China isn’t usually the country that comes to mind when we think of “environmental responsibility”. This is, after all, a country that loses 1.6 million lives each year to the toxins in its air.

See Also: 10 Animals That Surprisingly Benefit From Climate Change

Still, no country better understands the dangers of pollution than China – and that’s having an effect. While other countries have been slacking in their commitment to the world’s climate pacts, China’s actually been stepping up – and is on track to becoming the world leader in combating climate change.

It’s the last thing anyone ever expected. China has become our last, best hope for the environment.

How in the world did this happen?

10 The Chinese People Demand It

In 2008, the US Embassy in Beijing installed a little air-quality monitor on the top of their building and had it send out automated tweets reporting the daily level of air pollution. They weren’t out to be subversive, but they accidentally revealed a major issue.

The levels the embassy reported were much, much higher than the ones the Chinese government were reporting, and they made something painfully clear – the government wasn’t telling the truth.

Soon, Chinese citizens started tuning in to the embassy’s report instead of the government’s. The government tried to censor it, announcing that its “readings were illegal”, but the embassy went on tweeting anyway.

The people started getting worried. They complained about the “state secret” of environment pollution levels. Normally, complaining would have been dangerous, but the government’s a bit more forgiving when it comes to the environment, and so the complaints rage on.

Pretty soon, the government had to start giving out the real numbers. They had to change their approach due to the population – because the people wanted it. 90% of the country was willing to sacrifice economics for the environment, and the government had to follow suit.^[1]

9 China Is Calling For Bigger Emissions Cuts Than The UN

In 2011, China stood before the UN and declared that every major economy – including themselves – should be legally forced to curb greenhouse gas emissions after 2020. They proposed introducing consequences to countries that didn’t meet their targets and volunteered to sign up first, saying, “We accept a legally binding agreement.”

The world was confused. This was, after all, China, the pollution center of the world. Most of the world’s leaders just wanted to figure out what China was up to. As it turns out, though, China has actually followed through with its commitment. They have plans on lowering their reliance on coal over the next few years and have committed to making carbon dioxide emissions peak by 2030, with levels only going down after that.

And it’s working. Based on their progress so far, experts actually believe they’re going to do better than promised. There are people asking if China’s emissions have already peaked, 14 years ahead of schedule.^[2]

8 China Probably Isn’t The Worst Polluter

We usually think of China as the world’s biggest polluter – but people are starting to shift blame onto the US instead. And they might not be wrong.

Technically, China releases the most greenhouse gases per year, but from a historical perspective, they’re far from the worst. Between 1850 and 2011, the United States was the source 27% of all carbon dioxide emissions, while China only caused 11%.

Even today, the United States might actually be creating more pollution that China. China produces 8.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually, but that’s just because their economy relies on industry. 20% of those gases come from factories producing things for the United States.

American companies pay for these factories, but they put them in China instead of the US to keep their costs down. Still, the pollution is actually coming from American activities and interests. If we shift the responsibility for that pollution back to America, the United States’ annual 6.9 billion tons of greenhouse gases gets a lot higher – and it becomes a bigger number than China’s.^[3]

7 Reforestation Initiatives

One of the reasons the climate’s going up so quickly is because we’ve lost so much of the rainforest. You’ve probably already heard that the rainforest absorbs a massive amount of carbon dioxide, and that without it we’ve lost a major natural defense. You might not have heard, though, that China’s pretty much made up for it.

Ever since 1981, every Chinese student over the age of 11 has been required to plant at least one tree each year to encourage their role in taking care of the environment. It’s made a difference. In 2008 alone, China increased its forestage by 4.77 million hectares.

The biggest impact, though, is from the Great Green Wall they are planting in the Gobi desert. China is planning on covering a 4,500km area of desert with 100 billion trees.

The impact will be incredible. Already, the Great Green Wall has offset 81% of the loss in above-ground biomass carbon lost to tropical rainforest deforestation since 2003 – and they aren’t even done planting yet.^[4]

6 Car-Free Cities

Cars are one of the biggest sources of air pollution in the world. Currently, the vehicles on Chinese roads are responsible for nearly a third of the toxins in the air – but they’re doing something about it.

