Loewe's labor of love

While our compatriots rack their brains on how to get their 15 minutes of fame, and subsequent fortune, he has been hiding from the spotlight. So media-shy is he that he pleaded that his name be removed from the list of candidates for the annual "Moving China" award.

"The media may make me a celebrity. I just want to do my things well, and not to become famous. Being a celebrity can only disturb my work and life," said Eckart Loewe, known as Lu Anke, the young German who, out of his own volition, teaches in the desolate villages of the remote Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Owing in a large part to his own unwillingness, Loewe did not make it to the 2006 "Moving China" list. Yet his stories have never failed to move us. And perhaps never will.