Senior smooths village's rocky roads

Over the past 47 years, Liu Shide has not stopped doing volunteer repair work on the roads in his village.

Liu, 83, a resident of Xinhe in Mishan, Heilongjiang province, began the work in 1972 when he noticed villagers and vehicles were inconvenienced by the terrible condition of the dirt roads, especially on rainy days.

"I was born in the village and there were dirt roads all around in the old days," he said. "When I was a little boy, I often filled shallow potholes in the roads with pebbles, hoping to help villagers walk without discomfort."

Liu said when he was older, he noticed few people went outside the village as there was only a path which was unsuitable for vehicles.

So, he decided to build his own road.

In 1972, he spent several months transporting soil in a wheelbarrow to the east side of the village. With his bare hands and hard work, Liu dug a 500-meter-long dirt road to connect the village with the outside world.

"It was not very difficult for a strong middle-aged man to finish the work," he said. "I was really happy to see that the villagers could go outside more easily on the road and decided to maintain it properly."

From then on, maintaining his road became one of the most important things in Liu's daily life.

In his free time, he collected small stones and broken bricks in his wheelbarrow to repair damaged sections of the road. He also made running repairs to the dirt roads in the village.