The Little Seeker of Words: Lu Jiale’s Story

To bridge the education gaps of children in remote villages in China, we started our Send A Volunteer Teacher Program for newly graduated teachers and retired educators. One of these is Teacher Lu Jiale (24), a Chinese Language Teacher for 40 first-grade students. He first started in September 2024, and since then, he has been working as the head of extracurricular activities like Chess and Go. We are fortunate to hear his story through a letter he sent us about a curious child who is slowly discovering the world of words. 

“The office is bright and tidy. On my desk, a small pot of greenery thrives with life. Not long after the school year began, a first-grade boy named Wu Ershigu became my little “shadow.” During recess or after school, he would often appear at the doorway, holding a textbook or a handful of handmade character cards, poking his head in and asking, “Teacher, how do you read this character?”

His questions were filled with childlike wonder and the excitement of discovering language for the first time:

“Teacher, the character for ‘laugh’ doesn’t really look like a laughing face, does it?”

“Do ‘tree’ (树) and ‘rabbit’ (兔) sound the same?”

“If you add a stroke to ‘big’ (大), it becomes ‘too’ (太) — is that a magic trick with hats?”

“Is ‘happy’ (高兴) a bird doing a high jump?”

“The sun is ‘日’, but why is the moon also just ‘月’? They don’t look alike!”

“Besides ‘drinking water,’ who else is water’s good friend?”

His pockets always carried a few crumpled character cards, and wherever he went, his eyes were scanning for unfamiliar symbols. It was a pure curiosity for the secrets of language.

One day, a light rain was falling. Wu Ershigu came running, clutching a big umbrella, the bottoms of his pants damp. He didn’t bother to wipe them. His cheeks were flushed as he eagerly opened his notebook, covered with colorful circles: “Teacher! The character ‘mom’ (妈) hides the word for horse (马), so what animal is hiding in ‘dad’ (爸)?”

Outside, the curtain of rain had already faded into the background—his concentration made everything else disappear. The light in his eyes as he chased the origins of characters lit up his small figure.

Everyone noticed how hard he worked. One evening, in an empty classroom, I spotted an untouched corner of the chalkboard — his “private plot” — just within reach of a small stool. In neat, careful strokes, he had written the new characters he had learned that day: “sun” (日), “moon” (月), “water” (水), and “fire” (火). The golden glow of sunset wrapped gently around these tender yet resolute brushstrokes, like marks carved into time. No noise, no fanfare — just this quiet chalkboard corner, where the first ripples of his thirst for knowledge quietly emerged.

Chalk dust drifted like silent snow, and the light between the windowpanes flowed over the awkward yet earnest strokes of “sun” and “moon.” And just like that, the lamp in a teacher’s heart was softly lit — by the endless stream of “why?” whispered by a child. That light is enough to illuminate the long road we will walk together.”