Home cooking provides a tonic for patients and their relatives

A small kitchen near a hospital in Jiangxi province brings succor to people with end-stage cancer, as Wang Ruoyao and Hu Chenhuan report for Xinhua China Features.

For several months, Li Jia took care of her mother who was hospitalized in the final stages of cancer. Cooking soup in a communal kitchen gave Li a few moments of relative peace and normality.

"The act of cooking is part of an ordinary, quiet life," said the 18-year-old, who dropped out of high school and travelled with her mother from Wan'an county, Jiangxi province, to Nanchang, the capital.