Society

Impoverished girl returns missing money

By Zhang Jiawei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-06-12 22:16

A 79-year old man surnamed Zeng could have had a terrible day if his lost briefcase had been found by someone else.

Chen Kun, 15, a middle school girl in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, happened to find a briefcase that was apparently lost by someone in a small dumpling restaurant. There were only two or three other customers, except for her and her father, eating their breakfast on the morning of June 5, the Chongqing Evening News reported Saturday.

Thinking the owner must be anxious about losing the briefcase but without a phone on them, the daughter and father returned to their nearby home immediately, trying to find a clue from things in the case guiding them to the owner.

To their great surprise, they found about 50,000 yuan cash, a passbook indicating the balance was 5 million yuan, several bankcards, some paper materials, a digital camera and about 10 name cards.

"Oh, my god! I have never seen so much money in my life," said the daughter at the sight of the cash.

The family knew the owner must be quite upset, so the daughter and mother decided to call the people on the name cards they found, while the father was ready to report the case to the police.

But all the people they called said they hadn't lost anything. The family then decided to search once again in the briefcase, and this time they found another name card and an identity card in the interlayer of the briefcase.

They finally got in touch with the owner after another attempt, with the man on the other side of the phone speaking excitedly "Yeah, it is me who lost a briefcase!"

The owner, 79, was the board chairman of a local car sales company in Chongqing.

He lost his briefcase because he had an unpleasant morning in the dumpling restaurant, where he asked the waiter to hand him the salt, but the waiter treated him badly and asked him to get the salt himself, which, angered the old man and made him to leave without eating the food.

He didn't realize he lost his briefcase until 20 minutes later when he arrived at his company. He immediately called his family members to search along the road from the restaurant to the company.

About half an hour after the old man realized his misfortune, the girl's call came in.

After getting back his briefcase, the man decided to give the girl 1,000 yuan as a reward, but she and the family turned him down even after he left the money at the family's gate and left quickly.

"When I was getting my briefcase back from the family, my hands were shaking and I couldn't even stand still," the old man said, adding he was really excited to meet such kind-hearted people.

One of the girl's teachers, Chen Jingming, said she was an excellent student.

The girl's family was impoverished because her father, who was a miner, broke his wrist in a work accident several days ago and the family had tens of thousands of yuan in debt, according to the teacher.

The old man gave the girl's school a letter of thanks since she declined any cash reward, and he decided to spend more time and money in charity to help those like the kind-hearted girl in the future.