When I met Tao Siliang, the 83-year-old lady had just returned from a business trip from Dongxiang Autonomous County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. She has funded 11 primary schools in the county for 24 years. From building classrooms at the beginning of the c

When I met Tao Siliang, the 83-year-old lady had just returned from a business trip from Dongxiang Autonomous County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. She has funded 11 primary schools in the county for 24 years.

From building classrooms at the beginning of the century to training psychological teachers and doing empowering work now, Tao Siliang has witnessed the changes in the country's basic education. Although she is very old, she is still willing to go to the front line by herself. This year she has participated in 12 events and gone on business trips 7 times.

During his 83 years of life, Tao Siliang dedicated 40% of his time to charity. She has worked as the person in charge of three charitable organizations, experienced the dilemma of not being able to pay her salary for half a year, and also experienced the joy of raising 100 million yuan in charity every year.

Today, she still maintains her original purity and strives to make every donation go where it should be used. Under her promotion, more and more social pain points are recognized by government departments, and policies that can solve the problems are finally formed. At that time, Tao Siliang will quietly withdraw and find the next "harder bone to gnaw."

In September 2024, Tao Siliang (the white-haired old man in the picture) paid a return visit to Dongxiang Primary School. Picture source: AIER Charity Foundation

"Surviving is considered a preliminary success"

Tao Siliang, who has served as the head of three charitable organizations, his biggest feeling is: "In doing charity in China, if you say a thousand words, it will be a preliminary success." Success.”

Tao Siliang still remembers the dilemma when he took over the China Hearing Medicine Development Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Hearing Foundation). In the early days of the foundation's establishment, there was no office, and it couldn't pay a penny of salary for half a year. Five or six people stared blankly. The foundation was not well-known and was not familiar with the corporate world. Tao Siliang did not know how to raise money.

In order to attract more people to donate, Tao Siliang invited his "old sisters and buddies" to the platform, Li Min, Chen Weili, Zhu Heping... As more and more descendants of the founders joined, Tao Siliang began to pass Charity sale raises money. A group photo of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Liu Shaoqi donated by Zhou Enlai's niece Zhou Bingde fetched 160,000 yuan, and her book "My Uncle Zhou Enlai" even fetched 500,000 yuan.

The identity of "Red Second Generation" is a good starting point for Tao Siliang. But truly running a foundation is not just about fundraising.

In 2018, Tao Siliang visited his children during the AIER Sunflower Project (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) project. Picture source: Cheng Ruizhen, the financial director of the AIER Charity Foundation

, has followed Tao Siliang for more than ten years. In her 50s, she has become a "hard-working Saburo" under the influence of Tao Siliang - working overtime in the office to sort out the foundation's accounts. her work routine.

Tao Siliang trusted the employees of the foundation very much, "I will go outside to open up the battlefield, and you will defend the territory for me." So Cheng Ruizhen, who was supposed to retire, heard this and was willing to continue working in the foundation.

Tao Siliang's respect for donations and the foundation's transparency enabled the Aier Charity Foundation to be rated as a 5a-level public welfare organization by the civil affairs department three years after its establishment.

"Public welfare is the most difficult thing to do"

Most of the public welfare projects Tao Siliang has done are relief projects. From "intellectual projects" to aiding children with cerebral palsy, she is always willing to do public welfare projects that others think are expensive and have little social attention.

In the early 1990s, Tao Siliang was shocked by the large number of people with low intelligence caused by iodine deficiency. In many provinces, the IQ of entire villages hovered around 70. In the beautifully built Hope Primary School, the children could never reach the fourth grade.—— Obviously, a person needs only one spoonful of the trace element iodine in his lifetime, but so many people have lost their ability to live a normal life because of these dozens of grams of the substance.

In order to help the government fulfill its commitment to eliminate iodine deficiency diseases in 2000, the China Medical Foundation, where Tao Siliang works, launched the "Intelligence Project" in 1993.

Tao Siliang knows that this matter needs more people's attention to completely solve it. So she used her previous resources in the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee to facilitate the establishment of the "Iodine Deficiency Disease Chengde Investigation Team" with more than 30 people.