China is currently working on a plan to take 5 million aging vehicles off of the road as part of a larger commitment to cut emissions by 17%. In exchange, more and more people are going with electric cars. In fact, sales of Tesla’s electric cars tripled in the last year.

The most interesting idea, though, is the Great City, China’s plan to create a town that doesn’t have a single car. The city will be able to house 80,000 and will be surrounded by a buffer green spaces that make up 60% of the area. It will take 20 minutes to walk across the city on foot, and people will have to use public transit to enter and exit the town.^[5]

5 Animal Rights Activism

China doesn’t exactly have the world’s best track record for animal rights, but it’s starting to get a better. They’ve made some major changes in how they harvest shark fins, and what’s interesting, for an autocratic country, is how it happened.

NBA All-Star Yao Ming launched a massive campaign to stop shark fin consumption in China. Before he’d started, the public was unaware of where their food was coming from. Shark fin soup, in China, is marketed as “fish wing soup”. Because of its name, in 2006, 75% of the people didn’t even know it came from sharks, let alone that crippled sharks were being tossed back in the water to die after their fins were harvested

That changed because of Yao Ming’s campaign. By 2013, 91% of the population of China supported a nationwide shark fin ban – showing that the people are really willing to fight for animal rights as long as they understand it.^[6]

4 China Bans Every Pollutant

China hasn’t banned shark fin soup yet – but they’ve banned an awful lot else. China can get away with limiting people’s freedoms in a way that democratic countries can’t, and they’re taking advantage of it in the war on pollution.

They are the largest country in the world to ban plastic bags, and, because of it, Chinese supermarkets have reduced bag use by 66%.

That’s just the start, though. They’ve also set limits on fireworks – which sounds like a silly idea, but actually makes a lot of sense. Fireworks create a lot more pollution than we realize. In an experiment, scientists lit off 3 fireworks in a 30-cubic-meter room and pollution went up to 40X the safe level. In China, where New Years means fireworks are being lit on every corner, it adds up a serious effect.

Anything and everything that adds to air pollution is being cut out of Chinese life. Smoking was banned in Beijing because of its contribution to air pollution. In some places, China even banned bacon for putting too many toxins in the air.^[7]

3 Carbon Trading

China has been looking into ways to stop just regulating and forcing people to stop polluting and start trying to find ways to make going green economically worthwhile. One of those is their new carbon market, which is going to be the biggest of its kind in the world.

Next year, China will open a cap-and-trade program to lower emissions from their most environmentally dangerous industries. The plan puts a cap on the six industrial sectors that create the most pollution. They aren’t allowed to go over their limits, but if they stay under, the can sell their extra permission to other industries.

They’re going to share power outside of the country, as well. China is currently working on setting up a super grid with India, South Korea and Japan that will let them share excess power with their neighbors, reducing energy waste and their impact on their environment.^[8]

2 They Are Sacrificing Their GDP To Help The Environment

China is committed to their new image. They have admitted that, in the past, “China’s GDP growth has sacrificed its environment,” but their plan has changed – and now they’ve pledged to put the environment first.

The country has set aside $6.6 trillion to meet their greenhouse gas reduction goals. They’re planning on going even further, too – they’re committed to regularly checking their progress and increasing their goals whenever possible.

When America started talking about dropping out of the Paris Agreement, China didn’t change their plans. Instead, they are filling the gap by putting $3.1 billion into helping other developing countries’ climate programs.

It’s a strange role reversal. Today, China is criticizing America for not doing enough to protect the environment. “If they resist this trend,” one Chinese politician warned, “I don’t think they’ll win the support of their people, and their country’s economic and social progress will also be affected.”^[9]

1 Soft Power

China’s doing all this for a reason – it’s for their own gain.

China has become a bastion of progressive environmental ideals because it’s in their best interest. They’re trying to win over the world through soft power, or, in other words, by expand their political influence. They’re fighting for a green future because it lets them take the moral higher ground in UN meetings on other issues.

