Twin souls will finally meet

When the "Support education" activity was being promoted, my friend Zhipeng used a sentence: "Twin souls will finally meet". At that moment, I thought that this sentence doesn't have much relationship with the support education activity. We finally used this sentence as a promotion of the activity, but after the recruitment of volunteers ended, I put it at the back of my brain and forgot it.

But the day we were leaving Yunnan, I was looking at some photos and these words suddenly came back to my mind. Shenyang in Liaoning, Hangzhou in Zhejiang, Kaiyuan in Yunnan, these three cities, although it seems they are very far apart in the map and can’t even see how they may have any contact, but indeed it was the place across thousands of miles were I once met with these children and my friends from the "support education" activity.

I just looking at the photos with my parents. Each photo is telling me a different story:

• This boy from the mountain's school is very intelligent, but he is very partial: he loves Math’s and Natural Science, but when studying Language or English his face changes completely.
• This boy is also very partial. His marks are dragged down very heavily by his English scores, but we think he is very handsome.
• This little girl lives very far away. She has to walk a long time to come to school, but she is very diligent and also takes notes in the classroom.
• This little girl can be ranked third in the city's elementary school. She can even help us to keep the discipline.
• This little girl doesn't like to learn or come to school, but she loves to give me flowers, many many kinds of flowers.

Fifteen days. I cannot remember the names of many of the students, but as soon as I see a photo I can recall very clearly whether they were listening attentively to the teacher in the classroom, or if they prefer to play badminton or basketball after class. During the last Language class, Zhao Weizheng taught them this sentence: “情深缘浅” (it can be translated as "deep feelings but shallow fate"), and he used parallel lines and intersecting lines to explain the meaning: "We are intersecting lines, but we will eventually grow apart gradually". Really hypocritical, isn't it? At that moment, I rather disliked the explanation, but now, when I think of this sentence, I think the analogy is so appropriate. I even began to feel sad and think whether those children will forget that sentence very soon, whether they will also forget us.

I think you will not forget me. I am the one who often used to wear bright rainbow colored trousers, the one who cooked every day, the one who went to the mountains with them to pick peaches, the sometimes very severe teacher Du. In addition to this, my name only has two characters, so it should be the easiest to remember.

But, how come you still did not call me by phone? Maybe they have not yet started missing me. In fact, I have many things to tell you that I did not tell you before.

First of all, by all means, you must persevere in your learning and education. I know you have a lot of people that feel that learning is boring, of they are heavily biased, but you must persevere by all means. Learning can really change your fate. The outside world is so big and so good. You have to come out and have a look at it.

Then, you have to learn to take notes and review the lessons. So often I saw that you had completely forgotten everything I taught you the day before. Teacher Du was really anxious, angry and anxious.  There is a Confucius sentence that says: "学而不思则罔，思而不学则怠" (Learning without reasoning leads to confusion, thinking without learning is wasted effort). If you try to learn without thinking, you will feel confused, and if you only think but do not learn, it is useless. There is still another saying by Confucius: “学而时习之，不亦悦乎” (isn't it a pleasure to learn something and practice it?). It tells us about the importance of learning. To take notes and to review the lessons can be very useful to you.

Suddenly, I feel there are a thousand words stuck in my throat that haven't come out yet. I feel an indescribable itch to put them in black and white.

Finally, what I want to say is that meeting you was awesome. Please, do not forget me. I would love to come to attend your graduation ceremony.

Du Yu