Love and courage in China: teenager helps refuse collector with heavy bags, policemen return US$7,500 diamond ring found in rubbish bin and a sleepy boy gets a bus ride home

The teenager saw the middle-aged refuse collector when he was taking a bathroom break at school
The boy had fallen asleep on the bus and his mother did not realise he had not got off

Trending in China

Alice Yanin Shanghai

Published: 9:00am, 1 Jun 2022

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A teenage boy earned plaudits in China for using a toilet break at school to help a middle-aged refuse collector carry heavy bags.

The video of the boy’s helpful behaviour was taken by his teacher at a school in Zhoukou, in Henan province in central China last week, the Dahe News reports. It quickly went viral across China.

The teacher, surnamed Li, said she checked on the boy, whose name and age were not revealed, because he had asked to use the restroom but had not returned after a while.

She then saw the teen helping the man move the plastic bags containing used paper and thrown out books. He grabbed the bags from the teaching building and then loaded them onto the man’s tricycle.

The teacher said she “was moved” when she saw the scene.

When the boy found the teacher watching, he ran towards his classroom, with a smile on his face.

An internet user said on Weibo: “There is a ‘glow’ around him when he is running.”

Dumpster diving to help neighbourhood

A woman shows off the diamond ring she accidentally threw in the trash can. Photo: Thepaper.cn

Two police officers helped a woman find her 50,000 yuan (US$7,500) diamond ring by searching through over 30 rubbish bins in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.

The woman, surnamed Zhou, said she threw the ring away by accident last week and only realised the mistake after the rubbish bag from her home was moved to the larger bin in her community, the Qianjiang Evening News reported.

Soon after the woman reported the loss to the police, two officers arrived and identified more than 30 bins in Zhou’s community to be checked.

With long tongs, the officers and the woman’s husband searched in the 30 bins, paying particular attention to pink bags, which the couple said the ring would be in.

The woman expressed gratitude to the two officers when they found her ring.

“Thank you so much! You are my lucky stars,” said the woman.

Left behind on the bus

A boy was driven to a station near his home after he fell asleep and did not get off with the rest of his family. Photo: Thepaper.cn

A bus driver drove a young boy home after he fell asleep on the bus in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing last week, missing his stop when his mother did not realise he did not get off with her.

Chongqing Television reported that the mother and her daughter were sitting in the front of the bus while the primary schoolboy was in the back.

The mother called the boy to get off the bus, but he did not hear her as he had fallen asleep. The bus drove away before the mother could fetch her son.

The mother called the bus company after she realised the boy had been left behind, and the bus service immediately informed the driver Yuan Peng.

Yuan pulled over at the nearest stop, woke the boy up and told him to stay on the bus until they had returned to the station near his home, where his mother was waiting to pick him up.