Author: Yang Baiping
The footsteps of the Kanji running
On May 28, 2017, I bid farewell to my relatives and my homeland in Longshang, and with excitement and trepidation, I embarked on a three-year trip to the Philippines to support teaching. It was my first time out of the country and the first time in my life that I had flown. My heart is full of curiosity; vaguely, there is also a hint of uneasiness: the road ahead, expectant and confused; behind me, unwilling and attached!
Through the window, I noticed that the wings were motionless. Oh, it now seems to have become a part of my body, it seems to be my wings. I was like a little bird, gliding through the air current.
Bird's eye view of the white clouds, like the beautiful snow covering the earth in a harsh winter. It is also like a pile of silver on the shore of the nitrate, a white expanse.
In the distance, the blue sky above the white clouds is even more feminine... We are like breaking the waves in a majestic and magnificent symphony!
Finally, the plane arrived at Manila Aquino Airport. Amid the sweet "bye-bye" of the flight attendants, we walked out of the hatch one by one in large bags.
With both feet still on the plane's gangway, I felt a wave of heat rushing in. We began to breathe in the air of the Philippines, and there seemed to be a faint scent of jasmine in the air.
Looking up, there was a white cloud in the blue sky squeezing its eyebrows at us, as if welcoming our overseas Chinese affairs office to send a large army, welcoming our 294 people to go out of the country and come to Manila...
We packed large bags, walked out of the airport lobby, hurried down the airport slope, crossed the street, and came to the pick-up. Ah, see, see! The companions shouted excitedly, and a scream broke through the pre-dawn darkness.
Director Lin Younai of the Communication Department of the Philippine Chinese Education Center and others came to pick them up and help everyone carry heavy suitcases.
When we met and shook hands, everyone felt that Director Liu's hands had a kind of power to turn decay into magic, and at that moment our exhaustion suddenly disappeared, just like a few months later we came to Boracay Island to receive the soaking of the sea, and it was just like the breeze on the high slopes of the loess in our hometown during the Qingming Dynasty, carrying the fragrance of grass, blowing across our cheeks...
At that moment, I felt a kind of care from my relatives, and a warm current instantly spread poetically throughout my body! I think the sound of Director Lin hurriedly moving the consignment box is just like the song "Mother's Kiss" that once sang all over the streets and alleys of China, with a kind of yellow earth-like simplicity in the dignified, conveying the mellow and long true feelings of the world!
Yes, we crossed the ocean to the Philippines, and at the moment of close contact with the pick-up person, we had a down-to-earth feeling in our hearts! It was as if the spaceship had finally arrived at the space station, no longer flying like duckweed in the vast world, or like a bird in the blue sky above the white clouds, sailing in the endless air current!
Rivers can be diverted, and the grass and trees fed by mountains and rivers can change in spring, summer, autumn and winter, but even in a few years, our 294 expatriate teachers will never forget the scene at the airport:
Out of the airport, down the slopes, across the street, shouting and screaming... Cheering and shaking hands at the pick-up... Director Liu took everyone to the van...
Looking back on all this three years later, it seems that it is still vividly remembered... Touching airport meets!
However, at that time, everyone was so excited that everyone forgot to take pictures, so that this historic scene was not frozen!
Defect! Our experience was like that venus with a broken arm!
At that moment, I felt the footsteps of Chinese characters running. The close-up shots are unforgettable for a lifetime, that kind of hard memory, that kind of warm beauty, just like the masterpiece of Longzhong people holding up their mother's rolling pin and waving it - in my memory, the mother's hand-rolled noodles are the most beautiful in the world, much better than the noodles on Wang Bin Street in Manila.
But at that moment, no one thought that in three years we would encounter the new crown virus that hit the entire planet almost overnight.
I'm afraid that God doesn't know at that moment, where we meet at the next stop, which pier of life we meet: the reverse journey of the heavens and the earth, the passers-by of the time; who am I? Where do we come from? Where are we going?
At that time, we saw our family members and followed Director Lin with great joy. Afterwards, I learned that the people who came to pick up the machine, except for the people from the communication department, were all expatriate teachers who had been hired last year.
Yes, if the tree of Chinese culture wants to grow into a towering tree in the Philippines, it really needs everyone to water and everyone to fertilize. When people are united, Tarzan can move: the distant Tarzan, showing a dark figure; the thick foundation, supporting the shallow high-rise. If one day someone turns that upside down, the old tradition will suffer a landslide!
No, Tarzan can't move!
Let it always stand in the east of the world, forever majestic and majestic into the world's first mountain!
The majestic Mount Tai reminds me of the shape of Chinese characters, beautiful Chinese characters, magical symbols, really the most beautiful language in the universe, beautiful like the round square hole coined by Qin Shi Huang more than 2,000 years ago!
The silk ancient road is infinitely winding, and the wind and dust of the years cannot cover her beautiful face... We came from the White Mountains and Black Water, from the Loess Plateau, from the Orange Island Head, from the Yun Gui River, from the foot of the HuangShan Mountains... Because we all speak Chinese, we are all descendants of the dragon, carrying the same dream under the same skin!
