BY ZHU ZHENQIANG

  --Story about Shao Junke's help for the handicapped

   The handicapped, a special group in society, usually encounter many difficulties in employment, marriage, and daily life. Some difficulties are what they cannot conquer by themselves. It is also not easy for them to integrate into society. However, if there is a person who helps the handicapped find a job, build up confidence and make their life worth; if there is a person who helps them set up their families and incorporate in a harmonious community; and if there is a person who takes care of the children with disabilities just as their owns; how noble this person is!

  Such a person is Shao Junke, working at an oil field in Central China. She works hard just for the sake of others's happiness.

  Find Them a Job

  Shao and dozens of persons with disabilities live in a yard, which is also a site of a mop factory. Shao is director of the factory and her workers are all handicapped. At six in the morning, it was still very chilly in early spring. Shao got up so early and showed her care for them in her special way: She went door-to-door to her neighbors, finding that all of them were fine, then she felt at ease.

  At the dining room, Shao assisted cooks to prepare breakfast for the workers. In the yard, she fed pigs and sheep. In the workshop, she checked the machines and went over the day's production plan.

  The workers got up, setting the yard buzzing with activities. Shao and her workers went into the dining room and began to chat while eating.

  This is a start of Shao's work in a day.

  Shao looks simple and plain, but she made unordinary achievements in the past several years. She started from scratch, launching a mop factory and a glove factory. In her community, more than 200 people have been employed, including nearly 100 persons with disabilities.

  In 2001, Shao was transferred from the family planning office of the Central China Oil Filed to the neighborhood committee of the First Huayuan Community in the Oil Field. She is head of the committee and in charge of the labor and employment. In the neighborhood, about 600 people had remained unemployed, and among them were many persons with disabilities. When she learned that so many people had no jobs, Shao felt very anxious. On the present situation, Shao knew, it was impossible to rely on the government to provide job opportunities for these people. The only way out was to launch small businesses and create job opportunities on their own.

  After considerations, Shao decided to run a mop factory. She went to retail market, wholesale market and mop factories to get information and techniques of mop making. In May 2002, Shao started the business. She organized 32 persons with disabilities and five others whose families were in absolute poverty to make mops just in her office. As her office was not big enough to hold about 40 peoples, she divided them into two groups, one on morning shift, the other on afternoon. Most of these people had disabilities with their hands, legs, ears, eyes and mentality and had never made mops, it was extremely difficult for them to produce qualified products. Those unqualified mops they made would be dismantled. After quite a few days of making and dismantling, with the help and instruction of Shao, they managed to produce some mops up to the standard. Yet not a single mop was sold for a month. Nevertheless these people got 200 yuan of "subsidies" for their work. It was the first time for most of them to get "wage" and many were moved to tears.

  To purchase qualified but cheap materials, Shao travelled to knitting factories and free markets in several cities. To save the cost, she asked for a ride if it was a long distance, or rode bike or just walked on foot if it was not very far away. For the business trips in a month, Shao spent only 800 yuan, which was out of her own pocket rather than on the factory. She also used the money she prepared for her daughter'scollege education to purchase the equipment for the factory, 50,000 yuan in all. When the factory was short of fund to purchase materials, she offered another 10,000 yuan, which was saved by her husband to pay her life insurance?When more and more orders for mops came, from 30, 50 to 100, Shao became much more vigorous than ever before. Although she chose the road which was almost footless, Shao thought she had taken a right one.

  Shao managed to provide more job opportunities for the needy and persons with disabilities. In June 2003, Shao decided to run a glove factory. After she negotiated with her superior and won the approval, Shao started her business in a deserted hostel. At the beginning, her superior said he did not expect her to produce much profit, only to help the needy find jobs, and if no accidents occur, that would be the best results. No one could imagine that Shao could do a big "deal". Now, Shao had launched two factories, a mop factory and a glove factory. They produced 200 mops and 2,000 pair of gloves each day.

                Shao Junke and workers with disabilities           Female handicapped workers helped by Shao Junke

  Make Them a Family

  As there were too many unexpected accidents chasing after Shao even after work, Shao resolutely decided to move her family to the factory. The family of three, just like other workers?families, lives in a room of ten-plus square meters.

  At the beginning, Liu Zhongping, her husband, could hardly understand why Shao would make such sacrifice for the factories and those workers. She worked from morning till night and was wholeheartedly concerned about the handicapped. Liu even thought that his family was not living a normal life. Even worse, his little daughter felt scared when she came across persons with disabilities.

  The handicapped however were warmhearted. After a while, Liu found his bike he put in the yard overnight was cleaned the next morning. One day, an insole was put into the room from the crack between the door and its frame. Four Chinese characters "hao ren hao bao,"or "good people will be rewarded" were embroidered on the insole. From then on, Liu stopped complaining and began voluntarily to help the handicapped. The daughter, after being encouraged and cultivated, also joined the handicapped sisters and brothers in harmony.

