Heroes come in many colors

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-02-18 07:48

BEIJING -- The results of China Central Television's annual "People Who Moved China" competition were announced with Space program father Qian Xuesen among the winners.

         
Qian Xuesen  Min Enze    Fang Yonggang   Xie Yanxin  Henry Wu Hung-lickand Chung Chi-yung  
     

 

 
Meng Xiangbin   Li Li Li Jianying   Chen Xiaolan  Luo Yingzhen   

Qian Xuesen

Qian Xuesen, the 97-year-old pioneer of China's space technology, is acknowledged as a crucial leader of New China's nuclear and space programs and a pioneer of Chang'e I, the country's first lunar orbiter that blasted off into outer space last November. He helped set up a national research institute on rockets and missiles and was responsible for a great number of homegrown space innovations.

Min Enze

Min Enze won the 2007 State Scientific and Technological Award. The 84-year-old petrochemical catalyst expert got his PhD from Ohio State University in 1951. After returning home in 1955, he led and supervised researches in petrochemicals. He contributed significantly to the development of technologies for new generations of cracking catalysts.

Fang Yonggang

Fang Yonggang is a naval academy professor. The 45-year-old began teaching at Dalian Naval Academy in 1985 after graduating from Shanghai's Fudan University. Fang continued his studies for the next two decades spread the Party's theories in classrooms, and published 16 works and more than 100 papers. Fang was diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer in 2006 but has continued his mission.

Xie Yanxin

Xie Yanxin is a widower who has served his parents-in-law for 33 years.

The 55-year-old worker married Xie Lan'e in 1973, but she died the very next year, 40 days after their daughter was born.

His wife's last wish was that he take care of her family. He agreed. The aging man has stayed true to his words.

Henry Wu Hung-lick and Chung Chi-yung

Henry Wu Hung-lickandChung Chi-yung are both 89 years old now. They both hold a PhD in law from the University of Paris. In 1971, they spent all they had - about 500 million yuan - on Shue Yan College, an independent liberal arts institution. Shue Yan has grown from a small college with about 200 students to a full-fledged university with 11 academic departments and about 4,000 students.

Luo Yingzhen

Luo Yingzhen is a loving and dedicated wife and the youngest winner of this year's award. Luo's husband had been in coma since October 2005 after suffering serious injuries in a fight with three drug dealers.

For more than two years, Luo, now 27, accompanied her husband to hospital, talked, sang, and wrote him more than 600 letters until one day he regained consciousness.

Li Li

Li Li is known as "Helen Keller of Hunan". The 45-year-old has been living with polio since the age of one. She suffered another tragedy when she was 40: an accident completely paralyzed her lower body.

But physical disability could not stop her from engaging in social and educational work. Li is founder of a website on home education and a workshop on psychological education for juveniles. She has delivered lectures in more than 100 institutions, inspiring thousands of people.

Li Jianying

Li Jianying was a test pilot who gave his life for villagers. When the Chinese Air Force veteran was descending on Nov 14, 2006, a flock of pigeons flew toward his jet. He chose to force-land and his plane exploded while he was doing so. He didn't bail out because the unmanned plane could have caused a major catastrophe in any of the seven villages with 3,500 people below.

Chen Xiaolan

Chen Xiaolan is a doctor with the courage of her conviction. The 55-year-old has established herself as a medicine fraud-fighter over the past decade.

In the mid-1990s, Chen was forced out of a hospital in Shanghai for exposing a medical fraud after putting herself through experiments to prove that a "high-tech" serum injection and medical equipment were bogus.

Meng Xiangbin

Meng Xiangbin died trying to save a life. On Nov 30 morning, Meng, a lieutenant in a local PLA unit who was on a weeklong holiday, had taken his wife and daughter for shopping in Jinhua, when he heard cries of "Help! Help!" coming from a nearby bridge.

Meng dived into the icy river water from the 10-m-high bridge to save a girl who attempted to commit suicide. He saved the girl, but the freezing water and the effort he needed to carry the girl to safety killed him.



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