A round dream, like a round square hole money!
When the most beautiful dream in the world, live up to the years and live up to the qing! We're at the same pace and at the same pace! Same battlefront, same drum beats!
You have no clothes, but you are clothed with the Son! The hands of friendship are clasped together.
The Belt and Road, the bond of friendship, the road of friendship, the years of peace sing the song of peace!
Our hearts beat with the pulse of the motherland! The hearts of the world's yellow descendants are beating together! And the same beat!
Where there is seawater, there are Chinese, and Filipino Chinese have the same ancestry as us!
Our 294 expatriate teachers came from all over the world and gathered in Manila.
We stayed at Century Park Hotel Philippines to begin a three-day punch card training. At that moment, I felt like I had a new home and a lot of relatives.
This is the highest class hotel in the Philippines. Every partner here is quite talented, hiding eighteen martial arts: rolling rivers to the east, the waves are endless, and the good Han'er men have been through the ages. Zhongfei loves Hua, Xingxue Chuanxin, Chinese characters fly across the Pacific Ocean. Women fight with men, the posture is stretched, and the scarf does not let the eyebrows be shaved!
Every day we have lived is to travel through time and space together, and Chinese is the language that transcends time and space: a glass of wine in the spring breeze of Tao Li, and three years of lights in the night and rain of the rivers and lakes. Life is a love obsession, only Chinese is the most soul-destroying!
In three days, a mythical story that has been brewing for a century cannot be told, like a thousand years of fine wine, mellow and fragrant, and fragrant over time; and like the wonderful long scroll of "Qingming on the River", with the flow of time, slowly unfolding, flowers blooming!
Here, we saw the beautiful dance of Chinese characters beating in front of our eyes, and the beauty of the dance posture was just like the curve drawn by the graceful bodies of the actors of the Qiao Junior High School Dance Troupe that I admired a month later.
In a foreign country, we visited the Forbidden City in Beijing in the dance of Chinese characters and climbed the Great Wall of Badaling. On the Great Wall, we look into the distance, only to see the Huangshan Mountains surrounded by clouds and mist, Emei is like smoke, and the beautiful scenery is like the "Belt and Road" strategy proposed by President Xi.
We appreciate all this in order to create a Chinese-speaking world with pioneers in the Philippines.
Learn Mandarin well and travel all over Greater China. This is the slogan we want to shout to Filipino children, especially the children of overseas Chinese. We want these children to dance in Chinese characters as well.
We were excited, new, happy together. Listen carefully to the lectures and receive training.
Like me, my comrades-in-arms had no idea that a year later, at the invitation of Philippine President Duterte, Chinese President Xi Jinping would stay at this hotel during a state visit to the Philippines.
My friends did not expect that the sudden new crown virus three years later would panic the world, and we would also be frightened; just like half a month later, when I faced the children of the overseas Chinese experimental class, their smart and lively and active appearance frightened me.
It took me three years to understand that our 294 people had come one step ahead of President Xi, as if we were the scouts sent by Xi Jinping to explore the way in advance.
We are happy, happy, excited; the whole century hotel is the sound of Chinese characters running on books, and everyone has seen the beautiful dawn of overseas Chinese education!
Splendid Chinese culture, will smile, fairy-like beauty in the East, beautiful in the world, the sound of dragon chanting will spread in all directions!
Yes, century hotel training heralds the opening of the first chapter of our first love for Chinese education in the Philippines. By then we had heard the sound of the dragon's groan. We fell in love with our lovers at first sight.
First love is fog, you are a flower in the fog, looking at you through the light veil, you are intoxicating!
The sweetness of mango durian is something that people will remember in their ancient years!
That's the shudder of the soul! At that time, sonorous roses bloomed!
The beauty of that moment determined the answer to all the questions in my heart three years later!
……
After three years, I pondered some questions to death, not to hide from everyone, in fact, many expatriate teachers are also thinking as seriously as I am.
Like Hamlet encountering the hardest question of his life: Tobe or not to be, that is a question! Existence or demise, that's the question!
Don't hide from everyone that in the past three years, almost every one of us has encountered a love affair! Almost every leaf on the Philippine Phoenix Tree, and every drop of water in Manila Bay, can be a witness to this love!
The persistence in our love affair makes some people feel terrible, and that horror is like three years later when people encounter the overwhelming coronavirus.
Haven't you already loved? How can there be so many questions lingering in the brain like clouds, and falling leaves floating like autumn:
Love right, or wrong, that's a question!
Continue to love, or stop loving? This is even more of a problem!
You said you loved that she, loved her so crazy, you forgot you had a home?
I ran out of my brain and broke my head, but I couldn't find the answer!
Those who love me do not love; those who love me do not love me; those who love each other will eventually be separated, and there is no feast under the heavens. ay!
Well? You're still quite careful! What a flower intestine! You love you, who do you think you are? It's speechless, it's speechless! Speechless!
Pain, the beautiful scenes in my heart are crazy like the new crown virus in an instant, all the plots are staged on the screen of the mind, Chen Zhen Huo Yuanjia, beating a pot of porridge!