That’s not an opinion – that’s a quote. China’s senior climate talks negotiator, Zou Ji, has directly said, “taking action against climate change will improve China’s international image and allow it to occupy the moral high ground.”

Winning the moral high ground on the environment, Zou Ji said, will “spill over into other areas of global governance and increase China’s global standing, power and leadership.”

So, China’s doing this for crass, political reasons – not out of the goodness of their hearts. But in a weird way, it actually might be our best hope. China’s the one country we can count on to hold up their promises – because it’s worth their while.^[10]

They say that beauty is pain, but some fashion trends are so horrifying that they’re actually painful for everyone who sees them. Strange moments in history have created some pretty strange fashions over the years, looks that (hopefully) will never be repeated or ever be seen again now that their time to be trendy has ended. Fashion may be cyclical, but some looks should never be dusted off.

You might have had the experience of stifling a giggle upon seeing what your parents were wearing in old photos, but those old clothes have nothing on the entries in this list. Look back at history’s most depressing fashion trends, and vow here and now never to wear a flour sack—no matter how many people are doing it!

10 Flour Sacking

What’s more depressing than a trend born of the Great Depression? In an era where nothing in America was wasted, flour sacks became the go-to dress material for women everywhere.^[1] The height of the trend came in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when rural fashion rose to its heyday. Country women who could sew neatly and quickly became the fashionistas of their era and dominated the national sewing competitions that sprung up across the US.

Thriftiness was in fashion, and the fashion trend known as flour sacking caught on everywhere. Women who were really adept at flour sack dresses even managed to earn extra money by selling their dresses to others. Companies like the National Cotton Council and the Textile Bag Manufacturers Association sponsored contests where women could show off their flour sack creations, which gave flour sack dresses their own sort of fashion clout.

By the 1940s, savvy sack makers were catering to the trend by producing bags in brighter colors and with more intricate patterns, hoping their products would be favored because of the prettier packaging. Large sacks of feed and flour were particularly desirable, as they provided much material. So when life gives you flour sacks . . . make a dress?

9 The TB look

Fashion has seen many strange trends in history, but one of the most questionable is the popular TB look. It was all the rage during Victorian days to mimic the effects of the disease, which made people look very pale and skinny in its final phases (just before they died).^[2] The look was partially inspired by popular literature of the day, particularly tragic tales like La Dame aux Camelias.

Because tuberculosis was rampant and not just the stuff of literary fancy, the TB look became a viable—and desirable—fashion trend. The look was popular for decades, reaching its height from 1780 to 1850. The thin, pale look brought on by the disease already fit in with beauty ideals among the upper classes. But this is where fashion sense and common sense are directly at odds with each other because for generations, women living in the Victorian era starved themselves and avoided sunlight so that they could look more like they were wasting away from tuberculosis. How attractive.

8 Hobble Skirts

In what now seems impossible, the hobble skirt was so popular that no one knows who really invented it because everyone wanted to take credit for it. It was the 1910s, and women were ready to express their fashion freedom by getting rid of the trends that shackled them in the past.^[3] Gone were the layers of petticoats, the big hoops, and the extra fabric. Instead, women started lashing their ankles together.

As soon as the skirt made its way from Paris to the US, it became the stuff of fashion scandal. Cartoonists drew caricatures of women attempting to walk in the restrictive skirts, and The New York Times wrote a giant article about the impact to the textile industry because so many petticoats would be sacrificed to the new trend. The story called the skirts “an ungraceful and immodest freak of fashion” and asked readers to imagine 10,000 families starving as a result.

But the trend just would not go away. Soon, so many women were wearing hobble skirts that streetcars and trains had to lower their entrance steps so that the ladies could still successfully climb aboard with their steps restricted. The hobble skirt trend may have continued to flourish, in fact, if World War I hadn’t changed everything for fashion the world over. New restrictions on fabric and a scarcity of manpower in Paris upset the fashion industry and put an end to the days of the hobble skirt. Happily, women chose not to go back to their petticoats just the same.

