On March 12, 1958, 17-year-old Ma Zhongyu stepped onto a train from Beijing heading for the west, becoming one of the 480 people helping and supporting Ningxia Hui autonomous region in northwestern China.

The Beijing youth applied to go to Jingyuan county, where living conditions were harder, rather than Yinchuan, the capital, and stayed there for the rest of his life.

Fifty years ago, people in Jingyuan were almost illiterate. When a production team distributed grain and means of production, people recorded what they received by drawing pictures of the items, such as potatoes or corn.

Villagers didn't know they needed to send their children to school and the children didn't want to go to school.