How fortunes are changed through learning

Learning brings people better fortunes. In China, there are countless stories that tell of how underprivileged people have changed their lives through education.

Migrant worker with passion for reading inspires many

Wu Guichun leaves a thank you note at a library in Dongguan, southern China’s Guangdong province.

Wu Guichun receives a new reader card from a library in Dongguan, southern China’s Guangdong province.

Wu Guichun, a migrant worker from central China’s Hubei province, has spent much of his spare time in the past 17 years reading at a library in Dongguan, southern China’s Guangdong province.

However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created difficulties in many factories and reduced the number of job opportunities in the city, forcing the 54-year-old to make plans to go back home.

Before starting his long journey back, Wu left a thank you note at the city library. "Books can make people more rational and they can only benefit us, not harm us. Looking back over the past years, this library has been the best place. Reluctant as I am to leave, I'm forced by life to do it. I will never forget this library,” Wu wrote.

Luckily, Wu didn’t have to leave the city in the end, as he secured a job as a cleaner in a residential compound, which means he can continue pursuing his love for reading at the city library.

Security guard becomes an educator

Zhang Juncheng, the first security guard at Peking University to sit the college entrance exam.

In 1995, Zhang Juncheng from north China’s Shanxi province became a security guard at Peking University in Beijing. Zhang, who only had a junior middle school education at the time, had tried different jobs before being hired as a security guard.

Under the guidance of a professor at Peking University, Zhang started to read books of various themes, including literature, philosophy and history, after his shifts ended.

In the autumn of 1995, he sat the college entrance examination and was successfully enrolled in the law department of Peking University. In 2015, he established a secondary school in his hometown along with four friends.

Zhang’s experience inspired many other guards also seeking to raise their social status. Over the past years, more than 500 security guards working at Peking University have been admitted to colleges and universities.

Street cleaner becomes novelist

Photo shows Zhu Chaoshi

Over the past 20 years, Zhu Chaoshi, a street cleaner currently in his 60s, has completed several novels of varying length in his spare time, including one 300,000-character novel that became a hit on the Internet.

Being computer illiterate, Zhu edited the novel by hand before finalizing the draft. His two daughters helped him type up the novel and uploaded it onto the Internet.

Zhu is currently planning to write his next novel, which will be about his experience as a street cleaner.