This old man took on the upbringing of the baby. Now they travel the world
Companionship is the best kind of filial piety. Being there for our parents when they need us the most is the best form of respect. It is our sacred duty as their children to repay the kindness they have shared with us. After all, it is not easy raising children. Through perseverance and love, they made it through.
In 1997, a man who was over 50 years old adopted an abandoned baby in the fields. He took her in and raised her, even if he was just living with vegetables and farm organics. 24 years later, she has become very successful in becoming an entrepreneur and an influencer. However, she repaid her father’s kindness by selling her properties and traveling the world with her adoptive father in a motor home.
It was early spring of March 11, 1997. Zhang Shuangqi was on his way home when a crowd gathered at the entrance of the village where he lived. Intrigued, he pushed his way through the crowd to check out what the commotion was about. In the haystack in the middle of the crowd was a ripped box with a baby girl wrapped in cotton.
It was early evening and the temperature was less than 10 degrees. He noticed that the face of the baby girl was flushed from the cold but none of the villagers stepped forward to help the child.
Zhang Shuangqi sighed at the impassive faces of the villagers, picked up the poor baby, and cuddled her. Surprisingly, the baby stopped crying in his arms when he leaned her head on his chest. In a few minutes, the baby’s cheeks turned rosy red from the warmth of his embrace against the cold weather. The villagers dispersed, and Zhang Shuangqi headed home, not willing to wait for the baby’s parents in the cold night air.
When the baby is hungry, Zhang Shuangqi worries since she cries looking for milk. He was able to buy powdered milk from a family in the neighboring village. Since he does not have any experience yet on how to raise a baby, he asked them for help to feed her. When Zhang Shuangqi finally put the baby to sleep, he settled to rest reclining on a chair beside the bed. He was afraid that he may crush the baby if he sleeps beside her.
Very early the next day, Zhang Shuangqi went to the village committee and told them about the baby girl that he found inside a ripped box on the haystack. He explained to them how he temporarily gave her shelter for the night and requested them to inquire about the child’s parents and their whereabouts. Several days passed, and despite the constant broadcast on the village radio, no one came to claim the baby girl.
A few days later, Zhang Shuangqi realized that the baby has been completely abandoned. Couples who are married or otherwise choose to abandon their unwanted babies, and incidents of such happen from time to time not only in Zhang Shuangqi’s village but in other places, too.
Looking at the innocent child in his arms, Zhang Shuangqi sighed and said, “Your parents don’t want you anymore. What will become of you in the future, little one?” He did not expect the baby to be listening to him with a smile on her face.
It captured Zhang Shuangqi’s heart that he decided to raise the little girl like his own, although he was already 54 years old. At his age, Zhang Shuangqi has never been married nor had any children. So, he considered the baby as a gift from God.
Zhang Shuangqi worried that the parents may come looking for the baby, so he took initiative to find any information that may lead to the baby’s biological parents. He rummaged through the ripped cardboard box, but there was no information or clues inside it. In addition, there was no news from the village committee either, so Zhang Shuangqi thought it was time to give up waiting for her parents. He decided to adopt her.
He had no experience in raising a baby that was only a few months old. He had no family to help him, either. Zhang Shuangqi suddenly felt confused. In the beginning, Zhang Shuangqi always hustled in his movements between preparing milk formula, changing diapers, and coaxing the crying child. Neighbors who pass-by offered help to Zhang Shuangqi.
Soon, the middle-aged father was overwhelmed by the difficulties of raising a child. Although he felt it was hard work, he enjoyed every minute he spent with the little girl. She was definitely the center of his life.
After receiving some pointers from elderly ladies, Zhang Shuangqi gradually learned how to prepare the baby’s milk formula, how to change her diapers, and how to pacify her when she is fussy. After some time, he decided to give a name to the baby girl. He thought of some suitable names, such as Caihua and Baiju, but was not satisfied.
One spring afternoon, Zhang Shuangqi and the baby were relaxing outside the house when a white pigeon flew to them from a field, prompting the child to point at the flying bird. He heard the child make a non-stop soft humming sound. Feeling that the child had a slight connection with the bird, he named the child Zhang Baige.
When Zhang Baige grew up, expenses were getting high, and Zhang Shuangqi started to feel the stress of raising a child. In the past, when he was still living alone, the money he earned from working in a factory was more than enough to support himself, and he could occasionally eat in a restaurant. Now that he has a child, milk, clothing, and even the tuition and book fees for later schooling are all starting to be a financial burden.
