To stay or not to stay, that used to be a question for Zhou Yi, a graduate from Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. But, now that his two-year experience as a volunteer in the Village of Tongxin in southeastern Sichuan Province is coming to an end in September, he's decided to stay. Actually, he already made the decision half a year ago when he decided to run for head of the village and got elected.

Out here, the term "civil servant" has real meaning.

The 25-year-old Zhou became the youngest village leader ever. And, it was the first time for the people of the poor village to elect an outsider.

Why did they do it? "He's an educated man," one villager told 21st Century, "he knows many things and he's done a lot."

Things were much different when Zhou showed up to work for the local government two years ago.

"They were curious about a university graduate and looked me over, again and again, trying to find out something to prove I could make a difference," he said.

"Then, I heard them whispering, 'what's he doing here?'"

In fact, he knew very little about farming and, for the first week, did nothing but read newspapers in his office.

Then, after three weeks, he was asked to help collect taxes by going door to door. When he reached Yuan Guanggui's home, he was surprised to find that the man owed many months in back taxes. Then he got the shock of his life.

Yuan's 9-year-old daughter was suffering from leukemia and the family had spent all its money on medical treatments. They couldn't even buy salt, let alone pay their taxes. A month later, the daughter died, leaving the family 10,000-yuan in debt.

"It was easy to shed tears, but they needed a whole lot more than that," Zhou said.

Zhou discovered that the girl's school had purchased a small policy for each student. But the family had no idea what insurance was and had never thought of asking for the insurance company to pay.

"I called the insurance company immediately but they tried to deny that there was any payment due and kept giving me various excuses," he said.

(21stcentury.com.cn July 26,2005)