"At first," said Dr. Duan Chuanxin, "I thought about putting up a fight.

"But because I was with a female colleague, I hesitated and I thought that was maybe too dangerous."

So Dr. Duan reached into his pocket, but before he handed anything over, he could not resist directly addressing his two young assailants in English.

"Why are you robbing me?" Duan recalls telling them. "I am a Chinese doctor who came here to help you guys."

The robbers stopped, turned and fled.

"I guess there must be honor among local thieves," he joked.

Looking back on his 2003-2005 stint in the mountainous kingdom land-locked within South Africa, today's director of the Ear, Nose and Throat Department of the Maternity and Pediatric Hospital in Hubei Province, central China, said, "People trusted Chinese doctors and regarded us as 'angels sent by God' or something."

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