14 DAY TRIAL // Twenty-four years ago, when his wife got sick and went into a coma, Mei Guanghan went door-to-door and begged neighbors to lend him money to pay for her expensive treatment. Now, the poor farmer from Tingpang, China, has finally managed to repay every well-wisher, down to the last penny.
Mei's wife, Ren Chun’ai was paralyzed in a car accident in April 1990. According to Oddity Central, the woman was driving a tractor back from the village when she was involved in a terrible accident which caused her to go off the road and into the valley below.
“In the mountains, two tractors were traveling in the same direction. I took a sharp turn, the tires slipped and I fell into the valley,” Ren recalls.
She soon entered a state of deep coma, and the medical fees for her treatment were well beyond her family's possibilities. So, the only solution her loving husband could think of was to borrow money from their neighbors.
Surprisingly, he managed to raise 70,000 yuan (about $11,000 or €8,000 in today’s money) to pay for his wife’s hospital bills. However, he didn't want to accept the money as charity and made a promise to all the donors, “One day I will be back, knocking on your door with your money.”
He meticulously wrote the names of the donors and the amounts they had given him in a notebook, and he started to return the borrowed money 10 years ago.
Although he lived in poverty with his wife and kids in a one-bedroom house with almost no furniture, the man was determined to keep his promise. This week was a special one for the family, as it marked the clearing of the final debt.
As it turns out, only four families haven't received their money back yet because they moved from the village, and Mr. Guanghan has been unable to contact them, but the honorable man says he plans to track them down and repay them too.
“I had no other option open to me,” the man said. “Honor is honor and I don’t believe in taking something for nothing.”
His gesture is all the more impressive if we think that he managed to save all that money even though he is just a farmer with a low income, and there were times when he could barely afford to eat.
Mr. Guanghan says he plans to leave his little brown book on which he noted the names of the benefactors to his children, to remind them of the kindness of strangers.