Bowing pedestrian and courteous driver reunited after video goes viral

An elderly man who bowed to a driver for letting him cross the road has had the chance to reunite with the woman behind the wheel.

Footage of the man at a pedestrian crossing, captured on dash-cam in Putian, Fujian Province, went viral online and was widely reported by Chinese media recently.

Both the driver and the elderly man were found by police and given the opportunity to meet with each other on August 8.

The female driver, 25, surnamed Wu, was excited to see the elderly man, 88, surnamed Min, again. She held his hands tightly and returned a salute by bowing to him to show her respect face to face. 

Wu said the incident happened at 7:53am on August 3 when she was driving on Dongyuan Road. She stopped her car at the zebra crossing near Zhengrong Times Square for the elderly man but was surprised when he took off his hat and bowed to her.

She said she smiled to him from her car at the time but she wasn't sure whether he had seen it. She was moved by the man's way of expressing his gratitude so she posted the dash-cam footage on her WeChat later, which soon became viral.

Min, who was a retired cadre of the Bureau of Industry and Information Technology of Licheng District, said he often walks across that zebra crossing as he and his wife live with their two sons whose homes are on both sides of Dongyuan Road.

Drivers always waited at the pedestrian crossing to let him cross, which really moved him. "I always want to say thanks, but they can't hear me as they're inside their cars, so I decided to bow to thank them."

Min said he did that for the first time on July 27 and from then on he bowed to thank drivers every time. That explained why police initially mistakenly regarded the incident of the footage as being taken on July 27.

Local traffic police encouraged more people to learn from them. "We hope drivers will yield at pedestrian crossings and at the same time pedestrians will understand drivers better... If all the drivers and pedestrians can be like them, Putian will be better and road conditions will be better as well."