Thirteen Years of Friendship, Now Separated by Life and Death — In Deep Memory of Cancer-Fighting Star Guangpin Shanren

On the afternoon of May 30, 2024, the widow of a lung-cancer patient I had known years ago suddenly told me that Guangpin Shanren, a senior founding member of Sina's Circle of Cancer Friends and a gastric-cancer survivor, had passed away. I quickly opened his WeChat profile and checked his Moments; sure enough, the night before, his son had posted the obituary.

The obituary read: "My late father Cao Daojun (Guangpin Shanren's real name) passed away on May 28, 2024, at the age of 59. He was born on the tenth day of the fifth lunar month in 1965 and graduated from the Chinese Department of Peking University in 1988. He worked at the Shantou Customs, Shantou Special Zone Evening News, Shantou Metropolis Daily, New Express Daily, and Information Times. Father was a genuine, pure, and kind man who devoted his life to philosophy and literature; even after years of illness, his love of words and longing for a beautiful life never faded..."

I had turned off the Moments feed on my WeChat Discover page a while back, because I have several thousand WeChat friends and everyone shares too much every day; I did not want the constant distraction. So I missed the news of Guangpin Shanren's death — a real pity.

We all jokingly called Guangpin Shanren "the Principal" (Principal of the Anti-Cancer University, or Yan Da Principal; because the Sina Circle of Cancer Friends described its members as a flock of geese flying together and keeping each other warm, the circle was also called Yan Da, "Wild Goose University"). My friendship with the Principal was deep. We first met in 2011, when the daughter of a gastric-cancer patient I had treated told me: "You must go to Sina Blog and meet a malignant-melanoma patient named Shengdi Mei Ya; he has survived on TCM anti-cancer treatment for years."

My own mother was at a critical moment between life and death at the time, and I was hungry for any anti-cancer knowledge. So I went to read Brother Shengdi Mei Ya's blog, and we took to each other at first sight, becoming close friends. Through his blog I learned that a group of cancer patients on Sina Blog wrote about their anti-cancer experiences, collectively forming a blog circle called the Sina Circle of Cancer Friends.

The circle also organized annual offline gatherings attended by cancer patients, family members, volunteers, and doctors from all over the country. I attended two such gatherings, in 2013 and 2016 — one at Wanxian Mountain in Xinxiang, Henan, and one in Tianjin. Guangpin Shanren was a core member of the circle and attended almost every gathering.

My earlier writing style liked to spoof; before meeting Principal Shanren in person, we had already exchanged many playful barbs in writing. On one occasion I mentioned that when I chose arts vs. science tracks in high school, my older brother had killed the idea of my choosing arts with a single line: "Liberal-arts graduates are useless for anything." Ever since, Principal Shanren, a graduate of Peking University's Chinese Department, kept teasing me with this, saying I was mocking him, a Peking-University Chinese major, as "good for nothing."

Principal Shanren, like me, was from Hubei, and we were close because of our shared hometown. Early on we exchanged doggerel on Sina Blog to tease each other; later, after adding WeChat, we continued on Moments. When it came to writing doggerel, we were truly well-matched, back and forth endlessly, which was great fun.

We finally met in person at the 2013 gathering at Wanxian Mountain in Henan. The Principal was still in reasonably good shape; he climbed the mountain beside me, walking briskly, even though by then he had ten years of cancer survival behind him. At that year's gathering, Sister Koala, a breast-cancer patient with brain metastases who had come from Beijing, suddenly fainted on stage and nearly died. I improvised by using a large sewing needle as an acupuncture needle, stabbing her Shaoshang (LU-11) and Shangyang (LI-1) points and holding on tightly; I managed to bring her around.

Later, at the Tianjin gathering, I saw Principal Shanren and Sister Koala again. The Principal was as humorous as ever, while Sister Koala, unlike her high-strung state in 2013, looked serene and calm as a virgin. She told me that after returning from Wanxian Mountain she had a checkup confirming brain metastases, but had received no further treatment; she had simply devoted herself to chanting the Buddha's name, and five years had passed without incident. I have seen only one such case in the entire circle.

At Wanxian Mountain I told Principal Shanren that gatherings without emergency preparations were dangerous; future events should be held where medical care and emergency response are convenient, not in such remote hills, because if another incident occurred, the consequences would be unimaginable. The Principal fully agreed.

This year's gathering in Jiaxing was also attended by Sister Koala and Principal Shanren; because of the pandemic, the circle's gatherings had been suspended for five years. On the official account of Jieren Tianxiang (another senior cancer friend) I saw photos from the gathering: Sister Koala's hair had turned white, and Principal Shanren was skeletal, nearing the end; at a glance you could tell his days were numbered. Within days after the gathering came the news of his death.

