(Dan Tri) - A Chinese man who has never been married has become the "father" of more than 700 homeless children across the country.
Mr. Wang Wanlin, 80 years old, living in Hangzhou city (Zhejiang province, China) started taking care of homeless children he found on the streets since 1979.
Wang first met his “son” one evening when he was 34. The 15-year-old was shivering in the cold, having just escaped from a coal mine in another city in Zhejiang province.
The boy, from Jiangsu province, said he was tricked into going to the coal mine. Wang took the child home to care for him, and a week later bought him a train ticket home.
Mr. Wang, now 80 years old, has helped hundreds of street children over the past four decades (Photo: Douyin).
For Wang, saving the child was also his own salvation. As a teenager, he had a promising future after being accepted into a song and dance troupe.
Wang's life changed when a neighbor falsely accused him of stealing a watch. The man was forced to confess to the crime at the police station and sent to a remote farm for 16 years of forced labor.
Wang was released in 1978, and was fortunate to meet a packaging factory owner who was willing to "pull him back" by offering him a job.
"Children's lives can fall into darkness if they meet bad people when they are young. I need to pull them back," Wang recalled of his first encounter with his "child".
Mr. Wang keeps photos of many young people he has helped (Photo: Douyin).
Since then, Wang has been searching for homeless children on the streets, using his apartment as a shelter for them. He uses his salary to buy them food and train tickets home. The children then write a letter to inform them of their safe return.
Wang also fostered dozens of troubled children who could not return home. His apartment once sheltered 20 children at a time.
One of them is Yu Hui, born into a poor rural family in Anhui Province. In 1998, when he was just 12 years old, Yu sneaked onto a train to “earn money to improve his family’s conditions,” but was forced to steal by a group of children.
Yu escaped from them and wandered to Hangzhou. While he was rummaging through the trash for food, Wang approached the child and showed him a news report about his actions to gain his trust.
First, Wang took Yu home and bought him a train ticket back home. Then, when he learned that the child had to drop out of school to work, he asked his parents to send him back to Hangzhou to study.
Yu initially insisted on going to work, thinking it was the "only way out" for a country boy. But he was moved by Wang's persistence and studied at a vocational school until he was 19.
Yu worked in Shanghai for many years and earned money to build a two-story house for his family.
In 2022, after learning that Wang was living alone with no one to take care of him, Yu moved back to Hangzhou to live with him. He is now the CEO of a beauty salon and has been meticulously taking care of his "father".
The "father" kept hundreds of letters from the children he had helped over the years (Photo: Douyin).
Knowing that Wang had a habit of hoarding food even after it had expired, Yu would secretly exchange it for the same product with a newer date.
Wang still keeps letters and photos of the 700 children he helped. Knowing how much the “father” missed the children, Yu posted a video last year looking for them.
However, the video was soon deleted because Wang did not want his online followers to call the children "ungrateful".
Wang's actions have moved many people on social media.
"Wang is a man with a noble heart and so is Yu - his 'son'," one netizen wrote.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/an-sinh/nguoi-dan-ong-khong-ket-hon-lam-cha-cua-hon-700-dua-tre-lang-thang-20250205145248487.htm
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