Wednesday, September 19, 2007

What Price An Education?

Poor little buggers.

A bridge is to be built in a Chinese village where children are forced to cross a raging torrent on a steel cable to get to school. Nearly 500 children, from Maji village in Fugong town, Yunnan province, cross the most dangerous stretch of the Nujiang River each day.

They fasten themselves to the cable with a metal carabiner and a rope and slide across the 200 metre wide canyon.

The youngest student, A Qia, 4, has to go over by herself each day.

The villagers say that usually four-year-old children are taken by their parents, and begin to go by themselves from the age of five.

A Pu, five, who was stuck in the middle of the cable for nearly 20 minutes once, said: “I used to dream of having a bridge, but then I learned that my dream was too expensive.”

But officials finally agreed to spend £35,000 on a bridge after a TV programme was made about the children’s dangerous daily journey. source


Update:

Dangerous cable replaced by bridge

Students in a Chinese village are overjoyed to have a bridge to cross a river they used to cross on a steel cable.

The new bridge, 170 m long and 1.7 m wide, at the Bulacun Elementary school in Maji village, can sustain a total weight of 2 tons.

The village in Fugong town, Yunnan province, is located at the most dangerous part of the Nujiang River. Each day, nearly 500 children used to have to go to school and return home on a cable taking them more than 200 meters across the river attached only with a carabiner and a rope, reports Spring City Evening Post.

After Jiangsu TV broadcast a program called “the most dangerous walk to school,” a lot of people visited, and donated money to the village for a bridge.

With donations totaling 350,000 yuan, a bridge was built in three months, ending the daily cable flights for students and villagers.

“We’ve named the bridge the ‘love bridge’, because love is what built it,” said the village head at the opening ceremony at the elementary school.

“Our kids not longer need to risk their lives to go to school”, says a joyful villager. quirkychina








12 comments:

Anonymous said...

A Pu, five, who was stuck in the middle of the cable for nearly 20 minutes once, said: "I used to dream of having a bridge, but then I learned that my dream was too expensive." http://bit.ly/9ymTXR
-----------------------------------

Dangerous cable replaced by bridge.

http://www.quirkychina.com/pictureN
ews.jsp?id=461

Himself said...

You do follow twitter then?

Remember me saying some posts won't search, this is one of them.

Try it for yourself, put the exact title in the upper search bar.

A happy update, thanks.

Anonymous said...

I only read tweets, a focused, targetable part of a market, in my opinion. Especially Teddy, my hero, against cruelty, injustice and intolerance.

"We’ve named the bridge the 'love bridge', because love is what built it," said the village head at the opening ceremony at the elementary school.

Great update Himself.
Kind regards,

Maren

Himself said...

Thank you m'darlin'

What's your tweety handle then?

Anonymous said...

Hi m'darlin', not sure if I understand, but do you mean how I can read tweets? If so, I google "teddyshepherd twitter" without the quotations marks. I am so twentieth century, although, it's a niche market that chronic shortage of tweet readers, only in my opinion of course. M

Himself said...

Ah so!

That's a route I would never have even thought about.

And probably a very good one, it insures you against having to wade through the invariable McCann flames wars that go on there.

I have to keep the number of ''antis'' that I follow to a minimum, blocking all the ''pros'' of course.

Between them they make the school playground look like a place of sophistication.

The constant arguments back and forth are mindless.

Anonymous said...

talking of routes, the wooden path up Shifou Mountain
bit.ly/zdf95T

Himself said...

http://bit.ly/xa5jzh

One of many found after Google image search - china cliff walkway

Anonymous said...

http://bit.ly/140NEJy

Anonymous said...

with quotation marks

http://bit.ly/1h4TBNX

Google asks if I mean "the tales of gerry mccann"

Himself said...

That's amazing. The result vie a UK search, is nothing like that. Wow!

More tea, more look see.

Himself said...

I just clicked, Naar basisversie overschakelen and got an entirely different view.

The amount of time I have spent in the past, trying to match an image with a post, doesn't bear thinking about.

I must see if there is an English equivalent.