To Save a Young Life

I received an email from Haisong. He is very warmhearted and responsible. The message is about the life of a young man in Fudan University. I am going to donate and help him and want to spread the word to as many people as possible. Please help to spread the word!

Dear friends-

Sorry for the spam email. The student association from Fudan University (from where I obtained my undergraduate degree) contacted me to seek help raising rmb400,000 for Ma Dong’s bone marrow transplantation by the end of August 2006.

Ma Dong, a third year student from Fudan University, was diagnosed leukemia in January 2004. After fighting the disease for 2 years, he is fortunate to locate a bone marrow donor in 2006. However, coming from a poor farmer’s family in Auhui, he is short of around rmb400,000 for a bone marrow transplantation. I hope that some of us can chip in whatever amount to help save a young life.

Please help circulate this message to any of your friends or other organizations who might be able to help.

To find more information, you can go to http://hompy.cn/madong or email me at xxxx removed xxx @gmail.com. I will forward your message to Ma Dong.

Enclosed please find more background information from the students. (I did not correct the grammatical mistakes)

Sincerely,

Haisong Tang

Here is the attached English introduction.

The letter presented here is from all the students of Physics Department of Fudan University. We are expecting your help with deeply grieved and extremely anxious feelings. Your kind hearted charity will possibly save a young life that is struggling its way through a fatal disease. Your generous love will possibly help his family to get over from the hopeless situation.

The young man’s name is Ma Dong, who became an undergraduate student of our university to get a bachelor degree in the August of 2002. Only about 5 months later, during the Chinese traditional new year of 2003, he was diagnosed with leukemia which is a kind of deadly disease usually referred to as “Blood Cancer”.

The sudden strike broke the hearts of his parents. However, Ma Dong himself was surprisingly confident of his future recovery and did not lose the courage to fight against his fate. With the financial support from Fudan University, some local charitable associations, and many benevolent individuals, Ma Dong finally got the chance to get the first step of medical treatment. During the past three years, he not only achieved to survive by chemotherapy, but also finished the major lessons of his specialties.

Unfortunately, at the time that everything was approaching to develop into the right lines, misfortune finally happened to him for the second time. In the nearest several routine physical tests, his illness turned out to be out of control again. It has been proved that his life will not be maintained only by frequent chemotherapy. In this way, the only hope for him will be BMT: Bone Marrow Transplantation. The expenses of the whole process of BMT will be more than 400,000 RMB (about $50,000), which is an extremely large number out of the imagination of his distressed family. Although we’ve found the matching bone marrow source, the operation cannot be executed until the bill is paid.

As his classmates and his close friends, we won’t see him pass away without doing anything. We are now soliciting contributions from charity associations, Fudan graduated magnates of business field, and all the other possible sources of donations. But what we’ve got now is still not enough to save his life. However, we will never give up. We’ll continue raising funds from the general public. Thousands of miles away, a group of young people are trying their best to rescue a fragile life from the death. They are working alone. They need your help.

For the basic humanity, for the respect to love and life, please help us…..

Anxiously expecting your reply. Thank you very much!!!

Chinese introduction:

“Love=Life”再次援助倡议

–为马栋点燃22岁的生命蜡烛

马栋的情况介绍

马栋来自安徽毫州市涡阳县,于2002年考入复旦大学物理系,然而2004年1月一场突如其来的灾难袭击了刚满20岁的他–不幸被查出患上了白血病。治疗白血病期间动辄几万、几十万的费用支出,对于一个母亲没工作,父亲下岗,月收入总共仅有200元贫困家庭来说,是根本无法承受的。

然而,坚强乐观的马栋并没有失去勇气,他安慰心急如焚的父母:”即使我把全世界都丢了,也一定可以把它再找回来!”

休学一年后,马栋成为物理系03级的一员,一直坚持边化疗边学习,依靠自己顽强的意志和病魔展开了顽强的斗争,感动了我们所有人。一年多来他顺利完成了多门专业课的学习。

然而,病魔并没有善罢甘休,就在不久前,他的病情第二次复发。

虽然他很幸运–目前已经在中华骨髓库中成功找到一例配型者;但是横亘在马栋面前的是至少四十万元的手术费–两年前募集到的捐款还余下不到这笔数额的一半,马栋的父母一筹莫展,师长同学哀愁叹息,谁都不愿见到年轻而灿烂的生命黯然失色。

我们–爱马栋的所有人又一次站到一起–想要尽一切努力,延续他的花季生命!

