Thanks, mourning for saviors

When the 8.0-magnitude earthquake toppled classrooms in southwest China's Sichuan Province on May 12, many teachers risked their own lives to protect students.

The Ministry of Education rewarded more than 200 teachers on Monday for their heroic deeds. Several teachers on the list were dead and unable to receive the honor. Many others felt uneasy and homesick on their first trip to Beijing.

As Teacher's Day approaches, their students back home have prepared homemade cards and picked wild flowers in the mountain valleys. Nearly every gift has a tag reading "You are the best teacher I've ever met".

Before the devastating quake they were the beloved teachers for their students but nobodies to the rest of the world. "They are exemplary. Their heroic deeds have proven to the world the true values of the teaching profession," said Education Minister Zhou Ji.

"I had no time to make a choice," said Tan Guoqiang, principal of Yingxiu Primary School in the quake epicenter Wenchuan County, when asked why he had chosen to save his students instead of his wife after the quake.

Tan, 48, worked day and night with other surviving teachers to search for signs of life in the rubble of their collapsed school buildings, pulling out more than 80 students and a teacher alive from the debris.

His colleague Zhang Miya opened both arms in the last moment of his life to shelter two students who survived.

On September 1, less than four months after the quake, more than 4 million students in the quake-shattered provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu went back to school with vivid memories of the tragedy and heartfelt thanks for their saviors.

"The quake shattered all my dreams but my teachers helped me regain faith in life," said Jiang Lin, a teenage girl who survived from collapsed building of Dongqi High School in Deyang City, where 230 students and 14 teachers died in the quake.

Her teacher Lin Zhengping, 26, helped at least 30 students evacuate before she perished with the toppled buildings. Lin was two months pregnant.

Jiang is now studying at Deyang No.3 Middle School. "My new teachers saved the best tent for me. Many of them lost family members in the quake, but they all smiled and told us to be brave... I won't let them down."

"I want to hold his hand, my dear teacher, please stay," 14-year-old Yang Ying choked as she sang in memory of her teacher Wu Zhonghong. When the quake jolted their school in Chongzhou City, Wu, 45, escorted the dumbfounded Yang downstairs to safety, but ran back to the ramshackle classroom to save more students and never got out again.

To remember Wu and to mark Teacher's Day, Yang and her classmates staged a musical on Monday to relive the earthquake scene. All the 771 students ended up in tears.

Wu's wife Song Daiqun has moved into a temporary lodging at the school so as to stay close to her husband. Their son, 17, said he would work hard to get into university next year and become a teacher "just like dad".

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2008)