Poor Chinese boy’s freezing trek to school touches hearts
Photograph of ‘left-behind’ child from western China with his hair covered in ice after hour-long walk to classes in sub-zero temperatures widely shared on social media
A photograph of a boy from a poor family with his hair and eyebrows covered in ice after walking to school for over an hour in freezing temperatures has touched the hearts of people in China.
The picture of the child, Wang Fuman – clad in thin clothing and with ruddy cheeks from the cold – was taken at Zhuanshanbao primary school in a rural area of Zhaotong in Yunnan province.
The boy had just walked 4.5km (2.8 miles) from his home to school when a teacher took his photograph, the news website Thepaper.cn reported.
The picture shows Wang standing in class with classmates behind him laughing. The image was later widely shared on social media in China.
The headmaster of the school was quoted as saying it took the boy over an hour to walk to school each day. “The temperature in the morning was minus nine degrees Celsius,” the headmaster said.