Love and courage in China: Gaokao police officer meets former teacher, a note from a passed loved one and a delivery driver becomes a hero
- A police officer patrolling a school administering the gaokao exam reunites with his former teacher
- A woman finds a handwritten note on an old quilt from her late mother-in-law
The world can often feel remarkably small, including one such moment in China when an on-duty police officer recognised his former teacher from nine years earlier while he was patrolling a school administering the gaokao exam.
The officer, Song Jingxi, called out his former teacher’s name, who soon recognised him even though both were wearing medical face masks, the state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The gaokao is the annual one-size-fits-all university entrance exam being taken by students across China this week.
The teacher surnamed Kou taught Song mathematics at the secondary school and was at the exam venue wishing her current students well as they began to sit for the test.
“He was my student,” said Kou to her colleagues standing next to her.
“I did not know that you work as a police officer,” she told Song. “I feel very safe seeing you here.”
Online, people said the teacher-student reunion made them feel “touched”.
“The teacher is so proud,” wrote one person on Weibo.
Finding a note from a passed loved one
A Chinese woman found a note handwritten on an old quilt from her mother-in-law who died three years earlier when she was about to throw it away.
The woman, who lives in central China’s Hunan province, said the moment was so profound that she burst into tears, according to mainland news portal china.com.cn.
“The quilt is made of 100 per cent silk. Cherish it,” the neat handwriting read. The note continued: “Shen Su’e [the dead woman] made this in November 2010.”
The young woman said she had never discovered the handwriting before because she had only washed the quilt cover and had not paid attention to the padding.
“I will never throw it away. I will keep it because it signifies inheritance and love,” said the woman.
Milk delivery woman saves a family
A milk delivery woman helped save the lives of a family of four who were trapped inside a burning building after a first-floor store caught on fire.
Zheng Shishu said she heard the cries for help from the building when she was riding an electric bicycle to deliver milk in the early morning last week in Shaoxing, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.
She managed to find a water hosepipe and connect it to a fire hydrant and then sprayed the store through a hole in a window, she told the news video portal Lichi News.
A man, who happened to be driving past, joined Zheng to try to put out the flames.
Minutes later, firefighters arrived and extinguished the fire. Upon the arrival of the firefighters, Zheng left the site and continued to deliver milk.
Both Zheng and the driver received a 10,000 yuan (US$1,500) Good Samaritan award from Alibaba Group, which is also the owner of the South China Morning Post.
“I did not think about receiving any reward when I was putting out the fire. I did it because it was the right thing to do,” said Zheng.
The woman delivers milk in the evening while taking care of her two daughters during the day.
