Gain more than give

LIN ZongYing

Something is unexpected before experience it yourself. Just as when I picked up my heavy package and went to Tao Yuan airport with a worm of unknown unease, I could not expect that I will find myself in the beautiful scenery. I can’t expect I will gain the emotion weight maybe will never feel in the future, I can’t expect this journey will have such profound meaning in my life.

After several volunteer services in aboriginal tribes in occasion, I always deeply fascinate to the different between minority ethnic cultures with mainstream Chinese culture. So when seeing the Tibetan team notice in Eden, I applied without hesitate. For me, this is really a journey of culture exchange and conflict. From the moment I got on the train in Guang Zhou, I talked with friends from all parts of China, exchanging difference in living culture as well as journey moods and knowledge. In Tianzhu, Xidatan, we felt the chilling wind from the sleeping bag at night, we ate the fatty and spicy food, drank like a fish and ate mutton with hand, squatted by the stream. We washed hair shivering with cold, walked around on the street after class, and brought back many “booties,” invited to be gusts by the l students enthusiastically. We walked on the muddy road to the toilet after the rain, sometimes a group of people even squatted along the mound to “solve the nature call right here” under the starry sky. Many things that accustomed at first had become reflective behaviors. The first day in Xidatan, we still praised the beautiful scenery and white yaks everywhere, but they became naturally in our life at last. As if I originally grew up the mountains and should enjoy everything here. It was so natural that let me put down all compact competitive pressure in past life. I can welcome the never boring beautiful scenery relaxed, leisurely and slowly. I finally brought myself to a condition just like a clear white paper, facing all kinds of experiences and the surprise they brought us in life with a comfortable posture. They added spectral colors on my life.

The greatest achievement certainly is the lovely children.(in fact, they already grew up but still intimate and lovely.) still remember the moment I entered the classroom, their enthusiastic to us really reduced our nervous of first teaching experience. In the teaching process, the focused and serious expression of their eyes, the warm response that they vied with each other and the shy smiles when they answered questions all gave me power to go on teaching even muted the voice. I still remember the first day I saw the reciting English words forms along the playground on early 6 o’clock in the morning. After playing the game of “auction of sense of worth”, I went to the side of the children and asked them one by one that what in their mind is the most important things in life and why. I heard accidentally some of their own family stories. Their fathers almost not participated in their daily life, because many parents had to do work for the others in other places for earning a living. They may only came home once a year and the pressure of living becomes their power to study with double hard. Listening to their similar wishes: to be a doctor, to be a policeman, to earn good money, I felt sorry in side for their early-maturing. I also cannot forget that we climbing and fishing with them together, they held my hand crossing the muddy and mentioned me to be careful. As if I am the one the be cared of instead of the children I can’t forget the intimate girls picked wild grasses for me to taste ,told me the load on their minds to my ear secretly and weaved beautiful garland for me with wild flowers picked everywhere. I cannot forget when the tears that cannot help but falling, the usually naughty boys came to hug me and said do not cry teacher, the scene that my tears never had a stop. In addition, I cannot forget their singing, their figure of dancing the Guozhuang dance with traditional Tibetan clothing; these are all immortal and lasting beautiful pictures in my mind.

They would go home on Saturday in Xidatan, we got up early to weave garland with them by the stream and took photos with them. The reluctance in their eyes as if saying they want us to back here again next year. Suddenly I felt a little ashamed, the emotion we gain is always much more then the tiny pay to them. I always think about the meaning of being a volunteer, whether for gaining or for giving, whether for servicing others or for self-improving. Each time I come back from a service activity I always think I put down many useless stubborn clings and figured out many original inextricably linked heart knots. In this way, the tolerance to the world, to culture and to me is my greatest achievement in service. Five day is really short but enough to build a unforgettable memory in my heart. The space distant really makes me hard to promise the next meeting, I can only bless in heart silently with my eternal immortal caring to Xidatan forever.