BEIJING: “Haijun, the light in my room went out suddenly. I climbed up the ladder to fix it, but now I can’t get down because my legs wouldn’t listen to me.” On the other end of the phone, an old man Zhu Kegan sounded anxious.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right there!” At 6:30 p.m. on October 14, Qian Haijun, who was having dinner in the company’s canteen, grabbed his kit and went straight ahead to Zhu Kegan’s home as soon as he received the call.
It turned out that the only fluorescent light in Zhu’s bedroom was not working. After repeated debugging, Qian Haijun replaced the tube and helped him to scrub the range hood as well. When the old man wanted to pay for the materials, Qian Haijun refused, saying, “Each family has elders, and I’m glad to see you happy and healthy.”
Qian Haijun, a front-line electrical worker of the State Grid Zhejiang Cixi Power Supply Company, was awarded “Model of the Times” by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China on May 6, 2022. Since 1999, he has been serving the people of his community for free. He is “on duty” for 365 days a year and his mobile phone is “on” 24 hours a day. In order
to help more people better, Qian made 500 business cards by himself and left one after each service. Regardless of the distance, regardless of the festivals, when he received people’s calls for help, he always replied with one sentence, “I’ll be right there”.
On a late autumn night, Chen Wenpin, an old man Qian has been helping for a long time, had an attack of emphysema. Receiving the call, Qian rushed to the old man’s home in a T-shirt without a second thought and drove him to the hospital.
Finally arriving at the hospital, they were told that there were no more beds available. After negotiations, the hospital agreed to add another bed.
Qian bought meal tickets and toiletries for the old man, fetched a vacuum flask and hired a carer for him. Afterwards, he went back to work without resting. When he went to the hospital again the next day, all the people in the ward gave him a thumbs up.
It turned out that the old man had told them everything during their casual conversation. However, Qian Haijun considered this as something he should do. During the 27 days the old man was in the hospital, Qian visited him six times. Instead of calling Chen Wenpin “Uncle Chen”, Qian called him “Dad”.
There are many, many more similar stories. Qian Haijun often compares love to a light that illuminates others and warms oneself at the same time.
In order to make Qian Haijun’s good deeds from a “bonsai” into a “landscape”, his company sets up a volunteer service centre named after him, and regularly carries out other voluntary activities such as indoor lighting circuits transformation.
During the past seven years, the volunteer team led by Qian Haijun has travelled to five provinces, including Zhejiang, Jilin and Sichuan, travelling more than 200,000 kilometres. They transformed the circuits and sent light to more than 6,000 families, benefiting over 60,000 people.
Not long ago, he also went to Nujiang, Yunnan Province, to carry out public welfare activities. From a young electrician in his prime to a grey-haired “Old Qian”, he has always used his skills to serve the most ordinary people and the most needy groups.
More and more young people are becoming “Qian Haijun”. In 2015, Qu Chaoyang, who was studying in a vocational and polytechnic school, followed Qian Haijun during his summer internship. After graduation, Qu Chaoyang decided to work with Qian.
He said to Qian, “Master, please rest assured that I will work hard to help others. You will never be alone on the road of volunteering.”
From one person to a group of people, from one heart to thousands of hearts, under the leadership of Qian Haijun, today, the volunteer service centre has more than 1,200 registered volunteers, radiating more than 300 communities, with a total of more than 30,000 times of service and more than 213,000 working hours of service.
“I am willing to carry a toolbox for the rest of my life and walk in the front line of serving the people.” As an electrical worker rooted in the grassroots, Qian Haijun has spent 23 years with persistent efforts making extraordinary success in the ordinary position and becoming the people’s trustworthy “lamplighter”. – Agencies
