Ye Lianping is a 96-year-old retired teacher from a village in Anhui Province. He has been teaching left-behind children there for free during the past 24 years.
Teaching has always been an important part of Ye's life. After he retired, he began offering free English-language classes to left-behind children. He first set up a classroom in his own house. Later, with the help of the government, he got another two classrooms. To provide education for more children, he also set up the Ye Lianping Scholarship Fund with almost all his money and the donations (捐赠物) from others. So far, it has helped hundreds of left-behind children.
Ye is quite generous to these children, but he spends very little money on himself. He lives a very simple life. He lives with his wife in a house built over 30 years ago. He never buys any drinks. And he has been wearing the same jacket for over 40 years.
Although he is getting older, Ye is never tired of teaching. In 2018, he got hurt while riding a bicycle to buy vegetables. Instead of resting in bed for recovery, he quickly returned to class with a walking stick.
Ye is racing against time to spend as much time as possible on left-behind children's education. People call him "the candlelight of the village". But he said, "I'm just a firefly (萤火虫), making little light, not as much light as a candlelight can give."
