Touching moments from China in 2021
By: By Ma Chi
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Touching moments from China in 2021
The year 2021 has seen tears as well as laughter. Here are some touching moments that warm our hearts and make the year memorable.
[Photo provided to China Daily]
On Jan 6, a group of volunteers braved snow to send daily supplies and anti-epidemic materials to students at dormitories in a university in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province.
The Dalian Ocean University imposed closed-off management measures after a COVID-19 outbreak. With more than 13,000 teachers and students living on campus, the university organized volunteers to send meals, daily necessities and anti-epidemic supplies to the dormitories.
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[Photo/IC]
In Shangrao, Jiangxi province, a volunteer is seen carrying bags of vegetables to residents under quarantine in a residential community on Nov 19.
Thanks to the efforts of numerous frontline volunteers like him, China has managed to keep the COVID-19 epidemic largely under control in 2021, ensuring the safety of millions of families.
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Chen Jianjun, a 24-year-old firefighter, is seen holding onto a woman who fell from a four-story building. [Photo from the internet]
In Hollywood films, heroes with superpowers come to the rescue when people are in danger. In the real world, there are also superheroes, but they are ordinary people just like you and me.
In a heart-wrenching moment, Chen Jianjun, a 24-year-old firefighter from Anhui province, is seen holding onto a woman who fell from a four-story building. They fell down together after Chen failed to prevent the woman from jumping off.
Despite Chen's heroic act, the two died after falling from the building.
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Local residents rescue people trapped in a car in flooding in Zhengzhou on July 20. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Torrential rains hit Zhengzhou, the capital of Central China's Henan province this summer, bringing unprecedented flooding to the city and putting the lives of many people in danger.
Among those in distress were an elderly woman and her two grandchildren, who were trapped in a car. As water began flooding into the car and rising quickly, the situation became desperate.
At the decisive moment, some passersby lent a helping hand. They waded through floodwaters to reach the car and broke a window to pull the three out. By then, the water was level with the woman's mouth.
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Zhang Xiaoxiao. [Photo/CCTV]
Zhang Xiaoxiao, an 8-year-old girl, moved many people when she said she would leave braised shrimps from school lunch for her sick mother in a video clip.
Zhang, from Zhoukou of Henan province, had finished all the vegetables and rice from the lunch but left four shrimps. When asked why, the girl said she would take them home to her mother, who is in poor health.
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A combo photo shows two Chinese sprinters Liu Changchun (left) and Su Bingtian (right). [Photo/People's Daily]
On Aug 1, Su Bingtian became the first Chinese sprinter to stand on the track of the Olympic men's 100m final, competing with the fastest runners in the world.
It had been nearly nine decades since his predecessor Liu Changchun participated in the men's 100m sprint in 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Liu was the first Chinese athlete to compete in the Olympic Games.
Back then, the entire Chinese contingent had just six people, and Liu had to seek donations to pay for his return trip. In the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the Chinese contingent was 777 members strong, and won 38 gold medals, ranking the second in the medal tally.
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Long-lost son Sun Zhuo reunites with his mother, Peng Siying, and his father, Sun Haiyang, in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Dec 6. [Photo provided to China Daily]
After searching for their abducted son for 14 years, Sun Haiyang and his wife Peng Siying were finally reunited with the now 18-year-old boy on Dec 6.
Their son, Sun Zhuo, was abducted while playing in front of his home in Shenzhou, Guangdong province, in 2007. The boy was found by the police after his identify was confirmed through DNA tests.
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Peng Chao receives an admission letter from the Tongji University. [Photo provided to China Daily]
A photo showing an armless test taker answering questions with his right foot during China's postgraduate admission exam became an online sensation.
The armless man is Peng Chao from Miyi county of Sichuan province. He received an admission letter from the prestigious Tongji University in July.
After losing his arms in an accident at the age of 6, Peng not only learned to take care of himself but also to write using his feet. His story is proof of how far one can go to pursue a dream.
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A combo photo shows Bamuyubumu in 2010 (left) and 2021 (right). [Photos/Xinhua]
During the Spring Festival travel rush in 2010, a migrant worker's story struck an emotional chord with millions of people. Bamuyubumu, a member of ethnic Yi group, was photographed as she was rushing to catch a train in Nanchang, East China's Jiangxi province.
Looking determined and holding her baby, the woman was carrying a heavy rucksack stuffed with quilts, clothing, diapers and other items. The photo, which was titled "Baby, mom will take you home" touched the hearts of numerous netizens.
Eleven years later, the photographer who captured the moment visited the woman at her home in Yuexi county of Sichuan province. The life of Bamuyubumu has seen dramatic changes thanks to a targeted poverty alleviation project.
Her family has shaken off poverty, and moved into a new concrete house from an old adobe dwelling.
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Just some heartwarming stories from China.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
True humanity.
If given the chance, people are basically the same the world over.
Anne Frank wrote it, but unfortunately there are too many who don't live it. What a wonderful world this would be if all people were good at heart.
Thank you, Buzz! I daresay more of this kind of sharing about world culture can be a big help to demystifying people abroad. You're on to something good. Netflix is on to something good, as well. Recently, I have been watching Asian cultural movies (at least, from the perspective of how Asians see themselves in movie-making) and it is eye-opening as well as 'softening' to see sternness, strictness, and 'formalities' exerted by these people upon themselves. Quite remarkable, actually.
Funny ha-ha happens when I happen across a 'fabled' Asian movie heavy on the people walking on air or 'flying' - I have grown to leave those quickly. That said, I have endured watching entire foreign movies by sitting 'still' and reading every captioned word of it (to my enjoyment).
Speaking of which, Buzz, you must know how to speak fluent (or better) Mandarin-Chinese? (I don't know if I am saying that right.)
One ol my favourite movies has its share of walking on air and flying - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
As for speaking Mandarin, I know some expressions, names of many things, but I never had the need to learn the language. I didn't come to China until I was 69 years old, and it should be known that it's a lot easier to learn a language when one is young than when one is old. However, everyone at the high school where I taught English for my first six years here spoke English, and in pretty well all big cities in China street signs and signs in major buildings including hospitals, even smaller bank branches and ATMs are in Chinese and English, many commercial signs are English as well, menus in many restaurants are bilingual, Announcements in train, airplane and subway terminals and while riding on them are bilingual as well. One can get by here without knowing a word of Chinese, and my wife speaks enough English but is of course totally fluent in Chinese and is with me most of the times I go out. The only Chinese characters I learned were for "fat content" for when I buy milk or other such products, and "male" and "female" in case I ever encounter a WC that doesn't show symbols.
An example of what I can do was around three years ago when I picked up a new pair of glasses at an optometrists store, when I said to the staff while leaving: "Shey shey, shinyin kwai lo, sigh jian" which translates to "Thank you, happy new year, goodbye" and earned their smiles and waves.
So I really don't need to speak Chinese at all.
Yeah. I couldn't get through that one for all of 'it.' You get to a point where you think: Been there got all the t-shirts. (Somewhere in the nineties I dropped out of television situational comedies for similar reasoning. Just did not enjoy laugh tracks anymore. Can't take them.)
But, I will put on my list of movies to revisit. Just maybe I can immerse myself? I will see. Do the Chinese people even enjoy such high-falutin' images of themselves or do they perceive it as "exploitation' films. Remember, blacks enjoy "SHAFT" and "Superfly" and "Foxy Brown" -but critics dogged them and cursed such shows as "Black-ploitation" films and it stuck to the genre!
They must enjoy it, there seem to be thousands of movies here that display it, lots of movies set in historical times.