The unsung heroes(2)

A birthday baby

Baby Mengmeng celebrated her first birthday with a birthday cake and a candle and a group of excited supporters.

Eight months ago a charity in Henan Province brought Mengmeng to Shanghai for treatment. Mengmeng would have been a pretty baby except that she suffered a cleft lip, a congenital deformity. The 3-month-old weighed only 3 kilograms at the time.

In Shanghai she was in the care of Lupin House as the first baby this charity organization helped. Lupin House (named after a popular Chinese children's song about a mother's love) was established by a group of white-collar workers to help sick and disabled infants who had been abandoned by their parents. Lupin House helps treat the children and find adoptive parents for them.

"Mengmeng scared me at first. Her skin was so wrinkled she was like a tiny little old woman," said Du Wei, one of the charity's founders.

Because she suffered from a severe cleft lip, when she arrived Mengmeng had cold sores all over her mouth and she couldn't suck milk. Mengmeng is one of 12 children at the home suffering congenital diseases.

The idea for Lupin House began some time ago when Li Yuqing and Du Wei read Internet reports about charities in western China appealing for help for disabled children. Dedicated charity volunteers, the two then founded this charity to help children with special needs. With the help of the China Charities Aid Foundation for Children as well as a couple of like-minded friends, they set up Lupin House in a villa in Minhang district in 2011.

Co-founder Ren Yan said: "We like to make use of our contacts to build a platform where sick children can be sent to quality medical institutions. We also want to provide a place where abandoned infants can stay before and after surgery. We want to find them homes."

With the initial 90,000 yuan they collected, the group found a place on Zhongchun Road. Although they all have day jobs, they've managed to make the house work. An owner of a decoration company, Li Yuqing, the only man in the group, took over the renovations for the house. The senior manager for a Japanese company, Du Wei found the house near her office so that she could check the babies during her lunch break every day. IT support manager, Li Jingyan takes care of the paper work. "As we sometimes have to go on business trips, we often have on-line conferences on MSN," Li said.

So far the group has helped 15 babies, three of whom they helped send to hospitals in Beijing and other places for treatment.

Thanks to the love and care she received at Lupin House, Mengmeng has become a completely different child. She has big eyes and a peach-like complexion. If it were not for the slight scar from the cleft operation, she would look like any other pretty healthy baby.

Although they find it hard to say goodbye, the people at Lupin House are happy to have found her an adoptive family.

"Watching the babies recover day by day, I know it's worth doing what we are doing. We bring the babies happiness and they bring us happiness as well," Li Yuqing said. "I just hope that we can survive and that more people can join and help us."

Soldiering on

Xue Wenbing, 31, is an armed police officer and has been based in Anhui Province since 2005 when he graduated from a police college in Shanghai. In seven years the Shanghai native has only spent a little time in his home. In 2006, he visited his home for seven days for the Spring Festival. In 2009, he got married and spent a month in Shanghai. In 2010 he returned to Shanghai and managed to take a half day leave to accompany his then pregnant wife for a medical check. In 2011 he was home for a month after his wife gave birth to a baby boy. And last month was the first time in five years he had spent a Chinese New Year with his family - he managed a nine-day break.

"I honestly feel very indebted to my family," Xue said. "The most heartrending thing in the world is to owe someone so much while they never hold you responsible or blame you."

This Spring Festival Xue made it to home to celebrate his son's first birthday. One year ago Xue was called and told the baby was coming. He arrived in Shanghai at 2 am but had to wait outside the operating theater. "I wished he could be with me during the childbirth but he couldn't. When we were dating, my sister who also married an army officer, had told me that you had to learn to sacrifice if you married a soldier, but it was only then I understood what this meant," Xue's wife, Li Yue, said.

Regretting his constant absence from home, Xue has often dreamed about returning home. He still remembers when his father had a tumor operation in 2009. His father hadn't been well for years and had suffered a few strokes. The only child in the family, Xue wasn't there for him when he had the surgery. "I couldn't go because of my job," he said. "As a soldier I have a bigger commitment."

Throughout his time in the army Xue has often missed his family and regularly wondered how they were doing. He would become especially homesick after watching the CCTV New Year Gala with his fellow soldiers. "Yet every time I think about my family, they make me feel strong, emotionally and psychologically."

In the Year of Dragon, the Xues at last had a reunion dinner together. "In the past his mother couldn't help crying when he was not with us for the Spring Festival. But this year it's really good that all of us are here together," Xue's father said.

Making use of the limited time he had, Xue chatted with his grandmother, helped his mother cook, played with his son, even changing his diaper - he wanted to make up for being away from home for so long. Even so he only arrived with a small bag and was ready to go back whenever he was called. "When I am home I think about the army camp as well. Army life is the biggest asset I can ever have," he said.