Ties with new hometown sealed

Rolling up his sleeves and extending his arm to donate blood has become a familiar ritual for Neeraj Punhani. For 12 years, the 49-year-old Indian has regularly joined blood donation drives in Keqiao district of Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, where he has lived for 23 years while running a textile import business that exports products to India.

It all began with a 12-year-old girl nicknamed Jia Jia. In December 2014, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Doctors said she would need blood transfusions and chemotherapy for a long time. The need for blood, coupled with mounting medical expenses, pushed her father, Wei Baoshi, who supported a family of five through odd jobs, to the brink of despair.

On Dec 22, 2014, Punhani saw a post on the social media app WeChat saying Jia Jia was urgently in need of blood. Moved by a photo of the girl who had lost her hair during chemotherapy, he decided to help. "I wanted to help this girl. It touched my heart because my brothers and sisters and I all have daughters. So I felt like our own daughter needed help."

The next morning, Punhani brought 16 fellow Indians and three Chinese friends to Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang, to donate blood. On Jan 3, 2015, more than 100 Indians arrived at a blood donation center in Keqiao, with 96 donating a total of 33.8 liters of blood. More Indians who had been away on business returned to donate the following day.

The support went further than blood donations. Two weeks later, Punhani and his Indian friends raised 160,000 yuan ($23,800) to help cover Jia Jia's medical expenses. The experience prompted Punhani to turn a one-time act of kindness into a long-running tradition. He began promoting voluntary blood donations through WeChat and posters at Indian companies, restaurants and other places frequented by Indians.

The effort was also rooted in an earlier experience. On May 9, 2013, an Indian man who worked in Keqiao fell seriously ill and urgently needed blood plasma. The Zhejiang Blood Center and Shaoxing Central Blood Station organized a campaign under the theme "love without borders, blood continues life", in which 76 Chinese people donated blood for him. He later recovered.

"I thought to myself at the time that I must find an opportunity to do something for this city," Punhani said. Since then, Punhani and his fellow Indians in Keqiao have organized nine blood donation campaigns, involving 754 donations and collecting 278.7 liters of blood. The largest campaign attracted 141 Indian donors.

"Since Punhani and his fellow Indians helped Jia Jia at the end of 2014, they have contacted us every year to inform Indian community members about the time and number of participants for their group blood donations," said Jin Danting, an official of Shaoxing Central Blood Station. "They have kept it up for 12 years. Their sincerity and self-lessness have deeply moved us. This kind of love that crosses national borders is truly precious."

Jia Jia's father, Wei, said: "I'm grateful to everyone who helped us back then." He said the girl has made a very good recovery.

Over the past 12 years, Wei has visited Punhani's company almost every year, sitting down with him to catch up and once again express his gratitude. "Although communication can sometimes be a little difficult, we have overcome the barriers of language and become good friends," Wei said.

For Punhani and his fellow Indians, however, donating blood is about more than giving. "When we donate blood and feel that our blood may save someone's life, we feel from the bottom of our hearts that we are doing something for humanity, which has given us so much joy."

Many Indian businesspeople have put down roots in Keqiao, home to China Textile City, a major global textile trading hub. Indian businesspeople began arriving in the area in the early 1990s, following historical routes of the Silk Road. Today more than 1,000 Indians live in Keqiao, making them the district's largest foreign business community.