  At dinner time one day, Shao and her husband squatted on the ground in the yard around a bowl of boiled starch noodles (made from sweet potato starch) and cabbage. A mother who came to visit her handicapped son in the factory saw the scene, saying all the workers here praised Shao for her devotion to the work and the handicapped, but she could never imagine Shao, the director, ate the same dish and steamed bread provided by the dining room and lived the same life as the workers with disabilities.

  Shao had tried every way for the benefit of "big family." The factory had a big yard which she thought could be used. She spent her own money to buy seeds of leek, beans, capsicum and tomato, as well as seedlings of apricot, peach, willow and guava. At the places around the workshops and every corner of the yard were planted vegetables and fruit trees. In 2006, they harvested more than 250 kilograms of garlic. Besides, Shao and her workers raised pigs, sheep and fish. All the products were used to improve workers?life and each of the workers should only pay 100 yuan a month for all the meals.

  Although she had done a lot for the handicapped, Shao thought she had not done enough for them.

  Xie Shoucheng, an old worker at the oil field, always felt grateful whenever he mentioned Shao. The 70-year-old said he experienced hardship and made glorious contributions in the past. "But what I could not be relieved was my handicapped daughter. It was Shao who made me at ease. It was Shao who gave me a happy and assured life at my late years."

Shao was a simple person but faithful to her work. On her desk was placed a maxim which says "One who is more tolerant has more virtue, one who has less desire has more moral; regardless of gains or losses, be devoted to work.." The line "regardless of gains or loss and devotion to work" was obviously created by herself as an encouragement to Shao and her workers.

Liu Fang, who had disabilities with her legs, could only move on her wheelchair. After graduation from a junior middle school, she had stayed at home all day long. Liu felt self-contemptuous and depressed. After being employed by Shao's factory, Liu could not get involved with the group for a long time. Whenever she had chances, Shao tried to talk with Liu and encourage her to be brave and have more exchanges with colleagues. For Liu, Shao decided that at the sides of all entrances with stairs to workshops and dormitories be built with sloping tracks. Liu's disability was due to wrong remedy, so she naturally rejected all drugs when she was ill. One day, Liu got flu. Shao bought a sandwich and put medicinal powder out of the capsule inside the sandwich.

Gradually, Liu had become lively and cheerful. At a speech contest held by the Central China Oil Field, Liu said, "To tell you the truth, Shao gives me more care than my mother."

Ten years ago, Xu Huiwen came to work at the Central China Oil Field after graduation from a university. Just a few days later, she suffered a disfigurement in a fire. Xu could not even figure out herself after her good looks were seriously damaged. She had several attempts to suicide but was saved by her parents. She was greatly depressed and never walked out of her home for seven years. After Xu worked in Shao's factory, Shao took every chance to encourage Xu to be brave against the reality. On Xu's birthday, Shao and other workers brought with them candles and cakes and held a birthday party for Xu. What Shao and the workers had done moved Xu to tears. Today, Xu worked in daytime and wrote at night after she pulled herself together.

Shao Junke was very observant to figure out affection of young male and female workers. If there was a chance or opportunity, Shao would try to provide a platform for them to contact with each other. So far five couples had married after Shao, the "matchmaker" went between them kind-heartedly. And two of the five couples have had healthy babies.

Shao Junke spared no efforts for others?happiness, but she had distress left in her heart. She could not help to tear, whenever she brought to mind her mother who died three years ago and bethought of that she failed to do her filial duty to her mother.

That was in 2004, at the critical period for her factory. The parent company had purchased dozens of equipment for her factory and the equipment had been installed and gone through trial runs. Just at the moment, her mother was hospitalized, suffering from cerebral thrombus. 

 Shao rushed to her native home and vowed to do her utmost for mother till she fully recovered. When her mother's condition became a little stable, however, what came to Shao's mind was all the work in her factory. The equipment was just installed and the workers there were all handicapped. It would be disastrous if an accident would occur. Finally, she bowed to her mother who was still in a coma and hurried back to the factory. Just in several days, she got the bad news of the death of her beloved mother. Shao was praised as filial daughter since she was a little girl, but she could not give the love and devotion to her beloved at the last moment.

 Mother's death set Shao in sadness for quite a long time. She began to reflect upon her past: Whether the way she treated her mother, husband, daughter and family was beyond all reason? She was whole-heartedly devoted to her work, just for what? She had no answer, others could not answer for her, either. However, whenever she sees the handicapped workers live a life just as normal persons, whenever she sees one pair of gloves after another runs down the production lines, whenever she sees mops pile up in the workshop, whenever she sees various kinds of vegetables, fruits, trees, as well as pigs and sheep in the yard, Shao seems to have heard the call saying the factory would not work without her.

Shao tells herself and others: "I will not go away, I want nothing. I cannot leave the ' family' that needs me. All these handicapped workers are my own children."