Yan Mingyou teaches a song to students at Zhuwan Primary School in Zhuwan Township of Dingyuan County, Chuzhou City, east China's Anhui Province, March 23, 2021. Yan Mingyou, 92, is still at the post of teaching music at rural elementary schools. Retiring as a rural teacher in 1990, Yan has been volunteering to teach music to students in rural schools. Back to 1953, Yan left the army and returned to his hometown Zhuwan Township in Dingyuan County. He gave up a better job at local government and chose to work in rural schools, teaching various subjects like politics, music and the Chinese language. In 1990, Yan retired after nearly 40 years of hard teaching work. Considering local rural schools lacked full-time music teachers, Yan, who should have enjoyed his retirement life, volunteered to give music lessons to students in different schools, and stuck to the position for the following more than 30 years. Yan is good at playing a variety of musical instruments. In order to enrich the teaching content, he attended piano training classes during summer vacation in Beijing at his own expense for three consecutive years when he was in his 70s. Yan also donated some of his savings to rural schools by purchasing music equipment and provided financial assistance to poverty-stricken students. Yan said for those left-behind children in rural schools, music was not only simply a song for them, but also a means to express their emotion and a way to build up their self-confidence, which may eventually inspire their dreams. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