Traveling from Guangzhou to Jiaxing for this gathering, the Principal probably knew it would be his last. At the event he still, as always, encouraged cancer friends to be strong and march forward; he spoke for over an hour, saying many moving things. He was a public-spirited man; over our thirteen years of friendship I watched how, as an important spiritual leader of the circle, he encouraged everyone to fight cancer with optimism. He had more than twenty years of cancer survival, rich experience, and deep understanding of cancer patients' psychology.

I remember that after our first meeting in 2013, on the mountain path, Shanren and I talked the whole way. He said he had previously been a very introverted person; after developing gastric cancer he reflected on its causes and completely changed his personality, becoming positive, optimistic, and outgoing. Like me, he had come from the countryside to a big city; while at Peking University, poverty had made him feel inferior and anxious. But cancer changed him; living toward death, he became one of the most positive and optimistic people in the circle, working actively, living actively, socializing actively, and organizing public-welfare activities. After cancer he also wrote cancer-related literature; he did not waste these twenty-plus years.

When people face the threat of life and death, enormous spiritual energy surges forth and changes beyond ordinary imagination. In cancer circles I have met tens of thousands of patients and their families; this experience has given me a far deeper understanding of human nature than most. However strong a person was before cancer, after diagnosis he or she bears extraordinary pressure that breaks many.

I have seen patients who killed themselves under the burden, and family members who killed themselves; even today I constantly do suicide-intervention work among them. After the daughter of a patient who had once asked for my help killed herself, it took me over a year to shake off the shadow of her death.

That is why, from the first day I encountered the cancer circle, I loved this pure, kind, and optimistic organization of cancer patients, families, and volunteers. I continuously recommended the circle to patients and families who sought me, until the pandemic stopped it — by then Sina had disbanded its blog groups and the circle no longer gathered.

Cancer patients and their families need such organizations for spiritual support. The circle not only exchanges treatment information but, more importantly, brings together people who share the same suffering to huddle for warmth. Those optimistic anti-cancer stars have always encouraged everyone. China's psychiatry and psychological-counseling sectors are still relatively weak; cancer is a major illness that can destroy a person and a family, and we genuinely need more such organizations to help patients and families.

Principal Shanren, as an experienced media professional, played a major role in the Sina Circle of Cancer Friends; everyone recognized him as one of the lead geese. His organizational ability and affability contributed greatly to this grassroots public-welfare organization, and his firsthand anti-cancer story injected confidence and strength into many cancer friends and families. Thus the meaning of his life was extended: though he and we are now separated by life and death, the organization he helped nurture will carry on, and his optimistic anti-cancer spirit and his twenty-plus years of battle with cancer will become a symbolic landmark in cancer circles.

People will remember the journalist Cao Daojun, and they will remember Guangpin Shanren, lead goose of the Anti-Cancer University (Yan Da). The Principal's spirit is not far off; surely he can sense this remembrance I write for you, and on the road to the other world he will watch us, as always, with the "friend-like smile" of your old school principal Hu Shizhi of your esteemed university.

I have grown accustomed to death and continue relentless exploration in cancer-related fields. The Principal once said that I am more persistent than most, willing to endure hardship to learn all kinds of knowledge, and that sooner or later I would become a good doctor who integrates Chinese medicine, Western medicine, and psychiatry. But to my shame, after exploring multiple cancer-related fields, what I often feel is a despairing sadness. Humanity has poured huge manpower and resources into solving cancer with little result.

Instead, I feel that people like the Principal matter more to the cancer community. Before cancer is conquered, how patients and families maintain a good quality of life after diagnosis is a major question for all of society. In our time, about one in three people will die of cancer, and more than half of families will meet cancer at close quarters. After diagnosis, how should we respond? How do we face our own or our loved ones' life and death? What actions should we take to reduce cancer incidence?

Attention to cancer should by no means be limited to treatment. One-third of cancers are preventable, so we should promote preventive medicine. Once cancer occurs, patients and families suffer a devastating blow; in such moments they rarely get enough support from relatives, friends, and society. Social organizations related to cancer can provide extensive support, and we should encourage their development and do good humanistic care.

Modestly counted as one of the Principal's close friends (he was so affable and had so many close friends that a little brother like me counts for little), I believe that promoting societal care for the cancer community must have been one of his important final wishes. I am past forty; a car accident half a year ago nearly killed me, and now I take life and death lightly. Brother Shanren's passing saddened me for a while, but I am also glad that he has left suffering behind and found release.

In the terminal stage, a cancer patient's soul is imprisoned in a suffering body; at that point, death is a better choice than lingering on. Brother Shanren has surely let go of it. But even though we have all become detached from life and death, we still hope that this society will become better, that the human world will grow kinder, and that those suffering from illness will receive more humanistic care. Because our descendants will still live in this society, and we still love our descendants and the future of humanity. We hope they will not have to endure the suffering we have endured.