AN 88-year-old retired hospital cleaner, Tang Caiying, who rescued and adopted 38 abandoned infants over two decades, has been nominated for China’s National Moral Model award, the nation’s highest honour for civilian moral excellence.
Her journey began in 1982 when she discovered an infant girl wrapped in a cotton coat near railway tracks.
Despite having five children of her own, with her youngest aged 12, she took the baby home and named her Fangfang, meaning “fragrance,“ symbolising blooming flowers.
Her second daughter, Aiping, who had recently finished secondary school and was unemployed, stayed home to help care for Fangfang.
A few years later, Tang found another abandoned baby girl at the hospital where she worked and named her Zhenzhen, meaning “precious gift.”
This marked the beginning of her ongoing efforts to rescue abandoned infants, eventually adopting 36 more children.
While working at the hospital in Xinyu, Jiangxi province, Tang converted an unused room into a nursery, providing care while working her regular shifts.
Many of the infants were found in critical conditions, some in trash bins or left outside during winter.
After retirement, Tang lived on her pension and collected recyclables to support the children.
Her family eventually embraced her mission, with her husband and children helping to raise the youngest adoptees.
“For my mother, doing a good deed is not about a sense of morality. It is just what she feels she should do. It is an instinctive kindness,“ Aiping said.
One of her adopted children, Zhang Jiagang, now 27 and working as a firefighter, regularly visits Tang and contributes part of his salary to support her.
“If it were not for Grandma Tang, I don’t know what my life would have been like,“ he said.