联系方法和捐款方式

A. 物理系办公室(物理楼223室)已设立募捐箱。

B. 邮局汇款:

汇款地址:复旦大学物理系 马栋收 邮编:200433

同时,请写清您的通讯地址

C. 银行转帐:

帐号:033267-08017003441

开户银行:上海市农行五角场支行营业部

注明用途:给物理系马栋捐款

联系人:朱莹13818116640 王大顺 13764599799 沈湉13916499633

赵瓅 13655280393 李琳燕 13816991256 王璞 13933060328

目前已经开展的募捐工作和当前的情况

1、 我们系在南区进行了大型毕业义卖及募捐活动,毕业班的同学拿出自己的书本、衣物、生活用品等进行义卖,为身患白血病的兄弟祈祷加油。同学们打出了”传递真情创造奇迹,让我们永远并肩前行共抗病魔”的口号,最后将所得全部捐赠给马栋同学作为手术费用。

2、 我们将捐款的倡议书发到了本系所有教授、教师和研究生的信箱,得到了热烈的反馈和回复前往物理系办公室捐款的老师和同学络绎不绝。我们还收到其他院系、班级、老师们的捐款,累计捐款达一万元以上。

3、 爱心扔在延续,我们期待您的加入!马栋刚刚做过一次骨穿测试,结果显示他最近身体恢复不错,适合做骨髓移植手术!

I just called Miss Zhu Yng, and found out to drop the donation directly into the donation box at 223 Physical Building is the most convinient way to do that – They don’t accept China Merchant Bank online bank – good for them to make the official account more trustworthy.

There is a Chinese saying:

If you wait until you have more money than you need to help others, then you never have the chance to help;

If you wait until you have spare time to read books, then you never have the chance to read.

The Chinese original statement is much shorter than its English translation:

待有余而后济人,必无济人之日;待有暇而后读书,必无读书之时

Let me do the donation tomorrow. So join me to help.

P.S. The Chinese saying was quoted from <先正格言>:

待有餘而後濟人,必無濟人之日;待有暇而後讀書,必無讀書之時。救難憐貧之濟人,不在大費己財,但以方便存心,應貧苦者急切需要之為是。能以自己儉用之餘物件品,可成人家之大用,積小惠,可成大德。

14 thoughts on “To Save a Young Life

  1. lao wang, i have re-posted the entire piece at my blog to give it a little more exposure.

    God bless ma dong.

  2. That quite right: 待有余而后济人,必无济人之日;待有暇而后读书,必无读书之时

    But, it will be more effective if Madong’s friend’s can employ a new way for people easier to donate, say paypal.

  3. Beware everyone.

    This might be another internet fraud.

    Can anyone remember an email with a storyline like this…

    I am an 21 years old Nigerian who need 20 000 USD in order to escape Apartheid in Africa. My family blah blah….some pathetic story that had made at least 10 dozen round around the globe cheating charitable individuals in the world to put money in his/ her bank account. This is a similarly heart wrenching story of young man who might be losing his life. But the bottom line is, how do you know this is real? There has been so many internet frauds in recent years, especially in China. This might be just another way the original internet fraud spam is presenting itself in.

    And most importantly, how do you know such a person ever exist? Even if he does exist, how do you know the money will end up in his hand and not somebody elses? Hoe can you believe someone whom you have never even meet face-to face? This is not a recognized charitable NGOs mind you? It is a group made up of nameless individuals who claimed they have come together for a clause. But do you know who they are? What do you have against their words? How can you bring yourself to put your hard earned money in their hands?

