By DCP项目高二6班 张翼达

‘Atnoon they weed with hoes. The farmers’ sweat drips on the soil.’ I have readthis Chinese ancient poetry many times, but I have never learned its deeper meaning.Most of us were born and raised in prosperous cities where we have been enjoyingthe comfort of warm winter and cool summer with the popularity ofair-conditioning. So how could we understand the bitterness of turning thebarren soil black with sweat, and the waves of rice fragrance coming from the autumn.

Springis the best season of the year. In early March some of our DCP program studentsand teachers went to the farming land in our school to plant flowers. Hoedanced up and down, hard earth became soft after being cultivated by us.  We could not find such a sense of achievementin textbooks and classroom, but due to the lack of experience we encounteredlots of problems. For example, fertilizer and seeds was not scattered in auniform way and because of improper use, hoes were broken. When we didn’t knowhow to do, our teachers showed us a very different side of themselves. "Farmingis not just about hard work, it's also about skills," said Ms Ou, an Englishteacher of DCP program. With our teacher's careful guidance, we gradually foundour own pace, finally dry hard soil was fertilized gradually. Even though theseseeds were just sowed and would not sprout immediately, the light of life hadalready shone in our hearts and washed away our tiredness.

Poemsand documentary article that I have read turned into reality, in the lightof the setting sun. The colorful shadow on the farming land mapped out by thesunlight looked like an impressionist painting. Our Chinese teacher, Ms Li，told us that the depth of knowledge wasmore important than the breadth of the knowledge and the farming practice wasnot just for fun, but also to gain the firsthand experience of the farmers'hard working.

Our farmingpractice came to an end when the sun was setting. "Cherish food" and "farmingculture" should not exist as knowledge in the books. We learned a vividdown-to-earth lesson of labor from this farming experience. As students in theivory tower, we need more down-to-earth labor experience to gain betterunderstanding of the significance of labor, so that we won’t grow into the kindof people who can neither do physical work nor distinguish rice from wheat.