Moved China's 2009 People Selection kicked off a few days ago. Among the many candidates, He Xiaochuan, a Zhejiang native, has done a very special deed.
He Xiaochuan is a native of Guayin Village, Sanmen County, Zhejiang Province. Through his own efforts, he owns tens of millions of assets, and is rich without forgetting his roots. He returns to Guayin Village and drives the masses to become rich together.
In China, there are many people like He Xiaochuan. After they become rich, they never forget their neighbors and drive people around to become rich together.
Traditional Charity of the Rich in China
Recently, Zi Guilin, an 82 year old billionaire from Zijiahe Village, Zhongji Town, Shenmu County, Shaanxi Province, made headlines on the newspaper network by giving each villager a free new building.
For Chinese people who are deeply influenced by the idea of "living in peace and contentment", they know the importance of stable real estate for life. Therefore, netizens highly appreciate Zi Guilin's act of giving houses and doing good deeds.
According to online information, Zi Guilin has been engaged in education for more than 40 years. After leaving in 1993, he began to engage in coal mine development business and accumulated wealth, becoming a private entrepreneur with over 100 million assets. Rich and good, Zijiahe New Village invested and constructed by Zi Guilin is a comprehensive and high standard new rural construction demonstration village integrating migration and relocation, industrial development, ecological protection, cultural tourism, etc. More than 100 people from 32 households in this village have been given free of charge two storey residential buildings, all of which are equipped with free daily necessities such as color TV sets, refrigerators, kitchen stoves, etc.
Without much trouble, our reporter searched a lot of news on the Internet about "billionaires returning home to do good deeds": Wang Wenzhong, a billionaire from Shaoyao Village, Zaoqiang County, Hebei Province, not only returned to the village as a village official, but also donated 100000 yuan to dig wells and install water equipment in the village, and advanced 600000 yuan to build roads in the village; Another billionaire in Xinjiang Village, Gong'an County, Hubei Province, Hu Chongli, after being elected as the village director, also donated money and materials for his hometown, built roads and bridges, and donated 2 million yuan in just one year. According to statistics, the total amount of donated cash is 5 million yuan
From the information we can find, we can see that after they become rich, these rich people use their own way to do good deeds, give back to the countryside and repay the society. This kind of way of doing good deeds deserves the recognition and appreciation of the society, but this kind of charitable way of these rich people, especially Zi Guilin's direct donation of real money to the recipient groups, It has the characteristics of "Chinese traditional charity", which to some extent reflects that the rich people in China have not yet entered the ranks of modern charity.
Make your fortune first and then donate
The Chinese nation is a nation with a tradition of love and charity, which can be seen from the tradition of poverty alleviation and relief such as "respecting the old and loving the young, the old and the old" advocated by Chinese traditional culture.
However, the Chinese people are deeply influenced by the Confucian culture that "poverty means independence, and achievement means helping the world". They follow the path of self-cultivation, family harmony, national governance, and world peace. Under this Confucian ethical system, it is not difficult to see that only after the pursuit of politics or wealth is maximized, that is, the value of life is maximized, can we go to "pacify the world", save people from fire and water, and help others.
In fact, we often hear this view in our daily life. For example, "When I get rich, I will donate money (help others); how can I help others when I am not well off?" This idea has a deep influence on the Chinese people. So many people will take it for granted that charity is something for the rich and has nothing to do with themselves.
Whether Zi Guilin began to do "Huize Village" when he was a teacher is unknown. It can be seen from the network that he has been repeatedly rated as "Advanced Individual of Retired Cadres" because of his philanthropic behavior that even if Old Zi did good deeds when he was poor, he might not receive so much attention and honor.
Modern philanthropy believes that everyone has the ability to help others. Whether you are a billionaire or an ordinary person, you don't need to donate a lot of money after you become rich. The development of the whole modern philanthropy cannot be separated from the donation of ordinary people. Only when most ordinary people take action and step into the ranks of donations can the building of the whole social philanthropy be supported. From this perspective, the significance of small donations made by ordinary people before they became rich is also very important.
While affirming the billionaires' behavior of "being rich and doing good", we should also affirm and encourage those ordinary people who start doing good on the way to becoming rich, or those who struggle all their lives but may not become rich.
"Donation" is charity
The billionaires mentioned above have donated money to build houses, build roads, dig wells, and build bridges to give back to their hometown after going out of their hometown to get rich. These acts are indeed a very important way of doing good deeds. The media have also given a lot of reports on this kind of behavior, and expressed their appreciation for this kind of charity.
But charity is not only reflected in the way of giving money and things. Modern charity encourages people to "have money and contribute forcefully". "Donating money and things" is just a form of charity. There are many ways to do good deeds. For example, being a volunteer and contributing time, energy and wisdom to a social organization are all manifestations of charity. However, some data show that in China, the proportion of volunteers with such normality is not large.
Cui Naifu, former minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and founder of the China Charity Federation, has a very incisive summary of what is charity: what is charity? Parents' love for their children is "kindness", which is a vertical relationship; What is "goodness"? The love between people is "good", which is a horizontal relationship; What is charity? "Charity" is an act of mutual assistance between compassionate people. "Compassion" is the premise. If there is no "compassion", the resulting behavior is not charity.
Like Minister Cui Naifu's interpretation of "charity", the ultimate meaning of modern charity is not how much money you have donated or how much things you have done, but that in the process of doing charity, you have demonstrated your adherence to such good virtues as "truth, kindness and beauty", the pursuit of improving your own character and the practice of the good quality you have adhered to in real life. "At present, 90% of people in China do not understand the true meaning of philanthropy." Cui Naifu once sighed.
Help "familiar" but not "raw"
Modern charity also has absolutely no "close and distant" distinction, that is, the "equal" attitude towards the recipients. Charity will have specific donation areas and aid recipients, but the division of such areas and the determination of aid recipients will not be affected by "geographical relationship", "kinship" and their familiarity, but will, under the guidance of the "universal" value concept, treat the recipients in need equally as far as possible.
For example, Bill Gates' charity. The Bill Gates Foundation, centering on the concept of "health", provides services for people in need in countries in need. However, we can see from the deeds of the above-mentioned billionaires that the recipients of donations are all "neighbors". Although this is also a kind of charity, the author prefers to call it charity in the traditional sense of China rather than charity in the modern sense.
I remember that at the beginning of this century, there was an organization that conducted a survey spanning 20 provinces, cities and autonomous regions. The survey shows that when asked "what to do when meeting strangers who ask for help on the road", nearly half of the people choose to "walk around and ignore"; More than 30% of the people chose to "give help". However, when asked "If your colleagues, fellow villagers, classmates and friends around you need help, will you help them?", more than 80% of them answered "will help"; Less than 10 percent said "no".
It can be seen that more than 80% of people are willing to help people they know, while only nearly half of people are willing to help people they don't know. It seems that not only are they rich, but the philanthropic awareness and philanthropic behavior of ordinary Chinese people can not be separated from the influence of "relationships" to some extent. When analyzing the donation characteristics of China in the first half of 2009, the Zhongmin Charity Donation Information Center also made an interesting discovery: donors, especially small donors, "pay more attention to the relief of people in difficulty around them".
After all, China is a "humane" society, and many social organizations are willing to use the geographical relationship with the rich to raise funds. Leaders in poor areas are also willing to use this relationship with the rich to let the rich return home to invest or donate. This kind of charity with Chinese characteristics will not be improved in a short time. (Reporter Xu Hui)
