NANCHANG, Sept. 13  -- As the bell rang, students from Yantian Primary School ran out of the classroom with their melodicas, rushing into the music classroom next door.

Yang Hao, the only music teacher of the village school in east China's Jiangxi Province, then guided the students to review the tunes from the previous class and helped them correct their fingering one by one.

Over the years, students from the school -- many are left-behind children whose parents work outside the village -- have set up their own melodica band and led a more colorful life thanks to Yang's guidance.

Yang's music course has been the favorite of the students in the school located in the remote mountainous Wanzai County.

Yang Hao chats with school melodica band members during a training session at Yantian Primary School in Gaocun Township, Wanzai County, east China's Jiangxi Province, Sept. 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Peng Zhaozhi)

FILLING A NEED

Yang, 30, still remembers the first day when he came to the school: it was nearly a two-hour drive from the county town to the village, along a long and winding mountain highway.

In 2017, he chose to be a rural teacher after graduating with a degree in music, and then was assigned to the school. At that time, there were over 100 students and only nine teachers in the school, with no one specifically assigned to teach music, PE or art classes.