Xiplomacy: Best wishes from Congo to China as new academic year starts

MY HOMETOWN IS BEAUTIFUL "JUST LIKE AFRICA"

In April 2010, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Yushu. As locals were struggling to rebuild their homes, Sassou Nguesso, who was attending the Shanghai World Expo, announced that his country would help rebuild a primary school in the quake-affected area.

In July 2012, the Sino-Congolese Friendship Primary School was completed. Surrounded by mountains, the new campus features a modern teaching building, a comprehensive laboratory building, a cafeteria, a standard basketball court, and a sports field with plastic running tracks.

Basile Ikouebe, then foreign minister of the Republic of the Congo, attended the inauguration ceremony. "We presented him with a golden Khata and a ceremonial scarf to express our gratitude to our African friends," recalled Samdin Tyairing, a Chinese teacher at the school.

According to Samdin Tyairing, every September, the school organizes events to remind the students of the genuine friendship between the two peoples. "Our teacher told us that Congo was not a rich country. When I grow up, I want to be a teacher to help the children there," 11-year-old student Jiangwen Gantso told Xinhua.

"Welcome to China! Welcome to my hometown Yushu. The sky is high, and the grasslands are vast here, just like Africa," said the sixth grader-to-be Gamalado Tenzin in his invitation to African children. "Hope we can all study in such well-built classrooms and grow up to make our hometown a better place."