A French teacher, Yu Ren (雨仁) and a Chinese woman teacher Fu Guosheng (傅果生), have spent nearly six years teaching students to paint in Bangyang Village where the drug trafficking and drug addiction used to be common. They help encourage students to create and spur their painting potential.

Fu Guosheng is a Jingpo girl has taught in the school for nearly six years. Children call her "Guo Guo" for short. The other one is a French. Though children can not understand his language, they greet to him by saying "hello".

What they do is accompanying with children living in the countryside. They appreciate their painting and encourage them.

The drug used to be rampant in Banyang Village, Ruili City, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture. They never ask about which child's parents involving in drug, or whose parents get divorced or which student is raised by grandparents. They are trying to read children's inner hearts through their paintings.

In this special class, children don't have to sit up in the front of desks as usual. All chairs and desks are moved to walls of classroom. Drawing paper, brushes and pigments are piled on the floor. All the students sit around the ground. Even the naughtiest child sit quietly in the classroom, staring at the two teachers curiously.

Here in Banyang Village, most of the 500 villagers live on farming. The village is about 10 km from the urban area of Ruili City. Several tall banyans can be seen at the entrance of the village. Buses have been available since a few years ago, twice a day. Once missing the bus, villager can't but take a motorcycle or tractor for traveling.

There are more than 170 students in Banyang Elementary School where students come from Banyang Village or the nearby villages. Half of the students are in residence, and some can't not get home until nearly five hours' walking on the weekend.

Fu was born in a wooden house here. Her mother used to be a teacher in the school. She grew up in Mangshi City and then went to a college in Beijing. Education made the distance between her and the land further, however, pondering on family and ethnic groups get them closer.

Painting a "life tree"

During a class, Fu works as an interpreter for the French teacher. "Life tree" is the theme of the class on that day, because students in Grade Six are facing the graduation. For most children in the village, the graduation of elementary school is an important corner. Though it is ruled for every child to enter junior high school by Ministry of Education, most of them drop school halfway.

The principal had inquired about the situation of students who graduated in 2008. Less than five out of about 20 total students continued to study in senior high schools. Most of them leave schools before graduation.

"Everybody have their own life tree. No matter what you will do in the future, please maintain and protect your life tree. Water it, place it under the sunshine and let it grow healthily," said Fu in the class.

In Fu's memory, AIDS patients, anti-drug posters, and name lists of drug traffickers who had been sentenced to death could be seen everywhere in her childhood.

Her family had been intruded into by drug before. Every time after she returned home during the college time in the 1990s, she could heard about her friends' addiction in drug.

When she was a graduate student, she chose to studied about ethnology. She came back to Yunnan during summer holidays from 2004 to 2006 when she conducted a field investigation. She faced the influences of drug to the community at that time.

From the 1980s to 2004, 16 villagers died of drug taking in Jingpo Village of Banyang. There were forty families in the village, 58 had or were addicted to taking drug, especially the young men. As the principal recalled, it was common for young men's drug taking in his twenties. Everyday witnesses funerals during the most serious time. Drug was hurting relatives around her, so she chose to consider about the restore of culture in the community.

Painting, a healing

Yu Ren told the children how to color the painting, how to paint lines by brushes. He told the children to paint with five colors without any detailed stuff. The weaves of colors can generate new colors. In this way, they can have numerous colors.

Yu Ren's father was a carpenter who liked drinking. He usually served as a vent to his father's anger. Painting, to some extent, has healed his pain from family.

It was his first time to have been in Banyang Village in 2009. To his surprise, he found some family even had no washing rooms. Today, most family can have a solar water heater. This kind of change interests him. Due to his experience in the childhood, he cares about the children here.

Owing to the language obstacle, he finds that painting is the best communication with children They never ask about which child's parents involving in drug, or whose parents get divorced or which student is raised by grandparents. They just tell the children: "forget what adults have told you, but paint what you like with colors."

Fu Guosheng and Yu Ren walk around the children while they are painting. Fu observed her students and said to a child: "Your colors are amazing. Is it really your first time to use colors?"

"Everyone is equal when painting. No one cares about who is naught, who works well in class or whose family is in trouble. It is just like many of their fondness, but it differs from watching TV or playing games. It is not only a simple output, but a creation that brings opportunities for children to ponder on, to calm down and spur the potential," said Fu.