As family waits, they share memories of son, brother

Tian Junwei was a passenger on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

The 29-year-old unmarried man from a village in Wendeng, Shandong province, works for Huawei Technologies Co's branch in Malaysia. He hasn't been home in 15 months.

Tian's 65-year-old mother had cooked some local snacks that her son likes. She finished them long before March 8, the date that should have seen the reunion of mother and son.

Before he set out from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tian made an appointment with his brother-in-law to get together in Weihai. The two haven't seen each other since they graduated from high school in 2004.

Tian's brother-in-law, who works in Osaka, Japan, had planned to be in Weihai from March 4 to 8, but decided to stay an extra day to see Tian.

Tian had planned to catch a flight from Beijing to Weihai. On March 7, Tian told his older sister, Tian Fang, via instant-messaging service QQ: "Just come and pick me up in Dashuipo International Airport (Weihai) at 2 pm."

While Tian's family was waiting for his return home and preparing a warm welcome, the news came in that the flight Tian Junwei had boarded is missing.

After hearing the news, Tian's 67-year-old father and 65-year-old mother became ill, and they remain hospitalized. Tian's sister, Tian Fang, and sister-in-law, Ma Aihong, went to the Metropark Lido Hotel in Beijing on March 10 after they got their passports to await news from Malaysia Airlines. The two have already returned home.

Before her flight to Beijing, Tian Fang had never been on an airplane before, and she never expected to fly for the first time for such a reason, Ma told China Daily.

Her brother's promise

Tian Fang had assisted her younger brother a lot with his tuition, and Tian Junwei once promised his sister that he would pay all the tuition for his sister's 8-year-old child.

"Who expected this to happen to him?" Ma said with a sigh.

Tian was born in Dongquan, a small village with only several dozen households, on September 7, 1985, five days earlier than his brother-in-law.

The two played and went to school together almost every day, Tian Junwei's uncle, Tian Mingzhong, told China Daily.

"All villagers are envious when they mentioned the two brothers," the uncle said, adding that they are the pride not just of the family but of the entire village.

Tian Junwei graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China with a master's degree in 2011. He joined Huawei in May the same year and was sent to Malaysia in 2012.

"In the rural areas of our hometown, it's not easy to enter a prestigious university," Tian's uncle said.

"Usually, only three out of 10 can enter senior high school, and no more than one of them can enter a key university," he added.

The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China is under Project 985, a government-run project for founding world-class universities in the country. Now there are only 39 universities in China participating in the project.

Tian Mingzhong is not boasting. An investigation in 2009 shows that only 17.7 percent of university students are from rural areas, though the rural population is much bigger than the urban one.

"It seems that the incident was destined to happen," he said. "We all hoped he would choose Tsinghua University. But the boy chose to go to Chengdu (where the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China is located), and joined Huawei when the company recruited in Chengdu in 2011."

Tian Junwei got a scholarship every year and was advised to continue his studies at the university and get a master's degree, his uncle said.

Tian Junwei's English is very good. He scored 970 out of 990 in the Test of English for International Communication. Tian Fang, his sister, said that one of Tian's colleagues at Huawei told him that his score is higher than anyone else's in the company.

"He is usually very silent, but very clever," Tian Zhongming said.

"My nephew got a promotion not long before the incident," he added.

"He once spent two whole days without any sleep preparing a bid and finally helped Huawei beat competitors from 14 countries. The boss appreciated that and promoted him to office director."

Growing up

Tian and his older sister have always been close.

Tian Fang recalled a touching childhood memory about her brother, who is 10 years her junior.

"Once when Tian was a kid and I was studying at boarding school, my parents killed a chicken we used to feed guests. But the dish was left over, so some was saved for me to eat when I came home on the weekend," she said.

The family was poor at that time and didn't have a refrigerator, so they had to steam the chicken dish every day to prevent it from going bad.

"My brother stared at the dish with a watering mouth. Although my parents said that he could have some, he refused and said that he wanted to share it with me when I got back," she said.

When Tian Junwei was in primary school, his parents raised silkworms, which was profitable at that time, but they gave it up after they found themselves too busy to take care of their son.

"They can make 10,000 yuan ($1,620) in one season or in one year. I couldn't remember clearly. But even if it was 10,000 yuan a year, that still was a big amount at that time," Tian Fang said.

The yearly per capita disposable income in 1992, when Tian Junwei was 7 years old, was 1,380 yuan in Wendeng.

"Taking care of the silkworms, my parents were too busy to cook for my brother so he often had to have cold food when he came back from school," Tian Fang recalled.

"My mother said her son's future might be affected though she could make a lot of money.

"She said that her son's future is more important," she told China Daily.

When Tian Junwei entered senior high school, he returned home only during weekends. He had to do homework in the room where his family watched TV.

"All of us just stopped watching TV and accompanied him when he started to do homework," Tian Fang recalled.

"He studied at the then-best middle school, Wendeng No 2 Middle School, and always took at least the third place in his class in examinations."