Xi's emphasis on love for family, nation inspires youth to forge ahead

BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Huang Chunhong, a grassroots cadre working in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, is busy preparing for a family reunion during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Saturday.

"My family always values traditional festivals. Many members of my family have returned to our hometown from across the country to celebrate the festival," said Huang, whose hometown is located deep in the mountains in Shichuang Village, Wulong District.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most important traditional festivals in China. Huang said that the family members always have dinner, recite the family precepts, enjoy the full moon and eat mooncakes during the festival.

Huang's big family is widely known as a model of family harmony in and beyond the village.

In December 2016, 300 families nationwide including Huang's, won the honor of model families. Huang attended a conference to honor the model families in Beijing.

When meeting with attendees of the conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, called for efforts to enhance virtue and civility in Chinese families and make them "an important foundation" for national development, progress and social harmony.

People from all walks of life should work for "a new trend toward socialist family values" featuring love for the nation, family and one another, devotion to progress and kindness, and mutual growth and sharing, Xi said.

A family is the smallest unit of a nation, while a nation is a myriad of families put together. Through the ages, the Chinese nation has always valued the family.

For generations, family members of Huang have scrupulously abided by the family precepts focusing on loyalty, filial piety, diligence and virtue, generating a positive influence on people around them.

Ruan Siya, 23, has vowed to make her contribution to the country and the people.

In 2020, Ruan graduated from the China University of Petroleum-Beijing at Karamay, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. She was among 118 graduates writing to Xi, saying they chose to take grassroots jobs in Xinjiang and aspired to work with people from different ethnic groups for the development of the country's western region.

Xi expressed support for the choice of those graduates in a reply letter and encouraged college graduates to aim high, be down-to-earth, brave difficulties and obstacles, shoulder the mission of the times, integrate their pursuit of ideals into the cause of the Party and the country, and make more contributions for the Party, the motherland and the people.

Encouraged by Xi's words, Ruan has been working at an oil production plant in Xinjiang for more than two years.

"Staying in Xinjiang and making a contribution to the motherland is the glorious mission of many people working here like me," said Ruan, who carries heavy tools to maintain oil wells scattered in the vast Gobi desert day after day.

Unable to get back to her hometown around 3,000 km away in Shaanxi Province, Ruan plans to have an online reunion with her family through a video call during the Mid-Autumn Festival and tell her family that she is fine in Xinjiang. "I always appreciate that my parents support and understand my decision."

As the youngest staffer in her team, Ruan receives care from everyone there. "They are from different ethnic groups. We are as close and harmonious as brothers and sisters in one family," Ruan said.

She said she has also been touched by hard-working senior colleagues. "They sacrifice individual interests to increase oil and gas production and guarantee the country's energy security, and I am heartened by their spirit," Ruan added.

"I have combined the love for my family with the love for the country. I am very proud of my decision to take root in Xinjiang and devote myself to ensuring energy production for the nation," Ruan said.