Wu Zhongliang (file photo)

A 96-year-old Chinese American named Wu Zhongliang has donated more than 20 million RMB to his hometown over the past 30 years. He also set up a 3-million-RMB scholarship to support outstanding students there. On May 20, Wu told his nephew that he hopes to finally return for good to Lezhi, Sichuan province.

Wu became an orphan at the age of 3. He started working in a restaurant when he was 14, and took the opportunity to master Sichuan cooking. Later, he spent time living in Chongqing, Taiwan and New York. With his extraordinary cooking skills, he opened several Chinese restaurants in New York City. In 1976, he obtained U.S. citizenship.

But no matter how successful his career was, Wu never forgot the friends and loved ones he had left behind in his hometown. In the past three decades, he paid for the cities of Neijiang and Ziyang to build a kindergarten, a senior home and more than 30 primary and middle schools. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, Wu donated 300,000 RMB, the sum of his birthday gifts from his sons and grandsons, to local schools.

Wu's nephew remarked, “My uncle has donated almost all his savings, but he himself leads a frugal life.”

“Whenever he comes back to Sichuan and visits the beneficiaries of his donations, he always takes the bus,” noted Jiang Yixiang, former headmaster of Wu Zhongliang Middle School in Lezhi. “He eats very simple meals every day. If there is anything left unfinished, he always takes it home to have for another meal.”