Officials and intellectuals from all walks of life have seen the seriousness of iodine deficiency disease and called for it on many occasions. In October 1994, the State Council promulgated the "Regulations on Salt Iodization to Eliminate the Hazards of Iodine Deficiency" (State Council Order No. 163), requiring nationwide implementation. Iodine deficiency diseases are gradually under control in China. Tao Siliang also quietly withdrew, looking for other people in need of help.

In Tao Siliang's view, the group in society that needs assistance most is the disabled. When she was young, she worked as a doctor for 19 years, but left the hospital due to some accidents. "I actually love medicine very much and have always wanted to make some compensation."

In 2005, under the repeated persuasion of the former leader of the Ministry of Health's Personnel Department, Tao Siliang became the chairman of the China Hearing Medicine Development Foundation (referred to as the "Hearing Foundation"). In 2009, after the Wenchuan Earthquake, the Female Mayors Branch of the China Mayors Association established the "Female Mayor Aier Charity Fund" in Shanghai. The first project when it was established was to help newborn children with rescue hearing recovery. "We plan to provide hearing aids to children aged 0-6, which can solve a large burden on the government in the future." Tao Siliang said.

After hearing this, a major Shanghai leader at the time made a calculation: It costs 8,000 to 10,000 yuan to save a child, and the number of hearing-impaired children born every year is only 30,000 to 40,000. This part of the country can definitely reveal all the details. So the leader informed the State Council of the situation. Since then, the national finance has allocated 400 million yuan every year to carry out the "Hearing Impairment Assistance Plan for China's Poor Children Aged 0-6".

funds have solved the problem of newborn hearing-impaired children, but Tao Siliang feels that these aids are not enough. The number of hearing-impaired people in my country exceeds 20 million, ranking first in the number of people with five major disabilities: visual disability, physical disability, and intellectual disability. Tao Siliang has been looking for ways to help more hearing-impaired people.

In 2011, at the suggestion of foundation director Wan Xuanrong, 70-year-old Tao Siliang flew to Minnesota, the United States, to visit Bill Austin, the founder of Starkey Hearing Technology Company, and persuaded him to help help poor hearing-impaired people in China.

At that time, Austin had been doing charity aid around the world for many years. He knew the situation in China, but he had never entered China because he did not have a suitable partner.

"I was a bit boastful at the time. I said that I was the president of the China Mayors Association and the chairman of the Listening Foundation. As long as he came to China for inspection, I would receive him all the way." Tao Siliang remembered that Austin came three months later When they arrived in China, the two of them talked happily. "When signing the contract, he said he wanted to sign a ten-year contract. I said that we are 70 or 80 years old, and we might not be able to survive until then. He said that even if we can't walk anymore, we can still crawl. To come to China."

The following year, Austin flew to Xi'an and Chengdu to conduct pilot projects. In order to ensure that everyone who received the gift could successfully attend the hearing, the local government allocated an auxiliary fund and hired a special car to pick up and drop off the hearing aids that needed to be worn. Disabled people.

"Austin feels that China's government public welfare is very powerful. He often mentions in his speeches that the Chinese government is his best partner. The government makes relief efficient and orderly. Foreign countries relying on NGO and volunteer power cannot do this. Comparable." Tao Siliang said.

Respect every recipient

Tao Siliang remembers that when Austin came to China to donate hearing aids, he had to stand and work from morning to night, so as to facilitate the fitting of hearing aids for the disabled. "Once he sprained his waist while doing a hearing aid fitting in a previous country and walked with a slight limp, but he did not want to just be a conductor. He is a doctor, a hearing equipment engineer, and the most experienced technical volunteer, so he wants to Do it yourself."

Austin will invite medical experts from all over the world to fit hearing aids for hearing-impaired patients, setting up a stage every time to give the patients a complete donation ceremony. Tao Siliang thought for a long time why Austin would do this. Finally, she figured out that people abroad who usually dress slovenly would wear tuxedos and dresses at charity dinners, just to show respect for charity.

"Chinese people are caring, kind-hearted and have good roots. Our national culture also has a culture of kindness, but I always feel that something is missing. After thinking about it, I feel that what is missing is respect for charity and respect for people in need. respect.”

Later, when the AIER Charity Foundation organized hearing aid activities, staff in uniforms would always serve the hearing-impaired fellows. Every hearing-impaired fellow would be picked up and dropped off, and they felt respected and enveloped in friendship.

