Debra Li

debra_lidan@163.com

WHEN 15-year-old Guo King-ho told his mom last summer that he wanted to do a fundraising concert for hospitalized children from needy families, she was not surprised at all, for she knew that her son was always ready to extend a hand to those who are less fortunate. She just didn’t expect that the teenager, burdened with demanding academic learning tasks at school, would be able to stick it out and turn his plan into reality.

On the afternoon of Aug. 16, some 200 in the audience attended Guo’s fundraising concert at a multifunctional hall of a local bank in Nanshan District, which raised 180,000 yuan (US$24,680) at the live event and online through cooperation with the Shenzhen Project Care Foundation. The 150-minute-long concert, titled “Love’s Melody of Light,” was also livestreamed at WeChat Channels. The money has been donated to Shenzhen Children’s Hospital to provide medical fees for young patients from disadvantaged families.

“I’m full of gratitude to my friends and family who supported me all through this project,” said Guo, an 11th-grader at UWC Changshu born in Hong Kong and raised in Shenzhen.

Three of his current school band members and a guitarist from his previous band at Harrow Shenzhen joined him to perform seven numbers at the show.

“We performed the retro Cantopop ‘Days of Glory’ by the Hong Kong band Beyond and Charlie Puth’s ‘Dangerously’ to echo the theme of our concert, hoping to cheer people up and bring them hope and strength,” Guo, frontman and keyboardist, said. They also performed Taylor Swift’s “The Last Time,” a fan favorite loved by many Chinese young.

Guo, a first-prizewinner at the 8th Hong Kong International Musical Festival, also gave a rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on the ukulele, his favorite piece that got him in love with the instrument. “I play the piano too, but I like the ukulele best,” he explained. “Ukulele has a pure idyllic sound and its charms are often underrated. The instrument can be expressive and versatile in the hands of a skillful player.”

His friends rounded up the performance with vocals, instruments and recitals.

“I had originally hoped to have the event held at a professional concert hall or theater, but that would have cost us a lot of money. As we are doing a fundraiser, we want to do it in accordance with the spirit of charity, to provide the best performance we can with the least finance and other resources. We contribute our hard work for the benefit of the children we want to help, not for vanity or something we can brag of. We don’t need a showy performance at a fancy venue,” Guo told Shenzhen Daily.

A local Bank of Beijing branch manager heard their project and offered the venue for free for three hours on a weekend afternoon, and Guo was more than thrilled. All his friends — having transferred from school to school, the teenager has a great many friends — and relatives helped him put out the news about this fundraiser through word of mouth and WeChat Moments.

“We rehearsed day and night in the week leading up to the event,” Guo said, adding that he and his team wished to give the audience a memorable afternoon for their kindness.

The story of Old Yang

Guo’s primary school teacher recalled an incident that occurred when the boy was 8. “He stood up against a few bullies because they hurt a girl classmate. Not nearly as tall and strong as they, he was pushed to the ground and beaten up,” the teacher said. “My boy has the tenderest and purest heart,” his mom said.

Guo’s plan for the fundraiser burgeoned after he met Old Yang in Shaxi Ancient Town, Dali, Southwest China’s Yunnan Province. Last summer vacation, Guo was on a summer camp project shooting a documentary in Yunnan. Old Yang, a street performer dressed up as Charlie Chaplin and doing comedic shows on a public plaza caught his attention. He and his team decided to feature the middle-aged man from Yi ethnic minority in their work and followed him to his family inn. It turned out that Yang did the Chaplin personification to lure more customers to his small homestay business. They also learned that behind his hilarious comedic stunts was a sad sad story. Yang had lost his father to alcohol-induced live problems and then lost his youngest daughter to high fevers. Living from hand to mouth every day, he wished the girl could fight through the illness with her will and immunity but realized too late that she couldn’t. He rushed her to hospital but had to see her die there.

“I became quite fond of Yang, who is warm, simple and strong-willed, and I was very sorry for him. After returning from the summer camp, I couldn’t help thinking about him often, which led to the idea of a fundraising concert,” he said.

“We cannot return his beloved daughter to Yang, but we could do something for other families suffering similar plights.”

A seed of kindness

An eloquent teenager who has won many accolades at National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) debates, Guo has been wavering about his future path: a lawyer or a doctor? He is always ready to stand up for the underdogs and feels that helping to return justice to the wronged is a fulfilling path; but he also wants to relieve people of their pains from diseases.

Apart from the debates, Guo actively participated in biochemistry research work and won a gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) in 2021.

The encounter with Yang helped Guo make up his decision. “Life is of utmost significance and what cause is more glorious than healing and curing people and returning them to health?” Guo asked.

“My parents have been supportive,” he said, adding with a chuckle that they did warn him of the heavy workload and immense pressure from working as a clinical doctor.

“In fact, I want the most challenging job in the medical world and envision myself as a surgeon in the future.”

Guo also plans to keep his fundraising project ongoing, and get more people on board. “I’m considering doing a fundraiser each year, and enlist the help of schoolmates who are my junior. I hope that this seed of kindness will continue to grow and bear fruit.”

While being a doctor is his calling, creating and performing music will always be Guo’s passion. The teenager also writes his own songs on top of singing and playing the ukulele.

“Being a surgeon with a band is rewarding and fun, isn’t it?” he asked with a glowing smile.