7 Scheele’s Green

If beauty is pain, then Scheele’s green is the most beautiful color ever.^[4] Karl Scheele was a chemist in Sweden when he created the pigment in the 1770s. The pretty green hue he found was cheap to make and easy to use in all sorts of items, from clothing to wallpaper. And that’s really too bad, since Scheele’s green was made with arsenic. Oops.

The gorgeous green was used in ball gowns and curtains, pretty much any home fabric, and was so commonplace that it surrounded none other than Napoleon in his final days. In fact, the arsenic-infused pigment may have contributed to his death. Since Scheele’s green was a hot color in Victorian Britain and elsewhere in Europe, he certainly wasn’t the shade’s only victim.

Scheele’s green was used in fashion for about 100 years, a century of death, before another chemist decided to take a good look at the pigment and discovered its true nature.

6 Bird Masks

Bird masks were part fashion trend, part professional necessity. The bird masks were first worn during the 17th century as a defense against the plague, but they inspired centuries of costume fashion and linger to this day as a popular masquerade choice.

The plague was deadly; it had decimated around one-third of Europe’s total population back in the 14th century, and it had periodically reared its ugly head since. Doctors roamed the streets and went into villages, tending to the afflicted. But to get the job done, they needed these masks.

The beaks on the masks weren’t just fashionable; they were functional.^[5] The masks were stuffed with fragrant flowers and herbs and worn directly over the nose. This kept the doctors from smelling the scents of death and decay as they attempted to haul away the dead bodies. The masks were worn due to the miasma theory, which held that disease was transmitted by poisonous, foul-smelling gas in the air, which was produced by decay.

5 Crinolines

It’s a must-have for every movie set in the latter half of the 1800s, and it featured so much in Gone With the Wind that it should have been given starring credit. It’s the crinoline, one of fashion’s deadliest and dumbest trends of all time. Made to give women’s skirts a big bell shape, crinolines, stiff petticoats that sometimes even had frames, literally killed thousands of people during their time in the fashion spotlight.

At their height in the 1850s and 1860s, crinolines made skirts too big and too puffy. That made them dangerous. In those two decades alone, an estimated 3,000 women in England died due to fires caused by crinolines.^[6] Big skirts and candles don’t mix well; nor do they make it easy for people to quickly escape a suddenly burning building. Some women simply ignited as a result of standing too close to the fireplace, while others died in massive events.

The most infamous crinoline fire occurred in 1863 at the Church of the Company of Jesus in Santiago, Chile. As many as 3,000 people died due to the amount of flammable crinolines in the room. In 1864, it was estimated that almost 40,000 women the world over had died due to crinoline-related fires since 1850.

4 Bullet Bras

An anomaly that the world hopes will stay confined to the late 1940s and 1950s, bullet bras were everywhere for a few years. The sharply pointed bras were worn by all the well-dressed women, and some designs were truly dangerous enough to put out an eye. The bullet bra became the must-have accessory for the classic pinup girls of the era.

More properly known as the Chansonette bra, the bullet bra appeared in Frederick’s of Hollywood and soon became a fashion icon.^[7] Part of the bra’s popularity was due to World War II and the nylon fabric restrictions it created; spiral stitching and different fabrics made bras stiffer and pointier.

The bullet bra faded into obscurity in the late 1950s with the rise of the softer, more gender-neutral fashions of the 1960s, though it did enjoy a resurgence in popularity thanks to Madonna’s 1990 “Blonde Ambition” look.

3 Armadillo Shoes

Though they haven’t been around long enough to really be historic, as they were designed by Alexander McQueen in 2010, armadillo shoes will surely go down as one of the worst of the worst. Everyone hopes these shoes will stay in the annals of fashion history, where they belong, never to be seen on a runway or at an award show again.

The first line of armadillo shoes were carved out of wood, which means they’re probably just as uncomfortable as they appear. The shoes were famously worn by Lady Gaga, who is notorious for bizarre fashion choices, and they sold for around $3,900 to $10,000 per pair.^[8] Only a relative few were ever produced—and only for extremely special clients, such as Gaga herself. Though Gaga made them work, one Vogue fashion blogger admitted they are impossible to walk in. No surprise there.

