Uygur restaurateur serves up platter of generosity
On a late autumn night, a tall, thin Uygur man was busy roasting fragrant lamb skewers on a charcoal fire in Jiangqiao Town.
Since it was opened in 2017, the "Xinjiang lamb skewers" restaurant has gained fame among customers, some of whom even travel a long way for a skewer.
Salam Memet, 37, is the owner of the restaurant. He comes from Aksu Prefecture, in southwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which borders the Kyrgyz Republic.
Salam Memet is busy roasting fragrant lamb skewers on a charcoal fire in Jiangqiao Town.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, Memet has donated food worth 50,000 yuan (US$7,843) to the local communities and vaccination sites.
Last month, he received a banner from Jiangqiao Town with gratitude for his donations to the medical staff fighting in the front line of pandemic control and prevention.
He has also air-freighted fruit from his hometown and gives them to the elderly people in a nearby nursing home every year since 2017.
When Henan suffered torrential rain and inundation, Memet took the initiative to donate 30,000 yuan to the affected people.
"My success in Shanghai is inseparable from the help of kind people and local government since I arrived in Shanghai in 2011," he said.
Memet left Xinjiang with his uncle to look for opportunities in Shanghai. He came to Jiading and set up a stall in the food street in 2011.
However, he received the bad news that his father had a brain tumor. During his father's hospitalization in Urumqi, experts from Shanghai went to Xinjiang to treat him, and many unknown people also helped his family.
All these made Memet feel the warmth of society.
Therefore, when his business gets better, he wants to give back to the society.
Salam Memet donated boxes of milk to a nursery home to give back to the society.
Also, Memet supports Jiao Shaoyan, a student in Guizhou Province, to continue schooling last year. The child studied well, but his father died and his mother was seriously ill. He has an old grandmother at home who lives on the government's subsistence allowance.
Jiao wrote to Memet that he would study hard and hoped to join Memet's chivalrous deed to help more people in the future.
Memet has donated more than 70,000 yuan to 15 orphans in his hometown that is 5,000 kilometers away.
He regularly donates to soldiers defending the border in his hometown, police keeping the peace, medical staff in the front line, families with difficulties and the elderly.
"I came from a poor background. I want to do my career well first and try my best to help others," said him.
