Teenager orphaned by Wenchuan earthquake gives back to society

11-year-old Zhang Sen lost his parents in the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. Twelve years on, he is working as a cook on the T7/T8 trains running between Beijing and Chengdu in southwest China’s Sichuan province.

At that time, he escaped death thanks to the solid primary school building in the quake-hit city of Dujiangyan in the southwest of the province, but his parents were at home when the earthquake struck, Zhang recalled.

Zhang has been interested in cooking since his childhood, partly because of the influence of his father, who was the head chef at a restaurant. After graduating from a vocational school in 2014, Zhang become a cook on the trains.

“My biggest wish is for passengers and my colleagues to enjoy delicious dishes,” said Zhang, who often asks them for feedback on his dishes so that he can improve on them.

In his second year of work, the Z50 train travelling from Chengdu to Beijing he worked on carried some children with congenital heart disease, brain paralysis and other ailments from Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture and Yibin city of Sichuan province. They were headed to the capital to receive free medical treatment.

Deeply touched by these children, Zhang decided to cook for them, and discussed drawing up a customized menu with the chief attendant. He was delighted to find the children gobbling up the meals he had made.

Because of this special experience, Zhang was determined to make his dishes with love and give back to society using his newly mastered skills.

Zhang has witnessed countless heart-warming stories during his work over the past five years. One that left the deepest impression was about an elderly man surnamed Gao.

In 2018, the chief attendant told Zhang to take care of en elderly gentleman, who was decked with medals of honor.

While chatting with Gao, Zhang learned that he was going to the capital to salute the Chinese national flag guards with homegrown apples, plums and walnuts.

One year later, Zhang met Gao again on a train to Beijing. That time, Gao started the conversation, and recounted his stories of supporting the army over the past decades, telling Zhang that he delivered fruit to troops across the country every year.

Moved by Gao’s deeds, Zhang then got a deeper understanding of what he had to do. Zhang, along with more than 700 other people from quake-hit areas, had been living in the Ankang complex in Chengdu's Shuangliu district. It was part of a project supported by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund for those orphaned in the earthquake, and the people there had taken care of them in every possible way. This planted a seed in Zhang’s heart of giving back to society.

“Despite the pain from the disaster, I have developed a positive attitude to life and learned how to be grateful for other people’s help,” Zhang said, adding that “I hope to do a little to help others forever.”