Shanxi knife-cut noodle skills help people get rich, retired cadre enthusiastically teaches

He is 75 years old, but he looks hale and hearty, like a man in his fifties. "My secret to good health is serving the people, teaching Shanxi knife-cut noodle skills, helping the poor, giving haircuts, publicizing policies that benefit the people, and so on. I am always running here and there. Now that I am retired, I have even more freedom to move about and do voluntary service. I am happier than words can say, and I have also built up my health." This is what He Futian, a retired cadre from the organ Party committee of Wudu District, Longnan City, Gansu Province, said. Cherishing life and blessings while taking joy in giving is a noble quality in a person. Some people after retirement linger at the mahjong table, wasting their intellect and talking all day about the two of dots, three of bamboo and one of characters; some shut themselves away and live out their days, passive and bored. He Futian planned his post-retirement lifestyle for himself long ago: to glow with youthful vitality through service.

He Futian's ancestral home is Xinzhou, Shanxi. He was born in May 1940 into a poor farming family. Before liberation, he had taken his younger siblings to beg for food, herded cattle for a landlord, and regarded dumplings made from bean curd residue as a delicacy. Later he followed his uncle Heping, who had joined the anti-Japanese guerrilla forces, and went to school. After graduating from junior middle school in 1959, he began working. He once worked at the Wudu County Youth League Committee, Longfeng Township, the Wudu County Culture Bureau, the Justice Bureau, and the organ Party committee in Gansu Province. In 2001, he retired from the post of deputy secretary of the organ Party committee of Wudu County. He Futian has always lived simply, been generous in helping others with his wealth, and been straightforward in character. During his working years he was glad to help others, warm and forthright, and able to endure hardship. When sent to stay in villages and work at grassroots points, he often lived with households enjoying the five guarantees, ate the worst food, and did the hardest work. He helped rural people, elderly people living alone, and disabled people; taught agricultural science and technology; and publicized the Party's policies and legal knowledge. After retirement, he drew up 12 voluntary convenience services and resolved to carry out voluntary convenience services for the people. One of them was teaching knife-cut noodle skills to laid-off workers and helping them open shops and run businesses. More than 40 people became self-employed and developed into individual business owners who worked hard and became prosperous. He said: "Wudu is my second hometown. The people of Wudu raised me for more than 50 years. In order to repay the people of Wudu for raising me, I want to make a little more contribution to society in the years I have left!" "Life lies in movement, and happiness lies in service. As long as life continues, service does not stop."

A humble skill, a noble realm. Service does not lie in elegance and grandeur, but in plainness without ostentation. Starting in 1984, He Futian began teaching Shanxi knife-cut noodle skills to the head cooks of institutional kitchens in Wudu's urban area. Shanxi knife-cut noodles gradually became famous in Wudu. Because his ancestral home is in Shanxi and he is skilled at knife-cut noodles, He Futian had a special affection for them, took endless delight in them, found more and more joy in them, and used them to express his love for his hometown, even reaching the point of devotion. But he did not merely show off his skill on various occasions; he had a wish to do everything possible to spread this food culture widely across Longnan. Beginning in 2000, he began teaching knife-cut noodle skills to laid-off workers and helping them start knife-cut noodle shops free of charge. Altogether he taught the skill to more than 240 laid-off workers. Ma Zhiyi, a laid-off worker from the Wudu Printing Factory, received He Futian's true instruction and opened a noodle shop and became prosperous. Ma Youyou was originally a farmer, and after learning knife-cut noodle skills, he is still running a knife-cut noodle shop today. Old An, a laid-off worker from the Wudu Department Store Company, learned knife-cut noodle skills and still relies on this skill to run a noodle shop. In order to teach knife-cut noodle skills, He Futian personally improved and made 30 noodle-cutting knives, and all of these knives were given to his apprentices. In those years, he bought scrap saw blades from the Wudu Woodware Factory to process noodle-cutting knives. Once, he accidentally cut a child's face and was even beaten up. He Futian also had an interest in cutting people's hair. Beginning in 2000, he went to the countryside to cut hair for elderly people living alone, disabled people, and sick people in rural areas, as well as sanitation workers in the urban area and elderly beggars on the streets, and he still persists in this today. He has given more than 2,000 haircuts, all voluntary service. Because cutting beggars' hair was very dirty work, he was mocked, ridiculed, and taunted by family members, relatives, and friends, but he paid no attention at all. He said: "Beggars also affect the city's appearance. If hygiene is poor, diseases can spread. Giving them haircuts and changing their clothes is always beneficial. Society has developed, and we should show them some care. When they walk dirty on the streets, it is bad for everyone." "Sanitation workers are in poor economic circumstances. Getting a haircut at a barbershop costs ten yuan each time, which is no small expense for these people. I help them cut their hair, and they are happy too." A tiny bit of residual warmth, a powerful positive force. A seemingly insignificant action can sometimes change the soul of a group of people. He Futian began publicizing agricultural science and technology in rural areas in 2002. After retirement, He Futian learned some useful agricultural techniques from agricultural science and technology personnel, such as winter-sowing potato technology and pruning techniques for prickly ash trees. He felt it was necessary to go to the countryside to teach them. For more than 10 years, he publicized farmers' science and technology in more than 10 villages in Longnan, benefiting more than 2,000 people. He also learned techniques such as walnut grafting and olive tree grafting. While learning, he served. His legal publicity began in 2002. Holding newspapers, magazines, and legal readers, he went deep into fields and farm courtyards, reading newspapers to people who were illiterate or did not understand policies, and explaining policies that benefit the people. He successively publicized laws such as the Constitution and the Marriage Law. During this period, he also took photographs for poor elderly people, distributed old clothes collected in the city, and helped elderly people living alone in poor mountainous areas.

