Chinese woman offers primary school friend 10,000 yuan as apology for stealing 10 cents 40 years ago, but classmate says ‘Don’t worry about it’
Woman tracks down friend in Zhejiang province after being tormented for decades
A Chinese woman who stole 10 Chinese cents from a primary school classmate more than 40 years ago so she could buy food has now tried – and failed – to hand over 10,000 yuan (HK$12,000) as an apology to her former school friend, mainland media reports.
The woman, identified only by her surname, Shi, from eastern China’s Zhejiang province, was so hungry at the time that she took the money from Xu Guanghong’s pencil case to buy herself some pancakes, Qianjiang Evening News reported on Tuesday.
Shi told the newspaper she had continued to feel guilty about what she had done ever since, and had been looking for Xu without success since graduating from high school.
She said that Xu had cried after finding her money was missing.
On Sunday Shi finally tracked down Xu in the office of local government department where she works, after talking to a retired cadre who had been Xu’s colleague, the report said.
She then tried to give her 10,000 yuan and apologised for having stolen the money.
However, Xu refused to accept the money and said that Shi should not have worried for so long about what was a small incident.
She also said she was delighted to meet her former classmate again after so many years, the report said.
Xu initially failed to recognise Shi, and said she had forgotten about the whole incident when Shi approached her with the money.
