Bartering for benevolence

A college student began a barter relay and raised enough to build a primary school

A new primary school in a mountainous village in southwest China's Guizhou Province held its opening ceremony on September 22, almost three weeks later than other schools in China, which started the new semester on September 3.

The brand new school's opening ceremony caught the attention of thousands of netizens, who shared pictures of the ceremony online and sent their best wishes through Weibo, China's answer to Twitter.

It all started with a unique story. The school, called Dream School and located in Jiayan Village, Nayong County, was built with the money raised in a barter relay. The girl who started the relay, 21-year-old Yang Aijing, was a junior college student in Guizhou University for Nationalities.

Dream school

In November 2011, Yang attended a bartering activity held in Root Café in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou. "I had a pair of silver rings from my ex-boyfriend and wanted to exchange it with a touching story," Yang said.

Yang got the story one month later from a man who refused to accept the rings but offered a suggestion. "He said that I could start a barter relay with the final goal of building a primary school in a poverty-stricken area," Yang said. "It sounded like an impossible task as my rings were only worth 200 yuan ($32), but I couldn't stop thinking about it."

Yang heard of a young American man who started a barter relay with a red pin and ended with a one-year free stay in a villa. "I assumed it would take a long time but I was determined to make it happen," Yang said. On February 1, Yang posted her idea on Weibo.

The post was a hit on Weibo and got forwarded by her friends and media outlets around a thousand times. On February 5, Yang accepted a barter offer from Liu Tangtang, a young man in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, who was willing to exchange the rings for a piece of jade worth 3,000 yuan ($480).

"I am going to get married and would love to have the rings as my wedding rings," Liu said. "I was touched by Yang's idea and willing to get involved."

That same month, a high school student in Shanghai named Zhao Yining offered a diamond ring worth 11,571 yuan ($1,850), which her sister gave to her for her future wedding. "My sister is very supportive of the idea," Zhao said. "I am still in high school—the wedding seems quite far away and poverty-stricken children need a school more urgently."

At the same time, Zhou Xianxin, an actress from Guizhou, offered to donate her diamond ring worth about 15,000 yuan ($2,399). "At first, Yang refused my donation because it isn't bartering, but I insisted and finally persuaded her to accept it," Zhou said. On February 16, Zhou delivered the ring to Yang.

"I don't wear rings, so it is better to do something more meaningful with it than keeping it in the box all the time," Yang said. With two diamond rings, she could get more expensive things in the relay.

On February 20, Yang received a message on Weibo from an anonymous netizen in Shanghai, who offered to buy the two rings for 200,000 yuan ($31,979).

Yang was very surprised by the message. "The person also stated his conditions and raised several questions," Yang said. "He suggested that the school should be built in a village that needs it most. He also wanted to know how the local government of the region where the school will be located would be involved and how to monitor the whole process."

Yang shared that concern. On February 4, three days after Yang made the barter relay post, Li Jian, a principal official of Kunzhai Township in Nayong, contacted her on Weibo, proposing the school would be built in one of the villages in Kunzhai.

"There are 22 villages in Kunzhai and most of the villages don't have a primary school, so local children have to get up very early every day and walk two or three hours to schools in other places," said Li, who sent more detailed information of education conditions in the township to Yang on February 17 and invited Yang to pay a visit.

Yang accepted the invitation and stayed there for three days. "It was my first time going to villages in the mountains and it impressed me a lot," Yang recalled. "Children in the villages have to get up before the sun rises and walk a long distance to the school." Yang posted pictures of the visit on her Weibo. After viewing the photos, the anonymous netizen in Shanghai raised the money from 200,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan ($47,967).

Yang then made up her mind to build the school in one of the villages in Kunzhai. On March 8, Yang signed the contract with the local government and finally decided to locate the school in Jiayan. The contract specified that the building would be completed in July and 150 children in Jiayan could start a new semester on September 3. They named the school Dream School.