This was indeed happy news, but Dr Ding's happiness was marred by the fact that he had to pay 5, 000 yuan for entering his item for the fair. Where on earth was he to raise such a huge sum? He applied for aid from the Municipal Science Commission but got turned down because firstly the Commission thought his irivention was a private one , the work of an individual and therefore could not be funded by the public, and secondly the Commission was hard up anyway and could not afford to pay out such a large sum.

 So what was to be done? At the last moment his hospital came to the rescue : They agreed to lend Dr Ding 5, 000 yuan, but starting from January this year, they would deduct 50 yuan from his monthly salary until the debt was fully repaid.

    Dr Ding was grateful and' jumped at the chance. But he was under no illusion about the predicamentz2 he was plunging himself into. His salary was only 97 yuan a month. His wife, a school teacher, only brought home 82 yuan a month. With two daughters at school their life was not easy as it was. To have 50 yuan deducted monthly from their meagre income for the next eight years would mean a financial burden that would surely break the camel's back

    Discarding all face problems, Dr Ding started to beg for alms from all quarters. Mostly he met with rebuffs, but he could not afford to give up. After a few months of begging from door to door, he managed to collect 1,400 yuan. Quite a substantial
sum, but he was still 3,600 yuan short.

    The news that his invention had won a bronze medal not only brought some spiritual comfort , but also some material gains. His hospital decided to award him 500 yuan as a token of recognition for his brilliant work. But the fact remains that he still had a debt to pay, now reduced to 3,100 yuan. Again he applied for help from various municipal departments, but so far without success.
    Is Dr Ding and his family going to spend the next five years
in poverty and misery just because he has invented something useful and won international recognition?

                            Additiosal Information

    It's a hospital scene. People are lining up for registration. After seeing the doetor they come back to line up again for tgeir medicine, Of course it's a very time-consuming process, because they have to get the prescriptions priced at one window and pay at. another. Then at the last window they get their medicine. That means altogether they have to line up at three different windows just to get their medicine.

    To avoid all this trouble, a smart woman works out the most convenient
way of getting her medicine. She herself stands at the end of the first line and puts her pram with her baby in it, a toy duck and her own bag at the end of the other three lines. She has them all strung'together with the wool yarn with which she's knitting. She believes this will save her the trouble
of lining up three times.

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