Retired policeman helps Lushan victims

Wang Changdian visits Yang Shaoying (right) in Lushan county. Yang's house was razed to the ground in the Lushan earthquake on April 20,2013.

To earn money to rebuild his house, Le Min, a young villager, had to purchase live pigs and sell them at a higher price in downtown Ya'an.

"As I had no permit to enter downtown Ya'an, my truck was confiscated temporarily many times by police in the city. I was so angry that I prepared an iron bar and planned to hit cops the next time they prevented me from entering Ya'an," he says.

Wang learned about his plight and took him to the police bureau in Ya'an, where he went through the procedure to get a permit within 30 minutes free of charge.

"There are many policies that farmers are ignorant about. Le did not know a farmer could get the permit free of charge and easily if he went to the police bureau. Young cops who blocked Le's truck did not tell him how to get the permit and made the case complicated," Wang says.

To help more villagers, Wang erected a big signpost at the entrance to Qingjiang with his name and cellphone number. But he does not confine his volunteer work to Qingjiang.

Fu Minggang and his 28-year-old son suffer disabilities and Fu's wife suffers mental problems.

"As my wife often has a knife in one hand, few people dare to visit our home in Zhoucun village," Fu says.

Although Fu's neighbors discouraged Wang from entering Fu's house because his wife was chopping at the door, Wang told her he had come to help her and asked her to lower the knife.

"She listened and lowered it. After I went to her bedroom, she raised the knife again. I told her I looked at her home to see what I could do to help. She lowered the knife again," Wang says.

Wang was shocked by the poverty of the family - there was not a single piece of furniture in the home - and reported the case to the Ya'an municipal government. As a result, officials from the city's finance office donated daily necessities to the family.

Fu's neighbor Yang Shaoying, 42, found a baby girl deserted by the road 16 years ago. After her husband declared he was against adopting the mentally ill girl, the couple divorced and Yang has taken care of the girl alone ever since.

Seven years ago, Yang adopted another baby girl, whose father was killed in a traffic accident and whose mom fled the hospital, abandoning her.

The Lushan earthquake razed the home of Yang and her two daughters to the ground. They had to live in a makeshift house cobbled together with wood and covered with plastic.

Wang told Yang's story to reporters in Ya'an, and the news articles resulted in a stream of donations.

"She has received 50,000 yuan, and the township government will give her a house with an area of 150 square meters. Construction has started," Wang says.

Wang's wife Zheng Xiaoli, a 53-year-old employee with the Ya'an Electric Power Co, and their 34-year-old daughter Wang Yuanyuan, a cop in Ya'an, attribute his readiness to help villagers to his early experience.

A native of Fengyang, Anhui province, Wang came to Sichuan at the age of 3 with his father, who joined the People's Liberation Army of China right before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

"Because a brother of his father went to Taiwan, Wang's father was considered a spy and his family received unfair treatment," Zheng says.

Wang had to do odd jobs before he secured a stable job at 35. Two years later, he became a cop.

"My early misfortune enables me to understand the suffering of farmers and I want to help them," he says.