2 Zibellinos

Also known as tippets and flea furs, zibellinos were significant in fashion and worn only by the very wealthiest. If you were a high-ranking noble or member of a royal family, you wouldn’t go anywhere without his must-have accessory that was truly one of the most awful things ever.

Basically, a zibellino is the pelt of a marten or sable . . . with the head still attached.^[9] It’s worn simply draped over one arm, because that’s exactly where you want to hang your pelt. Sometimes, the heads were encrusted with gold and jewels.

It wasn’t until the end of the 16th century that faux versions were created to replace the actual animal remains.

1 Black Teeth

Today’s fashion is all about having white teeth, and you can’t watch TV or open a magazine without seeing an ad for whitener. But if you lived in Japan in the past, you’d need black teeth to be totally in fashion. Black teeth were a symbol of wealth and sexual prowess, particularly for women in Japanese society, for years.^[10] To get the look, they drank black dye mixed with cinnamon and spices for taste. The practice, called ohaguro, was outlawed in 1870, and the white teeth trend caught on after the Japanese empress showed off her own non-blackened smile in public.

But as it turns out, black teeth were better teeth, health-wise, anyway. The dye mixture used to created the blackened teeth look actually protected them from decay because it had a lacquer-like effect on the enamel. The mixture even warded off certain bacteria to promote better overall health. Maybe this is one trend that will make a comeback?

KC Morgan is a professional freelance writer. She has written thousands of articles, on every topic from history to food hacks. Whether KC is explaining how to complete a DIY project or exploring the world’s mysteries, she’s writing about something every single day.

Hate and fear aren’t just terrible because of the effect they have on our society—they’re easy, natural even. They’re deeply coded in every one of us, little switches saving us from coiled snakes on branches and the possible diseases brought to our camp by a foreign tribe. In this day and age, however, these once-necessary instincts often cause more trouble than they prevent. Still, it seems that suspicion, animus, and coercive control are an adjacent pandemic running amok all over the globe.

There are examples that, when learned about and kept in mind, offer a different point of view—an inoculation against hate, apathy, and nihilism, if you will. Here are 10 such stories: two jabs and 8 boosters against the darkness.

Happy New Year, Listversians—let’s hope 2022 gives us many more stories like the ones listed here.

Related: 10 Heartwarming Stories To Restore Your Faith In Humanity

10 The Lichfield Legend

“No good deed goes unpunished.” Sardonic cynicism aside, there is a practical method to overcome this possibility—just keep doing the good deed. This seems to be what one absolute gem of a young man in the Midlands of England has decided to do.

Eighteen-year-old Sebbie Hall from Lichfield, Staffordshire, found that the thought of people being unable to communicate during lockdown due to a lack of available tech really bummed him out. His first act of kindness was to donate his iPad to a close friend of his so they could communicate online. This selfless act snowballed, and to date, Sebbie has helped raise around $53,000 for good causes and directly helped around 2,000 people.

There has been an upside for Sebbie, too, aside from the warm glow of helping others; Sebbie has a rare chromosomal alteration that causes physical and learning disabilities—his daily random acts of kindness have boosted his confidence and helped with his verbal communication.^[1]

Some people are just good—and thank goodness for people like Sebbie.

9 Mind-Changer In Chief

People often feel as though they are their opinions, weaving their experience, rationalizations, and second-hand takes into their identity. Extreme, socially gauche/transgressive, and hateful ideologies are often the hardest positions to get away from when one becomes entrenched in such a lifestyle. Such positions, given the social pressure (and even legal status), will create circular logic around the core beliefs to keep individuals “on a side,” so to speak. Cults, for instance, work in a very similar way. That’s what makes Daryl Davis such an exceptional person.

Over the course of the last few decades, Davis has helped reform over 200 KKK members—simply by acknowledging their humanity and showing them that he, in fact, shares that humanity too. And playing a mean piano.

