I’ve had two similar experiences in the past few weeks from Chinese fruit vendors.

There are about 8 different fruit vendors within a 5-minute walk from our apartment. There are 3 that I have used most, but we tried a new one down a less-visited street recently where my wife and I bought several bags of fruit. We paid, grabbed our bags, and began strolling home. We were nearly home a few minutes later when a motorcycle raced up to us. On it was the fruit vendor we had just visited with a bag of fruit. He explained that we had left one of purchases there at the store, so he had left his store to hunt us down, which wasn’t completely trivial since there was a complicated intersection and at least one turn involved in finding us. Amazing that a vendor would be so honest that he would rush into the streets to find a customer who left a little fruit behind. 

That was about 3 weeks ago. More recently, I went to my closest and most frequented vendor to get some fruit for the dinner we were having at our apartment for a group of Young Single Adults in Shanghai (LDS members and investigators). The fruit vendor, a sweet Shanghai woman, said, “Hey, I think you are the same American that bought some fruit here a couple weeks ago but left behind a watermelon. Go pick another melon and you get it free of charge.” Wow, how interesting. 

The honesty and integrity of the common people in China frequently touches me. It’s part of the real China that I love. Sure, I know there is a lot of fraud and corruption, but there is so much goodness and so many great values that are naturally expressed in the lives of common people, especially those who don’t bear the burden of wealth, which seems to corrupt far too easily. 

God bless China, a land rich in great people.