China social media moved by loving relationship between couple and landlord who cooks for them, cares for newborn
- Man, 71, rents woman room, she marries, has baby, now all live like family
- Widower cooks meals, minds child, gives red packets, no longer lonely
Social media in China has been touched by the family-like relationship between a young Chinese couple and their 71-year-old landlord.
On Douyin, the mainland version of TikTok, millions have watched video clips of the elderly man interacting with the couple’s baby, as if he were the biological grandfather.
The baby’s father, surnamed Kang, said his wife rented a room in the old man’s flat in 2017, after she graduated from university and moved to Shanghai for work.
Her landlord was there for her when she began dating her future husband, when she married him in 2020, and when the couple had their baby, nicknamed Ximi, in 2022.
The kind old man even carried their daughter from the hospital to their home when she was just a day old.
Kang said he suggested they move out after they married, but his wife was concerned that might leave the elderly widower lonely.