Everyday hero revives faith in humanity

Kind, hardworking

While many people are paying tribute to Hu, they are also curious to learn more about her personal life.

To her friends, neighbors and colleagues, she was an ordinary, typical Chinese woman who fulfilled her responsibilities as a daughter, wife and mother, and always worked hard for her family, according to Chinese media reports.

The most common words used to describe Hu were "easygoing, kindhearted, and hardworking", said people who knew her.

A report posted by iFeng.com on Monday said in 2016, when Hu was 46, she went to a domestic services company in Suzhou to apply for childcare and hourly casual work. She registered information stating she was 158 centimeters tall, weighed 56 kilograms, and was good at cooking and housekeeping.

Before that, Hu, a native of Jiaoling village in Huaian, Jiangsu, worked at factories in Suzhou, the report said.

Wan Ting, a woman who worked with Hu at one of the factories, told the news outlet that they had remained friends.

"Last summer, we took a trip to Shanghai together," she recalled. "Hu wore a striped dress, and we took photos of each other on the Bund."

In 2020, Hu started her own business selling cosmetics, meal replacements and other women's products online.

To promote her business, she even posed for a professional-looking photo, wearing makeup, earrings and a blue suit, according to the report. Hu smiles confidently in the photo which is captioned with the words "Be yourself". The photo was her WeChat profile picture when she died, the report said.

But the COVID-19 epidemic had a major impact on her business venture. Within a few months, she switched to a part-time job as a school bus attendant at the Japanese school in Jiangsu, earning about 3,000 yuan ($412) a month, the report added.

Cleaner Lyu Qin, 57, who knew Hu, told the website of Southern Weekly news outlet, that women of their age work to reduce the financial burden of their children, and rarely to earn money for themselves.

Hu often posted short videos and pictures on social media platforms of herself cooking, and she liked interacting with her family members and friends in this way, according to the Chinese reports.

She had a son who married two years ago, and she was due to celebrate her 55th birthday next month, the report said.