Builder honors wartime dead

After 10 years of laborious effort, Jin Chunxie has built 77 monuments to Chinese, Japanese and Soviet troops who died in Yanbian, Jilin province, during World War II.

Jin, 68, was born into a poor family of the Korean ethnic group in the northeastern Chinese city. He worked as a teacher, soldier and factory worker before becoming a civil servant in Wangqing county, Yanbian.

Over the years, he learned that at least 105 battles took place in the county, leaving more than 175 ruins and cemeteries holding 634 war dead.

"But most of the battles and ruins have been forgotten, which breaks my heart," Jin said. "My parents told me many miserable stories of how civilians suffered during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) since I was a child. I made up my mind to do something for those people and those who saved them.

"The names of the martyrs should be made known, and their deeds remembered."

To collect information about the heroes, Jin traveled to many cities around the country, always eating the cheapest food and staying in the cheapest hotels. He managed to raise more than 13 million yuan ($2 million) to build the monuments.

To save the money raised from many companies and government departments, Jin designed the monuments himself and took part in the construction work.

He visited a stone quarry hundreds of kilometers from his home more than 100 times over 10 years to choose marble.

In those years, he was bitten by ticks and stung by bees. He slept in a forklift on chilly winter nights. He has completed 40 books comprising more than 1 million words to record the stories of the heroes.

Insisting that all of them, regardless of their nationality, should be remembered with dignity, Jin built a marble monument to a Japanese soldier who committed suicide as a protest against his country's invasion of China and gave Chinese soldiers 100,000 rounds of ammunition.

The monument and a primary school named after the Japanese soldier are listed as provincial-level relics protection sites.

In August 1945, about 2,100 soldiers from the Soviet Union lost their lives in a six-day battle against the Japanese Kwantung army. The people of Wangqing county buried 55 soldiers who died in the county on a hillside.

In 2009, Jin erected a monument for the 55 soldiers, whose names remain unknown, and built a cemetery for them.

"Monuments have souls," Jin said. "They send our respects to the martyrs, and tell our children how important peace is."

Jin has also financed many students in their studies over the past 10 years.

"I'll continue helping children in need for the rest of my life and teach them how hard it is to achieve peace," he said.

Cang Wei contributed to this story.