This year's "Touching China" Awards were unveiled on May 17, 2020. Zhu Lihua, a blind traditional Chinese medicine doctor in Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province is on the list. She was still heartily excited when the reporter called her.

2019 is the year of the heavyweights for Zhu Lihua. In this very year, she was elected as the Top Ten Person of “The Pride of Zhejiang” and the Chinese Disabled Entrepreneur Newsmaker of the Year for 2019. Jiaxing Municipal Party Committee set her as a model and called on the party cadres and members in Jiaxing to learn from her.

More than 40 years ago, 18-year-old Zhu Lihua was blinded by both accidental injuries and failed surgery. However, living in a family of traditional Chinese medicine, she learns Chinese medicine with tenacious perseverance, and finally got an associate degree through self-study. Given all the efforts she has made, Zhu deserves the title of the only blind Chinese physician in Jiaxing. She has helped more than 230,000 patients to relieve their pain with her excellent skills over the past 30 years. Additionally, she has actively participated in helping the disabled to integrate into a society that makes it possible for more than 100 disabled people to get jobs or start their own businesses by learning skills from Zhu as apprentices. Zhe is credited with heaps of honorary titles like the National Self-Improvement Model and the Moral Model of Zhejiang Province.

Zhu Lihua is always passionate about public welfare. She has constantly sponsored poor students by granting tuition fees for them. Over the past few decades, she has helped 480 poor students and donated a total sum of 3.89 million yuan. She has also provided volunteer services for active-duty soldiers and has now treated more than 3,000 soldiers for free.

Zhu Lihua has a clinic in the urban area of Jiaxing and currently has more than 10 employees. In the eyes of employees, she is a nice boss.

Although the business has taken a hit this year due to the outbreak of COVID-19, it didn’t bother Zhu in that the students she has sponsored send warm greetings and constantly chat with her. Under the influence of Zhu, many of the children she sponsored have participated in charity activities like unpaid blood donation and volunteer teams in universities. That gives Zhu a kind of joy.

(Compiled by Xu Yuhong)