David Tool, a retired US Army colonel, made his first trip to China in 1991, and a legend was born.

 

Now a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, the American has since starred in several Chinese films, documentary films and TV commercials.

 

And that's not all. Tool has also written books offering the world his interpretation of Chinese culture. And he was recently lauded for his efforts to help China's handicapped people and for working with Beijing foreign affairs division to eliminate badly translated English signage in public places.

 

And last Wednesday, he was seen on the central stage at a ceremony to honor Beijing's 10 most outstanding volunteers of 2006, with a trophy in hand.

 

Lao Du (Tool prefers to call himself as the Chinese people do), 64 now could have stayed with his family in Los Angeles where they had a big house and a workshop where he used to make his own furniture.

 

But for the sake of being a "useful old man," he refused to confine himself to his well-off retirement.

 

So, he came, he saw and he conquered many hearts in China. As a volunteer who rose to stardom in recent years, Lao Du thinks he is just a "face" among the many volunteers working together with him. 

 

Right now, Lao Du is more eager to introduce some successful volunteer mechanisms to China, where volunteerism is a rather new concept.

 

He suggested the government give elderly people more opportunities to volunteer their knowledge, experience and use their spare time for the good of the society.

 

"China is becoming an aging society. It is important for the elderly people to feel useful and then they can stay happier and healthier," Lao Du told China Daily in a recent interview.

 

Lao Du proposed an "Ask Me" program whereby the old folks in Beijing would be encouraged to learn English, and the best of them could be selected to wear a yellow sash that says "Ask Me".

 

They would patrol the most visited spots by foreigners in Beijing and help with directions or other questions.

 

He also encouraged foreign corporations based in China to volunteer everything they could to help make Beijing better.

 

"Sometimes it's really depressing for our western tourists to be in a Chinese museum. All we saw were the history of invasions by the Allied Forces of the Eight Power Nations. I feel bad the soldiers were doing target shooting practice with the Jade Buddha," Lao Du said. "Foreign companies have made profits in China, and they should repay China now."

 

In this case, he cited the American International Assurance Company (AIA) as an example.

 

In 1993, the Starr Foundation, which was initiated by the AIA founder Cornelius Vander Starr and spent $515,000 to buy back 10 bronze window frames looted by the allied forces from the Summer Palace.

 

The foundation bought them back from a French collector and donated them to China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

 

"I know many wealthy Chinese people are helping to buy back the robbed treasures now kept in other countries' museums. But it's actually what the foreign companies should do," Lao Du added.

 

(China Daily April 5, 2007)