On this date in 1963, Mao Zedong launched the “Learn from Lei Feng” campaign. The most important lesson I’ve learned from Lei Feng is to look out for falling telephone poles, but maybe I’m not the target audience. Anyway, in case you missed it, Lei Feng was a young soldier in the PLA whose selfless devotion to his brother troops, to the people, and especially to Mao Zedong and his country made him a role model for young Chinese. If you want to think of him as a cross between a boy scout, GI Joe, and “Opie” from the old Andy Griffith Show, go ahead I won’t stop you.
How did he die, you might ask? Fighting the dastardly American imperialists? No. Sneaking across the Himalayas to beat back Indian encroachment into the Motherland? Not really. Mortal combat with Soviet spies? Not so much. Actually, he was directing one his fellow soldiers to back up a truck (Possible last words: “Dao! Dao! Dao! Ooomph…) when the truck knocked down a telephone pole right on top of poor Lei Feng.
After his death, Lei Feng’s Diary was, erm, discovered and, lo and behold, it turns out that he was quite the