In Wudu's urban area there was a calligrapher surnamed Wang, a farmer from elsewhere, who depended on selling calligraphy works every day and had little income. Old He saw that he was having a hard life and asked him: "Sometimes when I attend wedding banquets, I see a lot of food thrown away as garbage. It is such a pity. I want to pack it up for you. Are you willing to eat it?" Old Wang said: "I rarely get to eat meat in a year. Bring me some." We should know that every grain of food on the plate comes from hard work. Advocating diligence and thrift, cherishing food, and reducing waste is social morality; being indifferent to waste is a disgrace. After He Futian communicated with Old Wang, who sold calligraphy, every time he attended a banquet with gift money, after the guests dispersed, he would help clear the tables and pack up the good food item by item. People asked him whether he kept cats and dogs at home. He smiled and said: "I begged for food when I was a child. Seeing such waste pains my heart. There are several friends outside waiting for a good meal." He Futian's unusual behavior was astonishing, but he did it calmly and naturally. In his heart he always remembered 1958 and 1959, when the country lacked grain. Today, the "Clean Plate Campaign" familiar to us reveals a mindset of worrying about the country and the people, guarding against extravagance and corruption, and finding survival in adversity and death in comfort. He Futian's behavior quietly changed the atmosphere of a city. Indifferent to fame and gain, free and happy. "People who have come through hardship know to cherish blessings and know gratitude. I am now over seventy, in good health, and happy in life. This is because the Party's policies are good. When my second uncle Heping was county Party secretary in Wudu, life was tight. Now I feel very comfortable. I am very content. It is entirely right to do a little of what I can for society." He Futian's dedication is purely a kind of joy. Service and helping others, along with an open-minded attitude, promote happiness of body and mind. For a period of time, his wife and children restricted him from running around wildly and had him grow vegetables on the roof. He was depressed and almost collapsed. After persuasion by close friends, he returned to his own circle of service, and the smile on his face became radiant again. In 2014, the Longnan City Civilization Office awarded him the title of outstanding volunteer. He took part in Longnan Volunteer Alliance activities, collected donations of clothing, and rushed all day through streets and alleys, poor mountain villages, and markets, seizing every minute to contribute his residual warmth and share his happiness. He is confident that living this way can bring longevity and a painless death, better than those aloof lay Buddhists who chant Buddha or God with their mouths but are too lazy to do practical things. Praise never ceases, the heart remains pure.