After work every day, Zhang Shuangqi would go to the town to collect items for recycling in exchange for money. It was hard work for a man his age, but he persevered and never gave up. Whenever he comes home to see the child smiling at him, all his exhaustion and stress disappears. As long as the child is happy, he is the happiest.
A few years passed, and Zhang Baige reached the school age. Although Zhang Shuangqi has not finished his education, he has instilled the importance of good education in his daughter. At home, he never let Zhang Baige do any housework. He wanted her to focus and concentrate on her studies in peace. Zhang Baige, in return, lived up to her father’s expectations.
She studied hard and achieved excellent grades. Later, she was successfully admitted to the best middle school in the county, which made her father very happy and proud.
As Zhang Baige advanced to higher grade levels, she has seen the huge differences between family levels in her school, which began to make her feel inferior. One afternoon, when classes were dismissed, Zhang B
A feeling of shame and inferiority rushed to Zhang Baige’s heart. She could not understand why the parents of her classmates dress elegantly but her own father dressed in rags. Feeling ashamed that her classmates would notice, she hid in the crowd to avoid her father’s gaze and ran back home pretending not to see her father. Zhang Shuangqi noticed this and stopped calling her name. He felt a pang of pain from being embarrassed by his daughter.
When Zhang Shuangqi arrived home, he saw his daughter doing her homework quietly in her room. Seeing that his daughter did not acknowledge his presence at all, he decided to keep quiet. The two were silent all night. It was only the day after that Zhang Shuangqi no longer went to town after he got out of work. He chose to pick up things for recycling at night and returned the next day.
Whenever Zhang Baige was in school, she felt that she never had enough to eat to be satisfied, and the snacks that her classmates took out of their bags during lunch break made her extremely envious. Every time she heard stories about how delicious the food their parents made for supper, Zhang Baige would only be quiet with envy.
When she arrives home from school, her father only prepares a plate of pickled toon sprouts for supper every day. It turns out that the money Zhang Shuangqi has earned is only enough for Zhang Baige’s meals and tuition fees. He did not have an extra budget to buy vegetables at the market. He could only pick a lot of toon leaves in early spring.
One day, Zhang Baige watched her father serve another plate of dark green pickled toon sprouts on the table. The teenager, who had eaten pickled toon for a month, could no longer hold back her frustration, overturned the table, and ran out of the house. Looking at the food on the ground and the overturned table, Zhang Shuangqi felt sorry for his daughter and felt very helpless. He knew the frustration his daughter was feeling.
Zhang Baige came back early the next day. She has spent several hours of the night outside, calming down. She realized that her father had worked very hard to raise her without any complaints. So what ‘right’ did she have to complain, too?
Coming to terms with her father’s way of raising her, a regretful Zhang Baige hugged Zhang Shuangqi and apologized to him repeatedly. Without remorse, the father cried tears of joy, his words full of tenderness for his daughter, and lovingly stroked her head. When the conflict was resolved, Zhang Baige never lost her temper with her father again, and she would do her best to help her father in any way she could.
When Zhang Baige reached high school, the family’s financial burden was growing. At Zhang Shuangqi’s advancing age, hard work has become unbearable. Zhang Baige knew of her father’s condition and realized it would be adding to the burden if she enrolls in college. So Zhang Baige decided to apply for work after graduating from high school to support her father in return.
When he learned that his daughter was deciding to quit school and apply for a job, Zhang Shuangqi immediately refused. He promised to do anything to let her finish school. However, Zhang Baige insisted and said that if he does not agree with her, she would run away from home. Reluctantly, Zhang Shuangqi had to agree. Hugging his daughter, he cried, partly because of his own incompetence and because of his daughter’s filial piety.
When Zhang Baige first entered the ‘real’ world, her first job was as a waitress in a restaurant, with a salary of US$448.00 (about 3,000 yuan). Although it was not much, Zhang Baige saved her monthly salary because she wanted to buy a gift for her father.
“From my childhood until I grew up, my father worked extremely hard every day, but when he came back, he slept in a small broken bed.” Zhang Baige said, witnessing her father’s perseverance in raising her. The first gift Zhang Baige planned to buy for her father was a new comfortable bed. When it arrived, Zhang Shuangqi happily sat on the bed, saying that he has raised a good daughter. Happily cuddling his daughter, he listened as Zhang Baige said: “I will make more money in the future, buy you a big mansion, and let you live a better life.”
