A NOTICE posted in front of a restaurant in Helian Community, Longhua District has gone viral on social media platforms and attracted a large patronage from the neighborhood, Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.

The notice reads: “If you have no income and encounter difficulties in Shenzhen, you can come to the store and tell the staff to have a serving of 15-yuan (US$2.32) pig’s trotters with rice. You can just leave after the meal. When you are better-off in the future, remember to help the people around you who need help. Thank you!”

“A serving of pig’s trotters with rice is only 15 yuan, which doesn’t mean much. If you are in [financial] difficulty, you can leave straight away after the meal. It doesn’t matter,” Li Yuan, the restaurant’s owner, told the reporters with the News during their visit to the eatery Tuesday noon.

At the restaurant’s door, Li and his partner Liu Qikun were greeting customers. When asked whether the restaurant would suffer a loss because of this, Li smiled and said repeatedly, “This is not a big deal. It doesn’t matter.”

According to Li, he opened the restaurant July 12. Shortly after the opening, a financially strapped person came to the restaurant for help and asked if a free meal was possible, to which Li readily gave.

Subsequently, he thought that there may be others who need help, so he posted a conspicuous notice of a “free meal” on the restaurant’s door.

Li said that he came to Shenzhen for work from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region 13 years ago at the age of only 16. At first, he couldn’t find a job and then one day, exhausted, hungry and broke, Li summoned up the courage to ask several restaurants for a meal. One restaurant provided him with a free meal.

“The kindness of the restaurant’s owner has been engraved on my heart,” Li said. He had opened several Hunan cuisine restaurants, but the unexpected COVID-19 epidemic has dealt a blow to his business and put him in debt.

“Because I have received help from others and had my lows, I understand their difficulties and helplessness and I am willing to help them as much as I can,” Li was quoted as saying.

Li also provides training for people who want to start a business in making pig’s trotters with rice. He hopes that more people can live a better life with a skill and help the needy when they have the ability. 

(Zhang Yu)