2017 , Aier Charity Foundation launched a rescue project for children with cerebral palsy. Through surgery, patients with poor muscle tone can stretch their bodies and improve their quality of life.

At that time, Tao Siliang was 76 years old, and her daughter Tao Ye accompanied her to visit Tibet and Xinjiang. Leader of the autonomous region. “She suffered from dizziness and headache due to altitude sickness, so we went to the hospital to prepare an oxygen concentrator. "

Tao Siliang's hard work also attracted more caring people. Xu Lin, a professor at the Orthopedic Center of Dongzhimen Hospital, led his team in Kashgar, Xinjiang from entering the operating room at 8 or 9 in the morning and working until 10 in the evening. They could only During the short break between the two surgeries, they sat on the floor and took a nap against the wall.

Yu Yanbing, a neurosurgery expert at China-Japan Friendship Hospital, makes at least two trips to Tibet every year. , performed operations on Tibetan children with cerebral palsy. Due to hypoxia in the plateau, Yu Yanbing operated while breathing oxygen. He worked more than ten hours a day and performed more than 20 operations. For these efforts, the doctors took no money and donated 20,000 yuan per person. The funds are reserved for patients’ later rehabilitation. Currently, with the help of the foundation and doctors, 700 children with cerebral palsy have undergone surgical treatment.

In 2018, Tao Siliang visited children with cerebral palsy at Jingeng Hospital in Ruzhou, Henan. Aier Charity Foundation

Charity is an elegant value

"Learning from Lei Feng" has been Tao Siliang's understanding of charity for a long time. She believes that doing good deeds means being unknown, and the more low-key the better. Austin told her that every philanthropist is. "Social activist" - as long as it is used in the right way, connections are also a resource.

Today, Tao Siliang is willing to appear in front of the media and constantly talk about her experiences. She is also trying to explore "philanthropic diplomacy". After the project ended, she cooperated with domestic hearing aid companies to continue hearing aid. Now she is in contact with the governments of Laos and Cambodia, hoping to bring the hearing-impairment project to more "Belt and Road" countries and bring China to China through public welfare.

After the cerebral palsy project ended, Tao Siliang used most of his resources in the new autism project. “Autism is not like cerebral palsy or hearing impairment, and people can work and live normally after recovery. People with autism require lifelong care, and if left unattended they will become a burden to society. "

Tao Siliang launched the "Morning Star Project" public welfare project. He spent a year visiting autism experts across the country, setting up a project committee, and training rehabilitation practitioners from local Disabled Persons' Federations. So far, the project has covered 13 countries across the country. More than 50 cities in each province have benefited more than 16,000 autistic rehabilitation practitioners, child psychiatrists and autistic children.

She no longer has to worry about whether Aier should be a "big and comprehensive" or "small and beautiful" foundation. “Although Aier is small, it is formal. After it gets a good reputation, many foundations are willing to cooperate and do some things. "Nowadays, the public welfare projects carried out by Mo Yan and Zhang Wenhong are all in cooperation with the AIER Charity Foundation, and fresher blood makes AIER flow.

What makes Tao Siliang happy is that more and more young people are paying attention to charity.

and Tao Siliang's generation Many of the people who become philanthropists are retired cadres who have been appointed by the organization to be the person in charge of the local charity federation to use their spare energy. But now there are young people who are willing to set up foundations and donate to them. Projects of interest. “They come back from studying abroad and are young and promising. They naturally acquire the concept of charity as they grow up, and we do not need to instill it in them. "

Looking at this group of young people, Tao Siliang often has a sense of urgency that time is running out. She feels that she still has a lot to do. She maintains the habit of writing and has to judge some hot topics in society; the Internet After the "Fingertip Charity" on the Internet became popular, she would donate some during holidays and asked her grandchildren to donate together. She has been doing this for 7 years now.

When she was a child, she grew up listening to the phrase "Don't regret wasting your years, don't be ashamed of doing nothing" in "How Steel Was Tempered". Her parents' stories also taught her what a "sense of responsibility" is. In his youth, he devoted himself to his beloved medicine, and in his middle age, he worked for three foundations to survive. It was not until the age of 74 that Tao Siliang officially retired from the China Mayors Association and the Listening Foundation. At the age of 83, she admits that she has entered the twilight of her life.

