His friends call him a “modern-day living Léi Fēng” (xīn shí dài de huó Léi Fēng; 新时代的活雷锋), after the orphaned Mao-era peasant soldier famous for his unselfishness toward fellow comrades and selfless devotion to the Communist cause. The “Léi Fēng spirit” (Léi Fēng jīng shén; 雷锋精神) lives on today in popular imagination as a way to describe people who go out of their way to help others. It also lives on in people like Mr. Lù, our neighbourhood’s bike repairman. The way he and his friends have treated my wife, myself, and even my secondhand, high-maintenance, fake Flying Pigeon bicycle make it obvious why his friends give him this title.

Mr. Lù fixes bikes on the corner near our neighbourhood’s front gate every day from 7am to 5pm (8pm in the summer). But from my perspective, as the one of only three foreigners in the community, we should include Welcoming Committee and Host in his job description. I don’t know if giving foreigners a warm welcome and helping them feel at home in China is a big part of the “real” Léi Fēng’s official legacy or not, but it’s certainly a part of Mr. Lù’s.

My wife and I first moved into this community in April 2007. We were fresh off the boat with a grand total of six weeks of Chinese class under our belts, so we still couldn’t communicate much of anything. But that didn’t stop Mr. Lù and his friends from inviting us over to sit and chat when they were having lunch outside or from being generous with their food and bái jiǔ (白酒 – the infamous Chinese alcoholic drink akin to “white lightning”). Not daunted by the language barrier, Mr. Lù used food, snacks, drinks, rounds of Chinese chess, and a lot of friendly banter to make it clear that we were welcome to stop by for more than just getting tires patched and brake pads replaced.

Some days he’s drowning in bicycles, and it looks like the repair jobs people have dropped off are laying siege to his mobile tool shed. He’ll fix more than thirty bikes on busy days, but after twelve years of repairing bicycles he’s not intimidated by the heavier work load. He enjoys the extra work and the extra pay that comes with it. When he’s not too busy he can fit in an after-lunch nap, go fishing on the canal, or chat it up with whoever’s around. Sometimes there can be small crowd; his repair corner can be a social hot spot, and he’s not too stiff to have some good-natured laughs at the foreigner’s expense.

老陆的朋友们都说他是“新时代的活雷锋”。直到今天，“雷锋精神”仍然用来形容那些不遗余力帮助他人的人。“雷锋精神”也体现在修车师傅老陆这样的人身上。他和他的朋友们不仅对我和我太太十分热情友好，就连我那辆二手的破自行车也得到老陆不少关照。所以他的朋友们给他这个称号也就不足为奇了。

老陆的自行车摊儿就在我们小区的大门口，从早上七点到晚上五点他都在那儿（夏天到晚上八点）。但作为小区里仅有的三个外国人之一，我觉得他的工作还包括迎来送往。我不知道热情地欢迎外国人并给他们家的感觉是不是也属于纯粹的雷锋精神，但这绝对是一种“老陆精神”。

我和妻子是2007年4月搬到这个小区的。初来乍到的我们以前只学过六个星期的中文，所以我们还不能用中文和人交流什么。但这并没有妨碍老陆和他的朋友们在午饭时间请我们过去聊天，慷慨地和我们分享食物和白酒。语言障碍对老陆来说不算什么，他用食物、零食、小酒、中国象棋以及友善的说笑向我们表示除了补车胎、换闸皮之外，他也欢迎我们能常过去坐坐。

有些日子他忙得不可开交。现在干修车的人越来越少，所以这些活儿都跑到他这里来了。忙的时候，他一天要修30多辆车。在做了12年修车匠后，他已经不惧怕这种大工作量了。他倒是愿意活儿多一点，这样一来收入就多了。如果活儿不多，他就能抽空在午饭后睡一会儿，或者去河边钓鱼，和周围人聊天。有时他的修车摊儿能聚集一小群人，那儿就是个社交据点。性格开朗的他也会拿外国人开些善意的玩笑