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Agent of change breathes life into rundown old neighborhoods

Friday, 06 August 2021 14:20:00
Agent of change breathes life into rundown old neighborhoods
Ti Gong

Li Xiuqin makes a conference presentation.

Community worker Li Xiuqin has only 20 percent of her stomach left after a cancer surgery. But she still sparkles at work, her colleague Yu Jing says, as if there's a perpetual motion machine working in her body.

Over the past decade, the 49-year-old has worked in six neighborhoods in Puxing Road Subdistrict of the Pudong New Area, converting each of the otherwise listless, rundown old neighborhoods back into happy, attractive places to live.

She is truly a glutton for punishment. While others find it grueling to handle mundane disputes between neighbors, she brings to the work a passionate enthusiasm.

According to Li, she gets motivated by local residents, and particularly remembers their care and love for her when she was fighting cancer.

"They granted me a new lease of life, spiritually," she said, describing local residents as "the most lovable people."

"When I woke up from an operation, lying in bed in a confused state of mind, I felt a blissful and healing warmth around my cold hands and feet," Li said.

"Later I was told that a local ayi (aunty) had taken my hands and feet in her arms to keep me warm. Before that, she and some other residents waited with my family outside the operation room for seven hours."

Due to the extent of her illness, Li could have taken a back seat and handled paperwork at the office. But she preferred to stay working on the front line and is now Party secretary of Changdao Road neighborhood.

Still recuperating from her extensive operation, Li needs to take three different medicines and two bottles of TCM decoction each day.

"See, here is my 'coffee.' You can't get it anywhere else, but I have two cups to drink," she said, referring to the TCM decoction, with a touch of self-deprecating humor. "Just take the bitterness of grief as the sweetness of joy."

As Yu said, "Thin and weak, she has a strong mind."

Agent of change breathes life into rundown old neighborhoods
Ti Gong

Li helps in a neighborhood garden.

Li moved into the field of community work in August 2011 as a social worker in her neighborhood of Zheng'er.

At first it was really not some big career plan, just the simple idea of a stay-at-home mom to return to the workplace – marking time for pocket money.

"Before that, I had been a housewife for 10 years. I thought that being a social worker would be a cushy job close to home and an entry point back into the workforce," she said.

It didn't take her long to realize she was wrong. She was overwhelmed by a deluge of calls, complaints and tasks, in particular a sense of hostility because she was considered an outsider.

Then her five-year work experience in hotel management paid off.

"This is, in a sense, a social job, and I happen to be good at dealing with people," she said. "I went from house to house, learning about their demands. Gradually, I was accepted from being 'that woman' to being 'our Xiuqin.' From then on, I felt it was where I belong."

Of Li's many "fans," Peng Taoqing, a resident and volunteer at Hewu neighborhood, treated her like a daughter.

According to Peng, Hewu residents put up stubborn resistance to things such as planting vegetables in public green spaces, but Li patiently handled the daily stresses.

"She buzzed over to talk some sense into us, and presented a vision of residential buildings surrounded by gardens. We were touched and began to understand that small changes can make great improvements in the local environment," Peng said.

"Led by her, we worked together to renovate public green spaces. Today, we fell like we are living in some nice parks."

Agent of change breathes life into rundown old neighborhoods
Ti Gong

Li visits a local elderly resident.

As Li carved a niche for herself as a community worker, she had to hit the pause button when she was diagnosed with stomach cancer in April 2014.

Peng was the first person to perceive something was wrong with Li.

"Every time I met her, she seemed thinner than before. She said it was just a stomachache. I didn't think so. I told her to see doctors," Peng said. "After some time, we met again. She told me to take more care of the community work. I knew something was up."

As Peng pumped her for details, Li confessed that she was going to have a stomach operation the next day. The diagnosis came as a bombshell that affected them both.

"In the very beginning, I was totally lost. I hid myself from the crowds, weeping somewhere alone," Li said. "I wondered whether I would see my son growing up and spend the rest of my life with my family. These thoughts just lingered in my mind."

After weeks of uncertainty, she went for the operation, not knowing that her illness also tugged at local residents' heartstrings.

While she was in surgery, Peng and several neighbors looked after her family and helped ease their tensions.

"At first, the surgeons conducted minimally invasive surgery. But four hours later, they said it didn't work, and they had to open her up. It lasted for another three hours," Peng said.

"When she was taken out of the operation room, she was ashen-faced, with drains and tubes all over her body. I felt so sorry for her."

On her way back to the ward, she kept shaking. Peng didn't hesitate to rub her hands and then took her feet into her arms.

"Her hands and feet were as cold as ice. It took a while to warm them," Peng said. Li started to come to as she thawed out, and she couldn't help bursting into tears.

"I could clearly feel a pair of rough hands chafing my hands and feet. I also saw local residents standing near my bed," she said. "It was quite a shock. At that time, I made up my mind that if I recover, I would devote myself to them."

Agent of change breathes life into rundown old neighborhoods
Ti Gong

A mini-garden in the corner of a neighborhood

As Li gradually recovered, she returned to work in December 2016 as Party secretary of Zhongda neighborhood. Within two years, she had converted a rubbish dump into a small forest.

"It was one of the biggest headaches for local people for so many years," she said. "The neighborhood just needed a 'surgery' at its roots, like what I'd been through."

Resident Yan Huimin described what the area had become.

In the middle, there was an illegally built ramshackle house, surrounded by piles of rubbish, where people came to kill fish and play cards. There was an overpowering stench of rubbish, dead fish and cigarette smoke, she said.

So, Li decided on a bold move to cut the knot. She motivated volunteers, residents and even armed police to work together to clean up the rubbish, and then invited gardening experts to design a mini forest for the site.

Now it is an oasis of tall metasequoia trees and tufts of calamus, adorned with sculptures of giraffe, sheep and spotted deer. On velvety grass, shaded by sweet-scented osmanthus trees, there are a pavilion and corridors offering shelter from the scorching sun or chilly winds. There is also a wooden pathway with orchids blooming on either side.

Not far away, there is a small vegetable farm with cole flowers, eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes and herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine such as dandelion, purple perilla and wormwood.

"A walk in the neighborhood is truly a feast for the eyes. It's amazing that for us, urban dwellers, a natural landscape is just at our doorstep," Yan said. "It also offers a place for children to get to know the natural world. And we are free to use the TCM herbs we plant."

"We are so happy to live here," she added.

Agent of change breathes life into rundown old neighborhoods
Ti Gong

Li gives a class at Xiuqin Studio.

In May 2020, Li became Party secretary of Changdao Road neighborhood.

Besides working to improve the local environment, this year she set up Qiuxin Studio, hoping to share her experience and foster more young community workers.

She said her secret to successful community management is to put herself in others' shoes.

"What I've been doing over the past 10 years was just to listen to residents, think of them and solve their problems," Li said.

"And it's important to motivate them to take part in community work and improve the local environment. By living in a good environment, they will volunteer to keep the neighborhood clean and beautiful. It's a virtuous cycle," she said.