Helping hand

Little did he know that this would eventually become his calling in life.

In 1990, when his company's clientele grew to almost 1,000, he had to decide if he would sell the business, bring in a partner or keep going by himself.

Realizing that he had "become a slave to his business", Stanleigh picked the first option and went on to become a full-time teacher.

"No matter what I was doing, my business was always on my mind," he says. "My phone never stopped ringing." Sometimes he worked through holidays such as Christmas.

"I used to make a lot of money but it didn't make my family happy. Many people chase money and they lose sight of their family and friends and life purpose," he adds.

Having spent so much time interacting with the Chinese community in Toronto, Stanleigh did not hesitate in coming to China when he found the opportunity to work as an academic coordinator in a Chinese city.

He arrived in 2001, bringing along his passion for helping others by volunteering in the city's English Corner－informal gatherings for English-learners to improve their oral skills.

Stanleigh also joined the Wuxi Health College as an English teacher and met Hu Linghan, a Wuxi native who was working as an English teacher. They married two years later.

In 2003, Stanleigh also started his own English Corner to help locals improve their English. He still hosts the group chats every Thursday at a cozy cafe called Maancat Coffee.

Apart from teaching English, Stanleigh also helps out with other community initiatives including visiting retirement homes and orphanages, picking up garbage from the streets and even taking to the roads as a traffic coordinator.

"When I tell pedestrians to stop, they stop. That's because they usually don't know what to say or how to react to a laowai (foreigner) who is volunteering as a traffic coordinator," he says, laughing.

Stanleigh says his life in Wuxi is a lot more modest than the one he led back in Toronto.

He is currently living off his pension from Canada, while his wife earns money from her teaching job. He keeps himself occupied with volunteer work.

"I think that a person is judged not by what he does but by what he does for others. My life is better because someone else's life is better," Stanleigh says.