From convincing a “Grand Cyclops” to hand over his robes to working closely with the decentralized social media platform Minds as a consultant on “deradicalization” (as opposed to Twitter, which seems to rely on their executives’ super worldly “experience” in Silicon Valley and Ivy League schools), Davis has dedicated a huge chunk of his life to effecting actual change, not merely virtue signaling.^[2]

8 Lazy Teens? Not So Much

A group of high school kids stop jerking around and band together to do a good deed for someone in need—seems to be a plot from a mid-season episode of an early 1990’s teen sitcom. Thankfully, this kind of stuff does happen IRL…minus the laugh track and attractive 28-year-old woman pretending to be “the nerdy girl” in school.

Students in Bradford, Rhode Island, couldn’t abide the thought of 5-year-old Ryder Killam getting soaked through every school day. You see, little Ryder had to spend about 15 minutes exposed to the elements every morning as he waited for the bus. His dad hitched a patio umbrella at his bus stop, an accouterment that did little to protect Ryder from snow, hail, and rain. Local teens noticed the boy sitting in his wheelchair at the stop every morning (Ryder has spina bifida) and decided to build him a shelter. Ryder now gets to school without sodden clothes and a runny nose, allowing him to focus fully on his studies, really knuckle down, and truly listen to whatever his teacher is droning on about. Well, every story has a downside, I guess.^[3]

7 Generating Not Degradation

This is a nice, short, uplifting entry. Iconic red telephone boxes (and the far less iconic 1980s grey metallic ones) covering the length and breadth of Britain are quickly being repurposed instead of being let to slowly rust and decompose. Some have been turned into comfy little reading rooms for one, mini nightclubs, and even coffee bars. The main repurposing job seems to be defibrillator machine stations, a service that will hopefully save as many lives as the phone boxes did in the pre-cell phone days.

Now, some teens are intent on destroying them before they get reused (not-the-nice ones-from-Rhode-Island-who-build-bus-shelter-types). Who will win? Do-gooders who enrich our lives, or the memester sprogs who will fill the boxes with expanding builder’s foam or inflatable penises (whose exploits enrich some of our lives)? Let the games begin.^[4]

6 Prayers Answered…Very Quickly

One can understand (and obviously condemn) ideologically possessed asshats who burn down churches and cathedrals. One can even understand a group of edgy goths vandalizing a parish church with some black paint daubing of some sub-Hammer-Horror-movie slogans and symbols.

For lulz.

But who in their right mind would desecrate this charming little chapel in rural West Wales? That’s the thing—nobody with a “right mind” could do such an awful thing.

This wanton vandalism to the beautiful Capel y Grog in Mwnt, Ceredigion, in late 2021 shocked the local community. They quickly went about setting up a fundraising goal of £20k online, hoping they could restore their place of worship.

They hit their target after just three days. Senseless hate will never win against kindness and charity.^[5]

5 One Hell of a Tip

An often-overlooked positive facet of everyday life is good service from those who are paid to provide it. So when you encounter a person in a shop or a restaurant who treats you less like a guest or a customer and more like a friend or a family member, really caring that you “have a nice day,” it can be amazing.

That’s what Dunkin’ Donuts server Ebony Johnson did every single day. In a job that can, if seen as just a means to earn money to live, be a repetitive, unfulfilling drudge, Ebony used her time to spread kindness and enquire and learn about the people she served. To care. And one customer reciprocated in a big way.

Suzanne Burke placed an order at the drive-thru with Ebony every morning. They chatted and became friendly over a three-year period. When Ebony fell on hard times, getting evicted from her home in Mount Healthy, Ohio, Suzanne took the chance to pay her back for the years of friendliness, kindness, and joy that Ebony had provided her. She gave her a tip for the ages. Suzanne organized for Ebony to move into a new, fully furnished home with her three kids in time for Christmas.^[6]

4 Spreading the Luck

Playing the lottery is dumb. Unless you win the jackpot, of course. Unbelievable wealth, however, is often a dangerous thing to foist upon an unwitting individual. Almost nobody strategizes and conducts some financial planning while standing in the queue at the grocery store, ready to buy a ticket. Thus, many winners fall into a cycle of excess and squandering, leaving their mental and physical health in tatters.