“I want to be an old man with a positive attitude towards life. This is my current goal.

When I met Tao Siliang, the 83-year-old lady had just returned from a business trip from Dongxiang Autonomous County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. She has funded 11 primary schools in the county for 24 years.

From building classrooms at the beginning of the century to training psychological teachers and doing empowering work now, Tao Siliang has witnessed the changes in the country's basic education. Although she is very old, she is still willing to go to the front line by herself. This year she has participated in 12 events and gone on business trips 7 times.

During his 83 years of life, Tao Siliang dedicated 40% of his time to charity. She has worked as the person in charge of three charitable organizations, experienced the dilemma of not being able to pay her salary for half a year, and also experienced the joy of raising 100 million yuan in charity every year.

Today, she still maintains her original purity and strives to make every donation go where it should be used. Under her promotion, more and more social pain points are recognized by government departments, and policies that can solve the problems are finally formed. At that time, Tao Siliang will quietly withdraw and find the next "harder bone to gnaw."

In September 2024, Tao Siliang (the white-haired old man in the picture) paid a return visit to Dongxiang Primary School. Picture source: AIER Charity Foundation

"Surviving is considered a preliminary success"

Tao Siliang, who has served as the head of three charitable organizations, his biggest feeling is: "In doing charity in China, if you say a thousand words, it will be a preliminary success." Success.”

Tao Siliang still remembers the dilemma when he took over the China Hearing Medicine Development Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Hearing Foundation). In the early days of the foundation's establishment, there was no office, and it couldn't pay a penny of salary for half a year. Five or six people stared blankly. The foundation was not well-known and was not familiar with the corporate world. Tao Siliang did not know how to raise money.

In order to attract more people to donate, Tao Siliang invited his "old sisters and buddies" to the platform, Li Min, Chen Weili, Zhu Heping... As more and more descendants of the founders joined, Tao Siliang began to pass Charity sale raises money. A group photo of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Liu Shaoqi donated by Zhou Enlai's niece Zhou Bingde fetched 160,000 yuan, and her book "My Uncle Zhou Enlai" even fetched 500,000 yuan.

The identity of "Red Second Generation" is a good starting point for Tao Siliang. But truly running a foundation is not just about fundraising.

In 2018, Tao Siliang visited his children during the AIER Sunflower Project (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) project. Picture source: Cheng Ruizhen, the financial director of the AIER Charity Foundation

, has followed Tao Siliang for more than ten years. In her 50s, she has become a "hard-working Saburo" under the influence of Tao Siliang - working overtime in the office to sort out the foundation's accounts. her work routine.

Tao Siliang trusted the employees of the foundation very much, "I will go outside to open up the battlefield, and you will defend the territory for me." So Cheng Ruizhen, who was supposed to retire, heard this and was willing to continue working in the foundation.

Tao Siliang's respect for donations and the foundation's transparency enabled the Aier Charity Foundation to be rated as a 5a-level public welfare organization by the civil affairs department three years after its establishment.

"Public welfare is the most difficult thing to do"

Most of the public welfare projects Tao Siliang has done are relief projects. From "intellectual projects" to aiding children with cerebral palsy, she is always willing to do public welfare projects that others think are expensive and have little social attention.

In the early 1990s, Tao Siliang was shocked by the large number of people with low intelligence caused by iodine deficiency. In many provinces, the IQ of entire villages hovered around 70. In the beautifully built Hope Primary School, the children could never reach the fourth grade.—— Obviously, a person needs only one spoonful of the trace element iodine in his lifetime, but so many people have lost their ability to live a normal life because of these dozens of grams of the substance.

In order to help the government fulfill its commitment to eliminate iodine deficiency diseases in 2000, the China Medical Foundation, where Tao Siliang works, launched the "Intelligence Project" in 1993.

Tao Siliang knows that this matter needs more people's attention to completely solve it. So she used her previous resources in the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee to facilitate the establishment of the "Iodine Deficiency Disease Chengde Investigation Team" with more than 30 people.

Officials and intellectuals from all walks of life have seen the seriousness of iodine deficiency disease and called for it on many occasions. In October 1994, the State Council promulgated the "Regulations on Salt Iodization to Eliminate the Hazards of Iodine Deficiency" (State Council Order No. 163), requiring nationwide implementation. Iodine deficiency diseases are gradually under control in China. Tao Siliang also quietly withdrew, looking for other people in need of help.

