SHANGHAI (SCMP): A boxing coach from Iran who worked in China for two years has quit his job and returned to his homeland to be with his family amid US-Israeli air strikes on the country.<\/p>\n
The trainer\u2019s touching story was revealed by his boss on social media and attracted about one million likes, the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old Iranian, identified only as Saeed, has worked at a boxing gym in Xiangxi prefecture in Hunan, central China, since 2024.<\/p>\n
The gym\u2019s owner Huang Zhaoxin met Saeed in 2016 in Thailand and was impressed by his boxing skills.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Saeed contacted Huang looking for a job as it was hard for him to get a job in Iran due to the unrest in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Huang hired him as a boxing coach.<\/p>\n
Part of Saeed\u2019s job is to teach young children boxing. According to Huang, all the young students all like him and their parents praised him for his sense of responsibility.<\/p>\n
Saeed lives a frugal life by only keeping 300 yuan (US$45) pocket money for himself and sending the rest back to his family in Iran.<\/p>\n
His parents and his brother and sister all live in Tehran.<\/p>\n
After the US and Israeli launched joint air strikes against Iran on February 28, Saeed immediately contacted his family.<\/p>\n
A place near his home was bombed and, fortunately, his family were not hurt.<\/p>\n
The next day, Saeed told Huang that he was resigning.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept on saying sorry to me. But because of the war, he must return home to accompany his family,\u201d Huang was quoted as saying. \u201cEven if he might die, he hoped to die with his family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Huang, who regards Saeed as a long-time friend, appreciated his bravery and bought air tickets for him.<\/p>\n
In the following few days, Saeed hardly ate anything out of anxiety about going back home.<\/p>\n
Huang took Saeed to a railway station on March 5, in Fenghuang county, from where Saeed would take a train to Beijing and then fly to Turkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaeed hates leaving China because he has a secure job here. He told me once the war ends and his family are safe, he will definitely come back to China,\u201d said Huang.<\/p>\n
Huang said he could not get in touch with Saeed after sending him off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope him and his family are all safe,\u201d said Huang.<\/p>\n
Saeed\u2019s story became an online sensation in China, with many internet users expressing sympathy and good wishes for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a true man. I admire him,\u201d said one online observer.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease be careful. We are waiting for your return,\u201d another person wrote.<\/p>\n
A third user said, \u201cI pray for world peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHis story reminded me of our older generations who returned to China from around the world to join the fight against Japanese invaders during World War II. Salute to our heroes, salute to Saeed,\u201d another person said.<\/p>\n
There are no statistics about the number of Iranian people living in China, but it is known that more than 3,000 students from the country study at universities in the country. — SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SHANGHAI (SCMP): A boxing coach from Iran who worked in China for two years has quit his job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,4116,512,2582,50895,267665,267664,15216,1314,85,5574,267663,38473],"class_list":["post-539993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-coach","tag-china","tag-family","tag-iranian","tag-online-sensation","tag-saeed","tag-scmp","tag-social-media","tag-sports","tag-tehran","tag-us-israeli-air-strikes","tag-war-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}