In the years he was alive, People's Liberation Army soldier Lei Feng would give money to the needy, although he himself was only a soldier. He would assist the elderly across the street. If Lei - who took to heart Chairman Mao's adage, "Serve the people" - knew of anyone who needed help, he would be there.
"Learn from Lei Feng," Mao would later say of the PLA truck driver who was 22 when he died in a vehicle accident in 1962.
Today, as has happened every year on Lei's birthday since 1963, Lei's spirit of altruism will come alive throughout the nation.
In Shanghai, thousands of civil servants, soldiers, workers and students will be on the streets to offer their help or professional expertise for free.
They'll be cutting hair and fixing bicycles and small electrical devices, such as radios. They'll be in People's Square, parks, outside of Metro stations and in the Xujiahui commercial area.
But as the nation's reform and opening-up continues, maintaining Lei as a socialist icon of generosity is becoming more difficult as Western ideas of personal wealth and benefits become more widespread, university social scientists said.
"Learning from Lei Feng should be embodied in our daily routine - not as a ritual once a year," said Pi Liansheng, a social scientist at East China Normal University.
Too many young people believe they should get a reward if they help someone, Pi said.
Sun Yufeng, vice curator of the Lei Feng Memorial Museum in Fushun, Liaoning Province, where Lei joined the PLA and died, said: "The pursuit of material affluence is human nature. But Lei's way of thinking can be a way to balance the economic and spiritual development of the Chinese people."
In an effort to widen the legacy of Lei, who was born in Hunan Province, a free exhibition on Lei organized by the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is running at the Shanghai Library through Wednesday.
Items on display are from the Lei museum. Since the exhibition opened on Thursday, it has attracted about 6,000 visitors, ranging from primary-school students to retirees, every day, said exhibition organizers.
"Previously, I only heard of his name in a second-grade Chinese lesson about helping young students on a rainy night," said Lu Wenxin, a fourth grader at Changle Primary School, who visited the exhibition on a trip organized by the school.
"My family never mentioned him."
Lu and other students from Changle Primary were scheduled today to visit rest homes, remove litter from campus and tell stories to kindergarten children, said Assistant Headmistress Ye Xiaowei.
(EastDay.com 03/05/2001)
