‘Friendly hospitality’: 300 happy-to-help north China locals offer free lifts for tourists visiting snowy region
- Northerners form fleet of volunteers to help visitors from southern China
- Kind-hearted drivers offer free service to boost reputation of region
News that more than 300 kind-hearted people in China are spontaneously giving free lifts to visitors in bad weather when they are unable to get transport has trended on mainland social media.
One such driver surnamed Hu, from Harbin city in the northern province of Heilongjiang, said a fleet of volunteers has been formed by locals to offer free lifts for domestic tourists from the south of the country, whom they call “small potatoes”.
It is not entirely clear how the “small potatoes” nickname came about, but people from the south of China are, by and large, shorter and thinner than their northern counterparts.
All kinds of vehicles are involved in the good deed, from trucks to luxury vehicles worth about 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million), and all display a poster advertising the lifts.
“Free rides. Please wave if any ‘small potato’ fails to get a ride-hailing service, so I can offer you a lift,” the posters say.
One local, a 30-year-old female driver, saw two young women standing in the street one evening looking lost.