From publicizing the Party's policies to free haircuts and teaching Shanxi knife-cut noodle skills, these seem like very inconspicuous little things, but he has kept doing them for 13 years. "It is not hard for a person to do one or two good deeds; what is hard is to do good deeds every day." For 13 years, carrying a convenience service bag on his back, he has climbed mountains and waded rivers, gone from village to village and household to household, gone through streets and alleys, and gone deep into farming households and communities to carry out convenience services. Wherever he goes, he publicizes the Party's policies there. He publicizes laws, mediates civil disputes, solves worries and difficulties for the people, promotes scientific farming, prunes fruit trees, and coaches prickly ash, winter-sowing potato, and cultivation techniques; cuts hair for elderly people living alone, sick people, and disabled people in rural areas; takes photographs for elderly people enjoying the five guarantees and repairs leaking basins; organizes a "Sunset Red" cultural performance team to send culture to the countryside; voluntarily presides over weddings for farmers; and has also participated many times in earthquake relief, helping disaster-affected people set up tents, rescue property, and demolish houses. He often tells people: "People get sick when idle. Once they get busy, they radiate endless strength and feel younger the longer they live." Taking pleasure in helping others and never knowing fatigue, this is a true portrayal of the elderly volunteer He Futian. People say: Old He is a living Bodhisattva, an arhat reborn; his heart is kind and his words are earnest. He is sure to be angry at things he cannot stand, and he is fearless in acting courageously for justice. In recent years he has traveled all over Longnan's eight counties and one district. He uses street corners and eaves and the edges of fields to provide convenience services for others. He has taken more than 40 apprentices, taught knife-cut noodle cooking skills to more than 30,000 people, received countless thank-you letters, given more than 3,000 haircuts, and repaired more than 1,500 basins. He has voluntarily cooked more than 200 times for government offices, military camps, railways, and construction sites. He has been reported many times by the news media as a living Lei Feng. At the same time, he has received unanimous praise and commendation from all sectors of society. Lu Kaihua, former chairman of the Longnan Prefectural Federation of Literary and Art Circles, wrote inscriptions for him: "A small craft conveys true feelings, selfless dedication gives off residual warmth," "Selfless dedication," "One knife in Longnan," "Longnan's first noodle cutter," "Treading all over Jiezhou and walking the green mountains, the tip of the noodle-cutting knife passes on superb skill. Let others gossip as they please; free and at ease, full of joy." and other poetic sayings. The poet Huang Yuankai wrote for him: "Graceful and unrestrained, you have many skills; knife-cut silver fish swim in the bowl. Laugh at what use I, old and useless, am; in eventful years, the skill of the cutting knife." There were also famous calligraphers and painters from elsewhere who wrote: "Longnan's living Lei Feng," "I am neither crazy nor mad, only very frank in heart. Pure and selfless, I save people; the original heart of the cutting knife shines brightly." Someone else inscribed a poem: "The knife cuts thousands of willow leaves, carp swim in the wok's waves. Every diner praises it; the master's skill is heaven-bestowed." Old He is just this kind of person: once he has a skill, he spreads it widely. Since 2005 he began cutting hair for beggars on the streets, which at one time aroused controversy. Some acquaintances said he had gone mad and avoided him, not speaking to him. Old He said: Seeing one beggar after another who never gets a haircut all year stroking their bald heads and smiling, my heart also feels light and cheerful. He is a person who does not know how to fawn on the powerful, flatter, cling to the prominent, or be hypocritical and self-pitying. He has an ordinary heart, a charitable heart, and a righteous heart. He seeks no empty fame and no reward. He humbly walks across the land of Longnan, blowing open all the flowers like a gentle breeze and nourishing all the little grass like fine rain.

The sun rises in the east while it rains in the west; behind the dark willows and bright flowers, spring is always there. Over ten years, He Futian traveled all over Longnan's eight counties and one district, crossing mountains and rivers and making friends with broad numbers of farmers. Shi Deji, a disabled elderly man from Shijiazhuang Village, Chengguan Town, Wudu District, Longnan City, said that Old He is a true Communist Party member and a moral model. This old farmer, who planted a courtyard of peonies for people to enjoy, is one of He Futian's close friends. Life lies in service, and value lies in helping others. He Futian sighs with emotion: "I serve, I am happy!" [Longnan Municipal Party Committee Reporting Group]