More than 300,000 internet users have donated about 20 million yuan (US$2.3 million) to a struggling Beijing-based charity hospital which treats children with cleft lips.
The Beijing Smile Angel Children’s Hospital, in the Chinese capital’s Chaoyang District, is a comprehensive paediatric centre.
It focuses on providing treatment for children born with a cleft lip or palate.
Since it opened in May 2012, it has carried out 16,000 free operations on children with these congenital defects.
Many of those children came from poor families in northwestern and southwestern parts of China, according to one of its founders, Li Yapeng.
The hospital is one of the few charitable institutions of its kind and is funded by the Beijing Smile Angel Fund and set up by eight founders.
These include actor-turned-businessman Li and his then wife Faye Wong, the famous Hong Kong diva.
Li is the hospital’s legal representative.
Li and Wong married in 2005 and a year later their daughter was born with a cleft lip and they took her to the United States for surgery.
At the end of 2006, they launched the charity fund which offers financial aid for children with the condition.
In the following years, the couple held annual charity fundraising dinners until they divorced in 2013.
Li, 54, was a top-tier actor in China more than two decades ago. He then went into business by investing in real estate and tour resort projects 15 years ago.
These all failed and he was ridiculed online for his lack of business acumen.
In 2024, Li said on social media that he was unable to pay off a 40 million yuan (US$6 million) debt and has been living a frugal life for years.
However, his reputation took a turn for the better on January 14 when he released a viral online video titled “I have to face it at last”, which attracted 1.5 million likes.
He said the Beijing hospital has to move or possibly be shut down because it owed 26 million yuan (US$4 million) in rent.
“In the past few years, we have been wrestling with the decision of carrying on or closing the hospital. According to the law, we owe the rent and must move out; but we cannot stop helping the child patients,” Li said in the video.
“Finally, I came to accept that the hospital needs to close. But first we must finish the surgeries for all the patients already admitted.
“I have compromised in my heart that my ability does not match my philanthropic passion,” he concluded.
Internet users were moved by Li’s sadness and honesty and flocked to make donations.
In just five days, more than 300,000 internet users donated around 20 million yuan, Xinmin Newsweek reported.
Followers of Li’s social media account rose from six million to seven million over this short period of time.
Meanwhile, hundreds of families whose children have received free surgery at the Beijing hospital spoke up on Li’s behalf.
“It is the Beijing Smile Angel Children’s Hospital that gave my kid a second life. I hope it can get through this difficult time,” one parent wrote on social media.
Li said he was especially grateful to such parents.
“As a parent with a kid born with this defect, I know it requires much courage to reveal pictures showing your kid before and after surgery,” said Li.
“I salute Li Yapeng,” one internet user said, adding: “He deserves the trust and support from all of us.”
“Perhaps he does not have business prowess, but he is a top swordsman with great love,” said another person, referring to a character Li played in a popular wuxia television series two decades ago. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
