Editor's Note: Life is a singular experience, sometimes seemingly so isolated that we almost lose faith in our existence. Although everyone is not able to achieve their potential, each of us can realize the uniqueness of the journey. Here China Daily editors highlight some of the extraordinary people in China.

Pop bottle raft sails for the Expo

Following a trip of 1,500 kilometers on a raft made of plastic bottles, Xia Yu finally arrived in Shanghai on Oct 4, only to have maritime management authorities turn down his request to enter Expo 2010 on the Huangpu River.

"I've been sailing for 156 days to see the Expo Garden," a disappointed Xia said. "The journey has proven to be a lot more turbulent than I expected when I set out."

The 36-year-old pub owner from Xiangtan of Central China's Hunan province built his raft, which measured 7 meters long by 2 meters wide, out of 2,010 plastic bottles he had collected in his pub and attached to a wooden frame.

Singing sensation

Two migrant workers became an overnight Internet sensation in October after a friend posted a video of them performing a moving tearjerker.

In the video, Wang Xu, 44, and Liu Gang, 29, appear shirtless and sweating, while Liu sits playing the guitar and Wang stands as he sings the lyrics to In the Spring.

On Nov 13, the pair sang their heart-rending version of the song alongside its composer, Wang Feng, in front of an audience of 80,000 at Shanghai Stadium.

Miner digs underground home

Chen Xinnian, a 64-year-old miner who could not afford rising house prices, created an underground apartment to provide his family with a new home.

In his spare time over a four-year period, Chen dug out a 50-square-meter room 6 meters below ground in his own yard in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province.

He said the room can resist an 8-magnitude earthquake and his family enjoys living there because it is cool in summer and warm in winter.

Man maps bustling Shanghai

For nearly 20 years, an 80-year-old man mapped out the changes in the financial and commercial hub of Shanghai, an emblem of China's modernization.

Shen Ruqun co-drafted 15 editions of a map of Pudong after conducting his own research and using his own, often barefooted, footsteps as measurements.

"One footstep is about 75 centimeters in length and I used it as a reference to calculate the distance between different buildings," said the retired bus company employee, who is so familiar with the region's urban layout that he is now considered creating a "living map" of Pudong.

Out for blood

A 51-year-old man in Anshan, Northeast China's Liaoning province, has donated 60,000 milliliters of blood over the past two decades - equal to the amount of blood coursing through the veins of 10 adults.

Guo Mingyi, who works at a local steel factory, and friends have organized 700 volunteers to donate blood on a rotating basis. He also founded two clubs for blood donors, with a membership of 800, and persuaded another 1,700 people to donate their hematopoietic stem cells to patients suffering from blood cancer.

Over the years, he has become one of the most convincing ambassadors for voluntary blood donation in China.

Inspirational teacher

Ren Ying, a teacher and the headmaster of a primary school in the village of Renzhuang in East China's Anhui province, leads by example.

Under Ren's stewardship, the school has grown from a preschool class of 24 in 1998 to six grades with more than 200 students.

Ren was left paralyzed after being struck in 1986 by rheumatoid arthritis, which caused her to fail her college entrance examination. After two suicide attempts, she embarked on a course of self-study and started the village school.

Farmer defends his turf

A Chinese farmer resorted to using shock tactics to defend his right to own land, shooting off improvised rockets to expel demolition teams who were threatening to evict him from his home for a redevelopment project.

Yang Youde, a 56-year-old farmer from the outskirts of Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, foiled two attempts to flatten his hut by firing rockets made from fireworks, before eventually reaching an agreement and accepting a compensation package.

Writing five million words of love

Wang Deyao and his wife Liu Guxiang, both born in 1923 in Xishui county, Hubei province, were childhood sweethearts who only spent 29 days together after their marriage in 1948, because Wang was dispatched to Taiwan with the Kuomintang army.

While they were out of contact for more than three decades, Wang expressed his love and devotion to his wife by writing to her regularly. His letters contain five million characters of prose and poetry that were never sent due to the blockade that was in place between Taiwan and the mainland from 1949 to 1979.

Despite the years of separation, the couple managed to get back in touch by mail after 1979 and were eventually reunited in 1984. "We said goodbye when we were young and reunited when our hair was gray," Wang said. "You cannot imagine how we felt."

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Bi Mingzhe from Linxiang, Hunan province, passed up the opportunity to attend a national university for a provincial-level college this year, in order to continue a six-year commitment he made to a friend who lost the ability to walk early in childhood.

Bi started to carry Wang Li between home and school in 2004. It was a physically demanding effort, which also required a stout heart to withstand the gossip that sprung up about the nature of the relationship between the two men.

Since Wang's parents were often busy with their work, the responsibility for collecting him from school used to fall on his grandparents. However, as Wang grew older and heavier, the task became too great for his aged grandparents and Bi stepped in to fill their shoes.

Armless man plays piano

Liu Wei, a 23-year-old whose arms were amputated after a childhood accident, plays the piano with his toes.

Liu, who lives in Beijing, was thrust into the limelight in August when he performed on China's Got Talent, the Chinese version of the TV show that launched British singing sensation Susan Boyle.

Liu has overcome his disability to the extent that he would like people to be impressed by his work before they notice that his arms are missing.