Dave Hile in China: The highlight of our trip?

On Sunday, April 11th, we had a very special opportunity that may well end up being the highlight of this incredible journey. Our tour guide, whose American name is Richard, who has been with us during our entire stay in Xi'an is a very special man with an incredible life story. He was born a peasant about 20 miles outside Xi'an in 1950 and lived through some incredibly difficult circumstances as a result of being a peasant. He has risen well above his birth to own his own tour guide agency in Xi'an after being selected to go to the US to study the travel agency business due to his hard work as a student. When he began working with the China Exchange Initiative a few years ago, he began taking the American educators back to the village where he was born so that they could see the rural areas and the life of the peasants who stil live there. We got to visit the village school, where they held school on Sunday just so that we could meet the students and see them in their classrooms. Richard even arranged for us to eat lunch with the peasants in their homes. Richard has not forgotten from where he came. He may be the best living example I have ever experienced of the Woody Hayes adage of "Paying Forward". He buys all of the coal for the peasants to heat their homes and the school in winter; by bringing the educators here, he has started a perpetual charity for the village school in which the educators make donations to help the school buy supplies and needed educational materials for the students and the teachers; he has gotten the government to build them paved roads so that he can continue to bring the "American educators" to the village on his tour bus, etc. These pictures and videos will not do the experience justice, you have to see how these people live to even believe you are in the 21st century when you are there, but it is the only way I can share it with you, so enjoy!

Dave