All ends well for the man who finds the wells

Cheng Guonan, a student of geology, returned to his hometown in Yulin, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, in 1975 and now dedicates himself to looking for water for the local people. Photos by Huo Yan / China Daily

He has dug a well in his own yard and treats guests to the well water. "This is the best mineral water in China. You can taste how sweet it is," he says. "The water company's commercialization of the good water is wrong. It's exploiting the people. Water is owned by everyone."

He refuses money and gifts from the beneficiaries of the water he finds.

"He could have been a millionaire," says the village head.

His pension, which has risen from 100 yuan ($16) a month in the early 1980s to current 3,000 yuan, makes him one of the richest people in the village, where the average income is less than $1 a day.

But after his parents died in 1990s, he started donating almost all his savings and monthly pension to the villagers, especially the middle school and college students from the poor villages.

He remains single, plants his own grains and vegetables and lives on about 100 yuan a month.

His small bedroom is on the second floor of his building and is accessible only by means of a bamboo ladder. He takes the ladder into the bedroom after climbing up the ladder at night, so nobody can enter his room. The villagers says Chen started doing this after he came back from Shandong in 1975.

Huo Yan contributed to this story.

liyang@chinadaily.com.cn

 

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