Hello, and welcome to another edition of Frontline, the features segment brought to you by China Radio International. I'm your host, Wu Jia.
Today's story starts with a deposit receipt sent to a newspaper office eleven years after the money was first deposited in the bank. A journalist kept it for six years to find out the true identity of its owner. Last year, the deposit receipt was listed as the number one collected article in the Hangzhou branch of the China Sports Museum. Let's follow our reporter Yang Lei to eastern China to learn more of the story.
August 8, 2007 marked the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Celebration activities were held nationwide. But Lou Shiwei, a journalist with Hangzhou Daily, was on tenterhooks. This special day reminded him of a slip of paper he had kept for six years.
"I feel it must be somewhere, but I don't know where it is. I have searched almost every corner."
On July 14, 2001, the second day after Beijing won the bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, Lou Shiwei and his colleagues were planning interviews on the successful bid. Then the office security guard sent him an unsigned letter.
"Inside the letter, there was a deposit receipt for the amount of 100 yuan. The depositor was named Xing Aoyun, which I immediately thought must be an alias for Ying Aoyun - a homophone for the former which means 'welcome the Olympics' instead. According to the letter, the 100 yuan in the deposit receipt had been deposited to the bank eleven years before, back in 1990, by a girl and her younger brother who wished to do their parts for China's bid for the Olympic Games. Now that China won its bid, they hoped to donate the money to the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee through the newspaper office."
That day, journalists with Hangzhou Daily received numerous calls from local citizens inquiring how to donate to the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee. But this unsigned letter left a deep impression. Lou Shiwei and his colleagues wondered who the sister and brother who sent the money under the alias Xing Aoyun were. Back in 1990, when the money had been deposited, China had not even proposed its bid for the Olympics. Why had Xing Aoyun contributed to China's Olympic bid at such an early date?
When Lou Shiwei got the letter, he felt there were so many mysteries to be unveiled. He and his colleagues were anxious to know the circumstances surrounding the siblings who had deposited the money. More importantly, they wanted to know how they had been getting along all these years and hear about their current situation.
Lou Shiwei hurried downstairs, but the person who had delivered the letter was already gone. At the request of the person who wrote the letter, Lou Shiwei contacted the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee. That same day, he published a reply from the Olympic Bid Committee declining all donations. Lou hoped Xing Aoyun would come back for the deposit receipt so he could solve the mystery. But Xing Aoyun still didn't appear. Lou studied the letter carefully. The letter seemed to be written by a woman, as the handwriting was neat and graceful. Characters "specialized for the students of the Zhengjiang University of Technology" were printed on the stationery. Lou thought the letter writer might have been studying at the university when the letter was written in July 2001. Lou went to the university, and later the savings bank where the money was deposited to return the deposit receipt to its owner, but couldn't find any leads.
"I was very disappointed. As I had suspected, Xing Aoyun was an alias. All of my inquiries came to naught."
Lou had lost the trail. Since he could not find Xing Aoyun, Lou decided to keep the receipt.
"I thought the deposit receipt was very valuable. I felt that it was a precious cultural relic. I made a special brown paper envelope and put the deposit receipt inside. Ever since that day, the receipt has been on my mind. I made up my mind that someday I must find the brother and sister."
Six years passed. When the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympics began, Lou Shiwei started thinking about the deposit receipt again. To him, the receipt didn't just reflect Xing Aoyun's feelings. It also represented Hangzhou citizens' longing for the Beijing Olympics.
"In fact, this deposit receipt shows the Hangzhou people's love for the Olympics. Why? All these years, the local people have cared for the Olympics very much. Here in Zhejiang Province, we have a lot of construction workers who go to Beijing to help build Olympic gymnasiums and stadiums. We have held many Olympics-related sports activities in the city, such as distance running and national body-building campaigns. You can see the Olympic spirit in the local people."
On the one-year countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the deposit receipt suddenly disappeared. He was sick with worry and searched everywhere. After rummaging through chests and cupboards for more than two weeks, he finally found the deposit receipt.
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