China Good Samaritans – landslip hero, delivery mercy man, long-distance rubbish mission

We all need a helping hand in life, and when it comes, it feels all the more welcome when the act of generosity is from a stranger.

Here, the Post rounds up the best Good Samaritan stories to come out of China recently.

Highway hero

A road maintenance worker sacrificed his vehicle and equipment, worth 140,000 yuan (US$19,000), to save 100 cars from a landslide.

Xiong Jinhua, who is in his 60s, was rescuing a broken-down car on a section of the Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway, in southwestern China’s Chongqing municipality, on July 11.

Xiong Jinhua lost his vehicle and all his equipment under a pile of rocks and mud. Photo: Douyin

As he finished fixing the car, a nearby hillside gave way.

Xiong moved quickly to get the driver of the car he had just mended to speed away from the falling mud and rocks.

He then got out of his own car to warn oncoming cars, and as he did so his vehicle and equipment engulfed by the landslide.

Police said Xiong stopped more than 100 cars.

The vehicle and rescue equipment, which Xiong paid for out of his own pocket, were worth a total of 140,000 yuan. His company said they would compensate him for the losses.

Lifesaver

A delivery worker in Wuhan, Hubei province, central China, voluntarily carries an automated external defibrillator (AED) on his back so that he can “save lives wherever he is”.

Kind-hearted courier Zhao Bin carries a life-saving device on his back. Photo: myzaker

Zhao Bin, 32, started carrying the 2.5kg device on July 15, despite it leaving him with less space for delivery orders.

He said he was inspired after seeing a drowning person being saved by a passing nurse, and life-saving acts he witnessed during floods in his home province of Henan in north-central China in 2021.

A portable AED can save the life of someone who suffers a cardiac arrest.

Awareness about the device was raised in China following the sudden death of Taiwan actor Godfrey Gao in 2019 and that of 17-year-old Chinese badminton player, Zhang Zhijie, during a tournament in Indonesia in July.

Rubbish job

Wu Guyi collects and bags litter left by tourists strewn across an area of grassland. Photo: Douyin

A Chinese travel vlogger with 430,000 followers on Douyin has become widely known after she went on a rubbish-clearing mission during a trip to Tibet.

Wu Guyi, 32, is driving by herself from northern China’s Hebei province to Tibet, a journey that is expected to last 23 days.

She was seen picking up rubbish on grasslands as she travelled.

In one high-altitude grassland area in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, Wu collected 15 large bags of rubbish all by herself, and suffered altitude sickness as a result.

Wu has called on tourists to stop littering.