Students get a history lesson

"It was interesting to see in the village the simple bed that Xi shared with several other youths and some other items he used during his stay here working as a farmer," says Kirara Endo, a 14-year-old Japanese girl.

The teenagers also got to try their hand at building sediment storage dams in the village. They learned Xi had worked as the Party secretary of the village in 1974 and that the first thing he did was to guide the villagers to build such dams for the purpose of gathering soil in land degradation areas.

"When we cooperated to experience the labor work in the village, we could feel how much effort the residents here had made to turn this place from an impoverished countryside region to a prosperous land. I'm proud of the country's total triumph in poverty alleviation," says Jia Mingxuan, a 14-year-old girl from Shanghai.

During the trip, the teenagers also learned about the foreigners who helped Yan'an and supported the Chinese in areas like healthcare, culture and education.

These foreigners include Edgar Snow from the US, the first Western journalist to give a full account of the history of the CPC following the Long March, and Erwin Engst, a US agro-pastoral specialist who assisted with agricultural developments and later participated in China's socialist economic construction.