Having wrapped up a three-year bike journey that took him across
the country, Liu Shicong has set his sights on his next mission -
helping the poor with his Aitu Angel foundation.
Aitu is a combination of the Chinese words for love and
journey.
The 29-year-old native of Wuhan, Hubei province, said he got the
idea to set up a foundation to help poor people suffering from eye
diseases after seeing so many of them in poor villages during his
trip.
Liu's adventure started in Beijing in April 2004. Over the next
1,157 days, he traversed the length and breadth of the mainland on
his bike.
In Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet autonomous region, he met a
dozen blind children near the Potala Palace and visited their
school.
Sabriye Tenberken, a German social worker, who has been blind
since the age of 12, founded the school in 1998 after coming to
Lhasa as a tourist.
A student there told Liu he wanted to be a taxi driver in Lhasa,
though he knew he never would be able to drive.
"But you can set up a taxi company and hire your own drivers,"
Tenberken said with a smile.
Liu said that incident planted the idea of helping the blind in
his mind.
He later traveled to impoverished and mountainous areas in
Guizhou and Yunan provinces, where the local poor people made an
impression on him.
He later met some volunteer doctors from Taiwan in Fugong, Yunan
province. They were there to help members of minority groups get
healthcare.
"Many children there haven't seen doctors and don't even know
what a doctor is," a volunteer surnamed Zhang said. "When they get
sick, they rely on superstition and herbal medicine."
The doctors saw more than 1,400 patients in three days, but they
could only help them selectively because of limited resources.
Sick children were priority patients, and 10 of them were
eventually sent to Red Cross hospital in Kunming, the provincial
capital.
In his photo diary, alongside a photograph of the villagers
coming to see doctors, Liu wrote the following words:
A child had been scalded by hot water because of his mother's
careless mistake, but there was no hospital where he lived so he
didn't get timely treatment.
"The child's right eye can't be cured now. Had there been better
medical services, there would not been such a serious result," one
of the doctors said.
In contrast to the sad scenes in the poor regions, Liu also
witnessed the well-off lives of wealthy residents of developed
coastal regions.
Liu visited a college classmate in Dongguan, Guangdong province.
As he looked out of the French windows in his friend's duplex
apartment, Liu said he struggled with his mood.
In Futian, Fujian province, Liu was received by a high school
classmate who is now the boss of a large company. As they sat in
the classmate's Audi A6, Liu's friend said he planned to upgrade to
a BMW 760 soon.
In Shanghai, a friend who treated Liu to dinner boasted that the
apartment he bought 10 years ago for 300,000 yuan could be sold at
3 million yuan today.
The huge gap between the urban rich and rural poor he witnessed
during the trip strengthened Liu's resolve to set up a fund to help
the people living in impoverished regions.
When he returned to Beijing last June, Liu started the
preparations to set up the charitable foundation.
"The start-up funds of 1 million yuan will not be a big
problem," Liu said confidently.
Now he is cooperating with Putian government in Fujian province
and preparing to hold a charity crafts sale.
His next trip will be to the southeast coastal regions, where he
plans to lobby entrepreneurs to contribute to the Aitu Angel
foundation, under the China Red Cross Foundation.
When he asks his friends to donate, they often ask whether
doctors will be willing to provide medical services in remote
areas. Liu always answers: "Were these our own kids, how much would
we be willing to pay for their treatment? Cost would definitely not
be an issue!"
(China Daily January 30, 2008)