    I, for one, donated 50 bucks to a Chinese peidu mama in Singapore who appeared on TV in Singapore when her daughter died. She claimed he does not have the money for her funeral and donations came flooding in. She “strike a lottery” of 3 millions SGD (equivalent to 2 million USD) because kind hearted individuals bought her story and hence she got more than what she bargained for. This particular women then promised to donate the money in excess to charity and disappeared the very next day. It was later discovered that she went back to china with an equivalent of 14 millions RMB, built herself a new villa, bought new bungalows, new BMW and Mercedes. Ask yourself, is this how you want your money to be spent? How do you know how the money would be spent if it is in excess of the medical bills?

    Next, I don’t even believe that cancer treatment in China can come up to 400 000RMB. Jian Shuo made this sounded like a reasonable amount by mentioning this is equivalent to USD 50K. But they aren’t. Let me ask you, can you say a Chinese specialist in china earn the equivalent of what a US based surgeon would earn in a month? So does a Chinese doctor earn the equivalent of USD 15K a month (equivalent of 120 000 RMB) per month? The cost a medicine and consultation in China arent even anywhere close to the cost of health care in USA. So does the quality of health care. It is not a fair conversion at all. Not unless he intends to fly to USA for treatment using your donations. I would rather donate my money to the International Humanitarian Fund than to throw it away to tricksters.

    I am dead sure that 400 000 RMB is in excess of what he needs. And the extra would go to the payment of somebody’s new villa, condominium or branded European cars. And that is not how I would like my money spent….

    How about you?

  4. OK. I don’t recommend anyone to donate just based on an article on a blog. Please do NOT directly pay anyone without checking. It is out of common sense. It is not common sense to ask for help from someone who don’t know anything about the situation to donate. So by common sense, one should not do it.

    For me, I trust it because the message comes from good friends, and I am deeply connected with the Fudan Unversity and I have called to verify it is true. So I personally donated.

    However, to user your common sense, don’t trust even this statement – someone can easily use the name of anyone to post on this blog.

    I believe the saying: “The false sense of safty is worst than no sense of safty”. I cannot provide (or anyone on the Internet cannot provide) the REAL safty for transaction. So intead of giving people that feeling, the way that makes better sense is alert anyone of the fraud potential of such cases. From this point of view, “Peace” and “Serious??” are doing the right thing to alert people for the risks.

  5. My advice is don’t donate to unknown individuals.

    Charitable organisations run by respectable groups such as the United Nations (World Peace Foundation) or the Internation “Save the Children” Foundation might be better beneficials if you really wish to make donations to charities.

  6. I think “Peace”‘s caution is good. Charity fraud is rampant in the US. In this particular case, I think JSW’s intention is also noble. Although without verification, I trust that this is a true request for help. However, I do agree that before donating any money to anyone, you have to ensure its truthfulness.

  7. I know there is an organisation called “Save the children” which has branches all around the world.

    What this organisation does is to save impoverished children all around the world not only in China but also in many other third-world countries to attend school so that they can have a better life for themselves and for their future generations. These children who benefited from “Save the Children” are typically entrapped in child slavery, working in coal mines, illegal fire-crakers manufacturing factories or child sex industries. A couple of months ago, a young girl of age 5 was recused by this organisation from a brothel in Sri Lanka.

    In China, this organisation also saved more than a 100 female babies from being sold to foreign buyers because traditionally, Chinese families favour boys and since the implementation of the one-child policy in the 80s, more and more baby girls are either being killed in the backyard by their own parents or sold off to anyone interested. A very sad truth that the Chinese govt is trying to do something about (yet is nowhere near eradicating this practice amongst the poor in china).

    What I can assure you is that since this is a NGOs, any excess amount of moeny will be used to fund another charity projects instead of going into the pocket of the beneficial for his personal luxury.

    PS: It has become so obviously that charity funds are being misused for the enjoyment of the beneficial if the money generated from public aid is in excess of what is required. Especially when the beneficial of the donation makes personal charity pledges (then what you donated becomes his and only his).

  8. I am not saying Ma Dong is not sick but common sense should tell you that a medical fee of 400 000 RMB is ridiculously fake in China. Something inside me tells me someone might be making money out of this.

    I believe Wang Jian Shuo has kind intentions for putting this on his blog but tricksters are very very good at making use of your compassion to generate income for themselves.

    Last of all, thanks WJS :)

  9. i will like to donate the amount of $950 per month to your charity organisation on behalf of my company

    thanks

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