears. But she stopped crying soon because her voice echoing in the mountain made her even more frightened than before.

Fortunately, some villagers discovered Song had not been home and went out to look for her. They carried her back home and helped her recover from the cold and the shock.

After teaching in the mountainous region for years, Song had suffered from rheumarthritis and gastric disease. Her health had deteriorated due to a lack of medical treatment.

One day in 1994, she fainted in class because of severe stomach pains. Villagers carried her down the mountain and stopped a car for a lift. The weak teacher caught the attention of a man in the car who was the director of the county's radio station. A few days later, Song's story was spread in Wufeng. Then she was honored as a model teacher of the year in the county.

Song was recognized for her devotion to helping poor children and drew increasing attention nationwide.

Now Song is married and has a 5-year-old son. But working is a major part of Song's life. She spends weekdays in the school and stays with her family in the county on the weekends.

Early this year, Song's school was relocated to the foot of the mountain and expanded to enroll more children. With the help of the local government, a new schoolhouse was built and teaching facilities were greatly improved. Over 200 children now study at the new school.

"I've held a dream that the children would become university students one day," Song said.

This article first appeared in this year's third edition of People, a Beijing-based magazine

(China Daily April 21, 2004)