After his military training, Hua has been working on ad hoc manual jobs. He had a chance meeting with Ying on an outing, who turned out to be his true love of a lifetime. He plucked up his courage to ask for her dad’s permission to marry her. Ying’s dad thought that though Hua has no rich parents in business or politics, he seemed more hard-working than other young people his age and thus agreed to the marriage.

     Hua and Ying got married and later had four kids. Despite their average family income, they lived a blissful simple life of no luxuries. But good things don’t last forever. Hua somehow had two strokes, one after the other, ended up with paralyzed weak limbs and impaired speech.

    Their zealous village chief instantly contacted the Chang Yung-Fa Charity Foundation for further support. The Foundation’s inspector, while also notifying other charities and the government social worker, discovered that though Hua’s family were still able to afford the medical treatment and required no financial aid, the entire family had no mattresses except Hua: Hua slept on one single bed with a soft mattress and the others squeezed on a double bed with no mattress. The two daughters who only recently started kindergarten said in a manner that only a child can, “Sir, I really want to sleep on a soft bed, just like my dad, and jump up and down in it. It’d be great fun.” The inspector felt really sorry for the family, thinking,

   “Aren’t mattresses commonly seen in all households?” But for Hua’s family, mattresses are so out of reach. The inspector decided to show up like a lamp genie with mattresses for the entire family so that they could have a good night’s sleep, as well as buying them other household essentials. With joint efforts from the inspector and the government’s social worker, the Foundation paid for the mattresses and fans, and the recycled furniture center at the city government’s Environmental Protection Bureau provided free second-hand wardrobes, desks, chairs and a TV cabinet.

     On the day when the inspector and the social worker came to Hua’s house to help with assembling the fans and moving the mattresses, and they, drenched in sweat, saw the kids playing happily on the bed, their fatigue evaporated instantly.