Editor's note: In the battle with the COVID-19 epidemic, more and more fighters are coming to its front lines, including students and former students of the Open University of China (OUC). Like other fighters, no matter how ordinary, they are contributing what they can. Let's take a close look at some of their stories.

Song Jianhua, a 2018 autumn junior-college Law student at the Siping Campus of the Jilin branch of the Open University of China (OUC), has been helping man the Yangmulin highway checkpoint to help keep the COVID-19 epidemic from spreading. His post is at the city entrance on National Highway 102 from Siping to Changchun, where he has taken driver temperatures more than 10,000 times, collected over 10,000 pieces of personal information, advised over 2,000 drivers to turn back, given guidance to over 300 mass-transit vehicles, and answered more than 1,000 inquiries.

At 18:00 on 14 February, 2020, about to leave work, Song Jianhua noticed a car illegally exiting a long traffic queue in the evening rush hour. He realised something must be wrong, hurried to it, and found a red-eyed male driver, and a woman crying in the back seat and holding an unconscious child. Song Jianhua learned they were a family rushing the child to the hospital because of convulsions, and with so much traffic, the father had no choice but to leave the line and ask the police for help. Song Jianhua comforted them, gave them priority for having their temperatures taken, and when these tested normal allowed them to proceed, gaining them precious time. His patient and warm-hearted nature is often called upon these days to deal with emergencies.

At 20:00 on 15 February, on duty in front of the Iron Tower Plant, Song Jianhua went to check up on a man and woman approaching the checkpoint, and learned that they were foreign visitors to Siping. The woman had no mask, and Song Jianhua gave her a spare his family had provided him, showed her how to wear it, and instructed her in the importance of doing so at this time. He also noticed that the man was wearing only an ordinary cotton mask, and Wang Guofan, on duty with him, gave the man a spare of his own. Gestures such as these have earned the men the trust and affection of their compatriots.

Song Jianhua’s story of persisting in the cold to help fight the epidemic shows his down-to-earth approach to work and life.

By Jilin Branch