In Tao Siliang's view, the group in society that needs assistance most is the disabled. When she was young, she worked as a doctor for 19 years, but left the hospital due to some accidents. "I actually love medicine very much and have always wanted to make some compensation."

In 2005, under the repeated persuasion of the former leader of the Ministry of Health's Personnel Department, Tao Siliang became the chairman of the China Hearing Medicine Development Foundation (referred to as the "Hearing Foundation"). In 2009, after the Wenchuan Earthquake, the Female Mayors Branch of the China Mayors Association established the "Female Mayor Aier Charity Fund" in Shanghai. The first project when it was established was to help newborn children with rescue hearing recovery. "We plan to provide hearing aids to children aged 0-6, which can solve a large burden on the government in the future." Tao Siliang said.

After hearing this, a major Shanghai leader at the time made a calculation: It costs 8,000 to 10,000 yuan to save a child, and the number of hearing-impaired children born every year is only 30,000 to 40,000. This part of the country can definitely reveal all the details. So the leader informed the State Council of the situation. Since then, the national finance has allocated 400 million yuan every year to carry out the "Hearing Impairment Assistance Plan for China's Poor Children Aged 0-6".

funds have solved the problem of newborn hearing-impaired children, but Tao Siliang feels that these aids are not enough. The number of hearing-impaired people in my country exceeds 20 million, ranking first in the number of people with five major disabilities: visual disability, physical disability, and intellectual disability. Tao Siliang has been looking for ways to help more hearing-impaired people.

In 2011, at the suggestion of foundation director Wan Xuanrong, 70-year-old Tao Siliang flew to Minnesota, the United States, to visit Bill Austin, the founder of Starkey Hearing Technology Company, and persuaded him to help help poor hearing-impaired people in China.

At that time, Austin had been doing charity aid around the world for many years. He knew the situation in China, but he had never entered China because he did not have a suitable partner.

"I was a bit boastful at the time. I said that I was the president of the China Mayors Association and the chairman of the Listening Foundation. As long as he came to China for inspection, I would receive him all the way." Tao Siliang remembered that Austin came three months later When they arrived in China, the two of them talked happily. "When signing the contract, he said he wanted to sign a ten-year contract. I said that we are 70 or 80 years old, and we might not be able to survive until then. He said that even if we can't walk anymore, we can still crawl. To come to China."

The following year, Austin flew to Xi'an and Chengdu to conduct pilot projects. In order to ensure that everyone who received the gift could successfully attend the hearing, the local government allocated an auxiliary fund and hired a special car to pick up and drop off the hearing aids that needed to be worn. Disabled people.

"Austin feels that China's government public welfare is very powerful. He often mentions in his speeches that the Chinese government is his best partner. The government makes relief efficient and orderly. Foreign countries relying on NGO and volunteer power cannot do this. Comparable." Tao Siliang said.

Respect every recipient

Tao Siliang remembers that when Austin came to China to donate hearing aids, he had to stand and work from morning to night, so as to facilitate the fitting of hearing aids for the disabled. "Once he sprained his waist while doing a hearing aid fitting in a previous country and walked with a slight limp, but he did not want to just be a conductor. He is a doctor, a hearing equipment engineer, and the most experienced technical volunteer, so he wants to Do it yourself."

Austin will invite medical experts from all over the world to fit hearing aids for hearing-impaired patients, setting up a stage every time to give the patients a complete donation ceremony. Tao Siliang thought for a long time why Austin would do this. Finally, she figured out that people abroad who usually dress slovenly would wear tuxedos and dresses at charity dinners, just to show respect for charity.

"Chinese people are caring, kind-hearted and have good roots. Our national culture also has a culture of kindness, but I always feel that something is missing. After thinking about it, I feel that what is missing is respect for charity and respect for people in need. respect.”

Later, when the AIER Charity Foundation organized hearing aid activities, staff in uniforms would always serve the hearing-impaired fellows. Every hearing-impaired fellow would be picked up and dropped off, and they felt respected and enveloped in friendship.

2017 , Aier Charity Foundation launched a rescue project for children with cerebral palsy. Through surgery, patients with poor muscle tone can stretch their bodies and improve their quality of life.

