In May, 15 schoolchildren from Sichuan Province inspired other young pupils from around the world with the danger they go through just to acquire education by scaling an 800-meter cliff using only a rickety bamboo ladder.
With the news report, the provincial government was forced to act to make life easier for the school children. However, supporting poor and young students could be done too by ordinary Chinese without the need for government to intervene.
In Zhejiang Province, 83-year-old Mao Shihua does it by cooking breakfast every school day the past 24 years and selling the food cheaply to students of the Huangtankou Primary School. The breakfast fare is priced at half a yuan, reported China Daily.
In contrast, zongzi in other food stalls costs two or three yuan. Her price is definitely affordable for the poor students since according to Numbeo, breakfast in an inexpensive restaurant in China costs around 20 yuan.
It appears that the old woman, who receives a monthly pension of 1, 040 yuan from the government and uses part of it as capital for her food business, just breaks even.
The owner of a nearby breakfast stall said Mao Shihua is not making money from her food stall. It’s because she insist on the best quality for her morning meal by ensuring that only freshly ground soybean milk is used and the eggs are carefully selected.
To have breakfast ready before classes begin, the granny wakes up at 1 a.m. to begin preparing the ingredients. At 5 a.m., she in on the way to the school aboard a tricycle on her way to the food stall, open for three hours, which is popular with the kids.
If she is willing to make those sacrifices, it is definitely not for profit but because Mao Shihua considers the pupils - many of whom also travel from their home in mountainous regions and are from poor families - her own grandsons and granddaughters.