CHINESE MAN SPENT HAND-DRAWN BANKNOTES

In 2020, a short video on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, of an elderly man clad in rags and struggling to communicate his desire to buy noodles brought the man, Zheng Zulong, and the noodle store owner Guose Li, instant fame.

Misfortune, on the other hand, always seems to find its way to the already downtrodden. Zheng died in a drunk driving accident in January of this year, breaking the hearts of many people online.

May he no longer live a wandering life in heaven, a person commented.

Zheng was left mentally disabled in an accident when he was a small child. He never married, and his only family is a nephew with whom he has never been close.

According to Li, Zheng used to buy the noodles using a few crumpled bills he found on the road or in the rubbish. However, since the wet market was demolished and rebuilt five years ago, he ran out of money at times.

He still went to Li's store regularly. Instead of paying with real money, he handed Li fake, hand-painted bills.

My wife laughed when she saw the hand-drawn bills mixed in with the real ones the first time he took them out because they looked like a child's hand painting, Li told the South China Morning Post.

No matter if the notes were real or hand-drawn, Li and his wife always accepted the bills and gave Zheng a day's supply of noodles. Li understood that the man just wanted some food.

I gave him free noodles earlier, but he rejected the offer; he had his rules, so I was happy to sell him the noodles this way, Li said.

To read the complete article, see:
Chinese mentally disabled man famous for buying noodles with hand-drawn banknotes in popular online videos dies (https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3168950/chinese-mentally-disabled-man-famous-buying)

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