Man finds work after 15-year trek carrying mother on back
Devoted son gets cleaning job that will allow him to take care of her in their new subsidised home
I’m willing to accept lower wages ... They thought
I was asking for too much WANG XIANQIANG ON HIS JOB QUEST
For the past 15 years, a Chongqing man has carried his paralysed mother on his back as he moved from town to town looking for work.
But now the family from Funiu village in the Qijiang district of the city will have a chance at a regular life after learning that a government subsidised house is being built for them, according to staterun People’s Daily.
Wang Xianqiang, 37, has been given a job as a cleaner.
“Mum is my whole world,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
His mother, Tian Jinggui, was paralysed by a fall when Wang was 14. His father cared for her until his death in 2003, but the griefstricken Tian stopped speaking to everyone except her son, the report said.
Wang, who was working in Zhejiang province in the east, returned to Chongqing to care for her and decided to take her with him into the city to find work.
As she suffered carsickness, Wang – who is only about 1.5 metres tall – carried her everywhere on his back.
“I’m willing to accept lower wages,” Wang would tell prospective employers, the newspaper reported. But he would also ask for flexible hours to return home to cook meals for Tian and carry her on walks.
“They thought I was asking for too much,” Wang said.
He found stable employment at a clothing factory after the owner took pity on him in 2015, but the factory only opened for production every six months.
When Wang and Tian returned to Funiu in August while the factory was closed, the village committee decided to help him apply for welfare, as well as give him with a job that allowed him to be close to his mother, People’s Daily reported.
Social media users have also been moved by Wang’s determination to care for his mother, with people on microblogging site Weibo saying they wanted to donate wheelchairs.
Tian is one of at least 85 million people living with disabilities on the mainland, according to state figures, although human rights organisations estimate the number is closer to 200 million.
While the disabled receive government funding, it is often not enough to make ends meet.
Some have turned to the internet to boost their income. Three sisters with brittle bone disease in the rural southwest of the country record themselves singing as well as clips of their daily lives on Kuaishou, one of many livestream platforms.
A six-year-old girl gained fame last month after videos of her taking care of her paralysed father went viral.