CITY GUIDE >Culture and Events
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CITY GUIDE >Culture and Events
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A soldier's story
By Lin Qi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-02 13:18 American Leif Rogers was looking forward to meeting 50 young local students in his office in Northeast China to share his greatest passion.
It was not the subject of journalism, which he majored in at college and once taught at university and he was not planning to talk about finance, despite being a client manager in the Bank of Jinzhou, in Liaoning province. The 37-year-old expat had only one topic in mind, the inspiring life of Lei Feng (1940-62), arguably one of China's most famous soldiers. Lei Feng became a New China icon in the 1960s for his charitable deeds and Good Samaritan altruism, and his legend grew after his sudden death in an accident. For decades, the young soldier became a role model for an entire generation. But Rogers, who has become an expert on the soldier's life, soon discovered many of China's new generation were not aware of Lei's valuable legacy. "I asked a boy whether he had read The Dairies of Lei Feng. He looked rejected, and he said it was something quite out of date," says Rogers. Then he gave the boy a brochure of Lei Feng's most recited excerpts in both Chinese and English. "Read it, you may change your mind," he says. |