You’ve probably heard the story before—young man from rough background wins lottery, spends it all on drugs, parties, and gambling, and *enter terrible outcome to end a sad tale*. You may also think it’s unreasonable to expect that a random, normal person should be expected to become a financial whizz simply because they could find themselves in the 1% (or even in the 1% of the 1%).

Hey, there’s always charity.

In 2018, Barbara Wragg of Sheffield, England, passed away. Nearly two decades earlier, she had won the National Lottery, a jackpot of £7.6 million. Over the period of this sudden wealth, she and her husband gave away around 70% of the winnings. She maintained a humble lifestyle (save a bigger house and a nicer car), using the cash as a buffer rather than a means of buying shiny, fast, or intoxicating things. The rest went to numerous charities.

Among many other causes, Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice, the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Whirlow Hall Farm Trust, the Meningitis Trust, and Help the Aged all benefited from Barbara’s windfall. She also paid for 250 kids from Sheffield’s impoverished inner city to attend the local Christmas pantomime every year. When a group of WWII veterans couldn’t afford to visit Monte Cassino in 2004 for the 60th anniversary of the battle, in came Barbara.

Good things happening to good people will make goodness proliferate: “Winning the lottery changed our lives but not our persons.” May she rest in peace; God knows she deserves it.^[7]

3 The Life Ranger

“I’m the chotto matte man,” retired police officer Yukio Shige told Japan Today in 2014. “Chotto matte” means (roughly) “please wait a moment.” When you consider that this septuagenarian patrols a suicide hotspot on Japan’s coast, this simple, courteous phrase gains a huge weight.

“Please, wait a moment” saves lives. Yukio Shige saves lives.

But it’s more than that; he goes on to extrapolate as to his method in the article. “There’s only one way to deal with this,” Shige emphasizes to Shukan Shincho. “You yourself must help them get back on their feet, work with them to solve their problems. If they’re in debt, I take them to legal aid people; if they’re out of work, I take them to the Hello Work employment agency; if they’re homeless, I take them home with me.” If it’s trouble at work, he goes to the person’s workplace and tries to sort things out.

It’s not just about taking the time to consider waiting for a moment; Shige himself takes the time to actively help desperate individuals. Yukio Shige himself practices what he preaches—”Chotto Matte.” He’s willing to take the time too. He has a team of volunteers that patrol the Tojinbo Cliffs and runs a small hostel nearby. By 2017, it was estimated that 500 lives had been saved by his efforts. By now, many more will have been saved.^[8]

This is a man who holds that life is precious despite the inevitable suffering that occurs during its course.

Arigato gozaimasu, Shige-san

2 Olympic Silver, Kindness Gold

When Olympic athlete Maria Anrejczyk heard of a family who was struggling to raise funds to save their baby, she knew what to do. The Polish javelin chucker grew worried that the family of baby Milosz Malysa wouldn’t hit their goal of 1.5 million zlotych, the amount needed to get the infant life-saving heart surgery in Barcelona, Spain.

In an act of sheer selflessness, the athlete auctioned her Olympic silver medal. Half of the total goal had been reached already, and time was running out for baby Milosz. At the last moment, Polish supermarket chain Zabka offered the outlying amount for the medal. Milosz went on to get his surgery and, moreover, Maria got to keep her medal after all!^[9]

Maria added: “I will be eternally grateful. I have no words to express how happy I am.”

1 Mending Deep Scars

A man who spent a year in prison on a false charge proved himself a hero in 2020. After a jury finally acquitted Daylan McLee of pointing a gun at an officer during a traffic stop in Pennsylvania, he harbored some animus for law enforcement. Who could blame him? This didn’t stop McLee from saving a police officer’s life by pulling him from a burning squad car.

He could have stood and watched; he could have filmed it and posted it online. He could have just called for the emergency services and gone about his day. But Daylan stepped up, put his past experiences aside, and did as good a deed a person can do. Daylan McLee shows us that when we are willing to recognize the basic humanity inherent in all our fellow men, hate cannot prevail.

“I want people to start looking at people as Americans, and not, you know, ‘he’s white, he’s black, he’s Asian’—we’re people, and when we start realizing that, things should get better”—Daylan McLee, 2020. ^[10]