Guarding the rural soul
The jeep jolted along the rugged mountain road for four hours. Gazing out the window at the rolling hills, Li Xiaoyu gained a concrete understanding of the word "remote" for the first time. This was Yunling Village, the first pilot site for the foundation's "Rural Soul Station" project.
The village Party Secretary, Old Yang, who came to meet us, was a middle-aged man with dark skin, his palms rough as sandpaper when he shook hands. "Secretary Li, you must have had a hard time on the road!" he said enthusiastically, accepting the luggage. "Our village's 'post station' is located in the old ancestral hall. Everyone is so enthusiastic!"
However, when Li Xiaoyu entered the newly renovated ancestral hall, her heart sank. Brand-new psychological assessment scales were neatly hung on the walls, the sand in the sandbox room was incredibly evenly distributed, and the chairs in the group counseling area were arranged like military formations—a stark replica of an urban counseling room, jarringly out of place with the ancestral hall's quaint wooden structure.
Even more distressing was the scene: a dozen or so children, "organized" by their teachers to participate in the activity, sat stiffly in their chairs, their eyes filled with unfamiliarity and wariness. A young psychologist, Xiao Wang, in a brand new white coat, was diligently guiding them in Mandarin with a Beijing accent: "Come, let's play an emotion recognition game..."
The children looked at each other, and none of them moved.
If you sow city seeds into rural soil without considering the water and soil, even the best varieties will not be able to take root.
"This won't work," Li Xiaoyu told the professional team sent from the provincial capital in the village committee's temporary office that evening. "The method we brought here has completely failed."
Xiao Wang defended himself aggrievedly, "Secretary-General Li, we use the most scientific scales and methods..."
"Science shouldn't have just one face," Li Xiaoyu interrupted. "In the city, children might describe themselves as 'anxious' or 'depressed.' But here," she said, picking up the interview notes she'd collected that day, "they say things like 'feeling overwhelmed' and 'feeling like a rock is pressing down on me.' If we can't even understand their language, how can we help them?"
She decided to change her strategy. The next day, Li Xiaoyu did not go to the post station, but instead followed Lao Yang around the village.
Under the locust tree at the village entrance, she saw several elderly people playing chess, surrounded by a group of children watching. At the grocery store at the end of the village, the owner was knitting a sweater while mediating a neighborhood dispute. In the fields, she heard villagers singing melodious folk songs in the local dialect...
Every scene is more vibrant than that exquisite "Soul Station".
A turning point came on the afternoon of the third day. Li Xiaoyu heard about a boy named Shitou in the village. His parents were working away from home, and he lived with his grandparents. Over the past six months, the once lively child had become withdrawn, his grades had plummeted, and he frequently got into fights at school.
"That kid is as stubborn as a bull," Old Yang sighed. "The teacher and the principal have talked to him, but it's no use."
Li Xiaoyu did not go directly to find the stone, but first visited his grandfather. The old man was weaving bamboo baskets in the yard, and his skills were so skillful that it seemed like he was dancing.
"Stone," the old man said, his hands moving non-stop. "You used to love watching me weave baskets and said you'd learn when you grew up. Now... well, you're just holding your phone all day and ignoring everyone."
Li Xiaoyu noticed that when the old man talked about basket weaving, a gleam of light flashed in his cloudy eyes.
The next day, she asked Old Yang for help and organized a "craft show" in the open space in front of the ancestral hall. The village elders showed off their unique skills: weaving bamboo baskets, cutting paper, making glutinous rice cakes, and singing folk songs...
At first, the children just watched from a distance. But as Grandpa Shitou's calloused hands transformed bamboo sticks into beautiful baskets like magic, Shitou unknowingly walked over to Grandpa.
"Want to try it?" Grandpa asked without raising his head.
Shitou hesitated for a moment and took the bamboo stick handed to him by his grandfather.
The beginning of healing is often not professional intervention, but emotional reconnection.
The changes that followed surprised everyone. Shitou began learning to weave bamboo baskets from his grandfather every day after school. His hands, once only used for fighting, now displayed astonishing dexterity. Even more surprising was his remarkable concentration and calmness while weaving.
"Teacher Li, look." One day after school, Shitou approached Li Xiaoyu, holding a crooked little bamboo basket. "I made this."
Li Xiaoyu took the bamboo basket and found that a small sun pattern was woven into the bottom with bamboo pieces of different colors.
"Why make up a sun?"
"Because..." Shitou lowered his head. "My mother said that she can see the sun every day in the city where she works. I wanted to weave a sun for her, so that it would be like I'm by her side."
At that moment, Li Xiaoyu understood. For Shitou, weaving bamboo baskets is not just a craft, but also a place to express his longing and an outlet for his emotions.
Based on this discovery, Li Xiaoyu completely repositioned the "Rural Soul Station." She removed the cold questionnaires, invited village elders to serve as "special counselors," and incorporated local handicrafts, folk songs, and folk activities into the "healing resource library."
Doctor Xiao Wang was initially confused: "Secretary Li, is this still called psychological counseling?"
"Have you heard of 'narrative therapy'?" Li Xiaoyu asked. "Everyone tells stories in their own way. Shitou uses a bamboo basket to express his longing for his mother, and the village elders use folk songs to recount a life's joys and sorrows. Our job isn't to teach them to speak our language, but to help them find their own way of expression."
The new model quickly showed amazing results.
A girl who was self-conscious because of her stuttering discovered her sweet voice when she was learning to sing folk songs;
Several children who were addicted to their mobile phones rediscovered the joy of hands-on work while learning to make traditional lanterns from the elderly.
Even the left-behind women in the village found support and comfort from each other while collectively embroidering a masterpiece called "Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix".
The most effective healing is often hidden in the most ordinary wisdom of life.
A month later, the foundation team was leaving Yunling Village. Before departing, Shitou gave Li Xiaoyu a carefully woven pen holder with the words "Soul Station" woven into it using bamboo strips.
"Teacher Li, I want to study psychology when I grow up," Shitou said seriously. "But I want to study the kind of psychology that can understand the language of us mountain people."
On the way back, Li Xiaoyu kept thinking about Shitou's words. She opened her laptop and began to write a new project plan:
"Rural mental health services shouldn't simply replicate urban models, but rather be a 'localized' revolution. We need to tap into the unique cultural resources of each region and give psychological services their own unique character. In Yunling Village, this might be bamboo weaving and folk songs; in grassland pastoral areas, it might be horse racing and long-song songs; in the Jiangnan water towns, it might be embroidery and Pingtan (Chinese storytelling)..."
Outside the car window, rolling mountains stretched out. Li Xiaoyu knew countless "Yunling Villages" awaited across this vast land. But this time, she was no longer anxious. She understood that every place held its own healing wisdom. All she had to do was humbly discover it, allowing every heart to find the strength to take root in the cultural soil that nurtured it.
The roots of the soul need to be deeply rooted in the cultural soil that gave birth to it.
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