Scaling the Heights in China

May 27, 2016 11:39 PM

To attend class, backpack-carrying pupils from Atuler village in Sichuan province must take on an 800-metre [2,600-foot] rock face, scrambling down rickety ladders and clawing their way over bare rocks as they go. (SLGuardian with internal link to original reporting in Chinese)
posted by bryon (10 comments total)

It seems like all the reporting is focused on "children getting to school!" but this is actually the only way in and out of the village, is that right? So there's a lot more to it than how the kids get to school - and if that continues to be the only focus then I'm sure the easy solution (to the negative publicity) since they're already boarding away at school, is to restrict visits home even more.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 12:05 AM on May 28, 2016

It's about midway down the article, and makes the situation somewhat less insane (though not by much): The kids don't have to negotiate the cliff twice a day, they only go home to see their families twice a month.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:40 AM on May 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

There are more photos in the Chinese article linked in the Guardian one. Looks incredibly beautiful up there. Also, kid climbing in flip-flops.
posted by snofoam at 3:05 AM on May 28, 2016

I've seen some historic cliff dwellings in the US southwest that would have had crazy climbs to get in and out, and every so often there will be an FPP about old clifftop villages in Europe, but I don't think many places like this were still settled. I always think about how someone made the original decision to climb up that cliff and move in -- that mountain top had to be better than where they were before, which says something.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:03 AM on May 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

I can totally relate. Both elevators in my building were broken for a week.
posted by srboisvert at 6:05 AM on May 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

“We replace a ladder with a new one when we find one of them is rotten,” he said.

I will never complain about OSHA again.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:11 AM on May 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

I always think about how someone made the original decision to climb up that cliff and move in -- that mountain top had to be better than where they were before, which says something.
In the Chinese photo-essay linked one of the captions has a villager saying that the isolation used to protect their forebears from turmoil and banditry and the soil was very fertile.
posted by Abiezer at 7:04 AM on May 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Reminds me of this.

Here's another "kids face hardship to reach school" framed article.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 7:36 AM on May 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Last night on the local news, there was a story about a family who was upset with the school bus company because their elementary age kid keeps getting put onto the wrong bus and winds up having to walk a long distance home. Immediately after that story, the news aired this one. Which kinda felt like a pointed editorial comment.
posted by nubs at 7:57 AM on May 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

I was suspecting that the original reason for living at the top of the mountain might have been defensibility. Not all that long ago there was essentially no law in that kind of rural area, at least in the sense of dialing 911 if someone a group of brigands was sacking your village, so the cliffside probably looked like great protection from criminals and invading armies. Nowadays those considerations aren't so important but it's now their ancestral land.
posted by Bringer Tom at 1:07 PM on May 28, 2016