At that time, Tao Siliang was 76 years old, and her daughter Tao Ye accompanied her to visit Tibet and Xinjiang. Leader of the autonomous region. “She suffered from dizziness and headache due to altitude sickness, so we went to the hospital to prepare an oxygen concentrator. "

Tao Siliang's hard work also attracted more caring people. Xu Lin, a professor at the Orthopedic Center of Dongzhimen Hospital, led his team in Kashgar, Xinjiang from entering the operating room at 8 or 9 in the morning and working until 10 in the evening. They could only During the short break between the two surgeries, they sat on the floor and took a nap against the wall.

Yu Yanbing, a neurosurgery expert at China-Japan Friendship Hospital, makes at least two trips to Tibet every year. , performed operations on Tibetan children with cerebral palsy. Due to hypoxia in the plateau, Yu Yanbing operated while breathing oxygen. He worked more than ten hours a day and performed more than 20 operations. For these efforts, the doctors took no money and donated 20,000 yuan per person. The funds are reserved for patients’ later rehabilitation. Currently, with the help of the foundation and doctors, 700 children with cerebral palsy have undergone surgical treatment.

In 2018, Tao Siliang visited children with cerebral palsy at Jingeng Hospital in Ruzhou, Henan. Aier Charity Foundation

Charity is an elegant value

"Learning from Lei Feng" has been Tao Siliang's understanding of charity for a long time. She believes that doing good deeds means being unknown, and the more low-key the better. Austin told her that every philanthropist is. "Social activist" - as long as it is used in the right way, connections are also a resource.

Today, Tao Siliang is willing to appear in front of the media and constantly talk about her experiences. She is also trying to explore "philanthropic diplomacy". After the project ended, she cooperated with domestic hearing aid companies to continue hearing aid. Now she is in contact with the governments of Laos and Cambodia, hoping to bring the hearing-impairment project to more "Belt and Road" countries and bring China to China through public welfare.

After the cerebral palsy project ended, Tao Siliang used most of his resources in the new autism project. “Autism is not like cerebral palsy or hearing impairment, and people can work and live normally after recovery. People with autism require lifelong care, and if left unattended they will become a burden to society. "

Tao Siliang launched the "Morning Star Project" public welfare project. He spent a year visiting autism experts across the country, setting up a project committee, and training rehabilitation practitioners from local Disabled Persons' Federations. So far, the project has covered 13 countries across the country. More than 50 cities in each province have benefited more than 16,000 autistic rehabilitation practitioners, child psychiatrists and autistic children.

She no longer has to worry about whether Aier should be a "big and comprehensive" or "small and beautiful" foundation. “Although Aier is small, it is formal. After it gets a good reputation, many foundations are willing to cooperate and do some things. "Nowadays, the public welfare projects carried out by Mo Yan and Zhang Wenhong are all in cooperation with the AIER Charity Foundation, and fresher blood makes AIER flow.

What makes Tao Siliang happy is that more and more young people are paying attention to charity.

and Tao Siliang's generation Many of the people who become philanthropists are retired cadres who have been appointed by the organization to be the person in charge of the local charity federation to use their spare energy. But now there are young people who are willing to set up foundations and donate to them. Projects of interest. “They come back from studying abroad and are young and promising. They naturally acquire the concept of charity as they grow up, and we do not need to instill it in them. "

Looking at this group of young people, Tao Siliang often has a sense of urgency that time is running out. She feels that she still has a lot to do. She maintains the habit of writing and has to judge some hot topics in society; the Internet After the "Fingertip Charity" on the Internet became popular, she would donate some during holidays and asked her grandchildren to donate together. She has been doing this for 7 years now.

When she was a child, she grew up listening to the phrase "Don't regret wasting your years, don't be ashamed of doing nothing" in "How Steel Was Tempered". Her parents' stories also taught her what a "sense of responsibility" is. In his youth, he devoted himself to his beloved medicine, and in his middle age, he worked for three foundations to survive. It was not until the age of 74 that Tao Siliang officially retired from the China Mayors Association and the Listening Foundation. At the age of 83, she admits that she has entered the twilight of her life.

“I want to be an old man with a positive attitude towards life. This is my current goal."

Beijing News reporter Guo Yimeng

editor Yang Hai proofreading Lu Qian