'No strings attached'
Plymire said his work was motivated by his Christian faith, but helping people was not about converting them. Whether or not someone shared his faith made no difference to him. His help came with "no strings attached", he added.
His sister Mary Ann Plymire helped fund the county's first ambulance. In 1998, the siblings were named honorary residents of Huangyuan.
Mary Ann died in Canada in April 2016. In keeping with her last wish, Plymire brought her ashes back to Huangyuan. It was his last trip "home".
Plymire spent much of his life giving back to Huangyuan, a town that had given him so much and shaped the person he became, he said. Growing up there, he learned Chinese traditions, from respecting one's elders to treating others with courtesy.
"He loves the Chinese people. He loved his work there with the Chinese. He loved living there," Dorothy Davidson, a retired librarian who has been working with Plymire on a book about his life, told China Daily.
"He grew up from the age of one or two in China, so that was his life. It wasn't an American life. It was a Chinese life."
Davidson said she was particularly moved by Plymire's experiences in China. To her, his story was one of people-to-people connections, and she wanted to share it with American readers as well.
"An American with a big nose who loves Chinese niangpizi," Plymire repeated softly.
People from Qinghai province were surprised to learn that the rhyme they had grown up reciting was based on a real person. Others shared stories passed down by their grandparents about the two generations of Plymires who had lived in Huangyuan.
Plymire himself wondered why.
"I am curious as to why everybody would be interested in this. I don't consider myself as anything extraordinary or special," he said. "Maybe you can tell me."
Xinrui Ge contributed to this story.
mingmeili@chinadailyusa.com