My memory focuses on a bowl of pig's tail soup that came one day after I had a terrible illness, an almost fatal dengue fever, brought by a female colleague on an expatriate.
Now I still have to say sincerely: thank you for that bowl of pig's tail soup, it's so delicious!
The soup looked a little oily, and the pig's tail bone was a little fatter; but it was slippery to drink, not greasy at all! Just eating into the mouth, almost no teeth, squeaking into the belly without a trace; just like the pig eight precepts in "Journey to the West" ate ginseng fruit in Wuzhuangguan.
At that time, I was touched beyond belief: Teacher X is the best person in the world, kind-hearted, and cared about me like this when I was seriously ill...
I also know her, this mood does not need to be said: polite, don't be so moved, raise your hand!
In the midst of my heart, the pig's tail soup suddenly turned into several buns and flew towards me, which was another one she made during my dengue fever... Like the monkey hair plucked by Sun Wukong, the buns became half a bag of rice grains, which she sent during the isolation of the dormitory.
Teacher Y is also the best person in the world!
Really miss you!
The west wind crosses the cold mountain rain at night, and the home country is clear in the dream. Sijun does not see Bethsjun, don't be unbearable and unbearable... The wax torch has been tears that are difficult to dry, the country and mountains are not old and red, and they can't bear to leave... Tuo Hongyan went south... Let the bucket turn to the stars, but do not change this feeling!
When I think of you, beautiful scenes flash in front of my eyes!
Unreliable gossip, less talk, back to the truth, our 294 overseas Chinese office teachers, have experienced an unforgettable love of the city. Even if the sea withers and rots, this love will never be released!
Evil! I want to know the King, and I want to live forever. Mountains without tombs, rivers and rivers are exhausted, winter thunder and earthquakes, summer rain and snow, heaven and earth are united, but dare to be with the king!
The sunset over Manila Bay bears witness to our love for the cause of Chinese education in the Philippines!
A love affair, a love affair!
Three years later, the story is still playing out. The coronavirus hit the city of Manila. The water on the Passy River is whimpering, and a large number of expatriate colleagues are stranded in Manila for more than two months, unable to return home on time...
You will ask: Do you regret going to Manila to teach? Do you really love Filipino Chinese?
You ask: Do you still want to renew your employment? Do you still want to go?
Let me tell you the answer now:
If my life were cleared and I had to choose again, I would still fly in the direction of Manila without hesitation!
I want to say: Volunteer teaching, no regrets in this life!
Comrades-in-arms have been suffering there, and they can't come back... Each of them, with gentle faces in the home, persistently looked toward the door, expecting them to miraculously appear in front of them!
But my comrades-in-arms still persevered! They said: Maybe in a few years, because of this sudden epidemic, we will remember Manila even more!
A city of first love, Filipino volunteer education is a vigorous first love!
And that kind of hard memory makes this love affair more vivid!
Yes, people must have a little spirit, life must not be in the twilight, there is no end, in the face of setbacks to retreat! Values rise in suffering, and footprints on the dirt road are clearer!
Just like drinking pig's tail soup every day will also change its flavor. To be sweet, add some salt!
You love that hot land, you love the strings of crystal pearls in the Pacific Ocean, you love the Chinese characters that run, you love the wings when the Chinese characters fly, and you love it well in this life, just like loving a heartwarming person.
In this life, no matter where you go, all this can't get out of your thoughts!
Wonderful three days, just like the blue of the pool below the hotel! Sapphire-like blue, miniature sea, illusioned universe, dragon palace-like beauty!
Yes, the three-day Century Hotel was filled with a cheerful song. Mist and sunshine, in that beautiful place, there is no way to hide the two petals of the flower of Chinese characters!
Training, listening to lectures to take notes, taking pictures... Compact three days. Blood is boiling, youth is burning, and the flowers of life are blooming brilliantly on the branches of struggle!
It was as if the outside world had lost its hustle and bustle, and only beauty remained in the red dust. Our 294 overseas Chinese affairs teachers are like waving the earth's red streamers: Chinese characters dance in the running, Chinese birds fly with wings, and we go to the red dust covenant together!
Three days later, the pre-job training ended. 294 expatriate teachers went to their posts with letters of appointment and traveled to all parts of the Philippines. The river of Chinese characters in front of us tumbles and rolls, rushing day and night...
The Philippines is a country of a thousand islands, made up of more than 7,000 islands, like a string of beautiful pearls scattered in the Pacific Ocean... At that time, the southern island of Mindanao was not stable enough, and some people were rebelling with the support of the United States. But there are still expatriate teachers assigned there. Staying in Manila, I can't help but worry a little about them...
Our 294 companions, who had just met, had just met, had just taken the "family portrait", and were about to separate.
Hurriedly meet, and then hurry to leave. This is our destiny, or mission.
We flew on the wings of Chinese characters, and we also chased the footsteps of Chinese characters running in the Philippines...
You see, the Chinese characters are marching like soldiers...