Chinese CEO donates 20,000 gloves locally after reading the Weekly.

The CEO of a Chinese agricultural machinery company is donating 20,000 disposable gloves to Monterey County for its coronavirus containment efforts after reading a news story in the Weekly about similar efforts by the local Chinese community.

The first 10,000 gloves arrived on Wednesday, April 15, according to Monterey County Deputy Purchasing Agent Jaime Ayala. 

The original story highlighted how three Chinese-language instructors from the Defense Language Institute volunteered to broker an international deal to bring 10,000 KN95 masks to Monterey County for the use of first responders, health care and other essential workers. 

One the three, Hanwei Tan, told the Weekly that part of what motivated him was the desire to push back against the idea linking Covid-19 to Chinese people. “We are not a virus ourselves, we are ready to help people fight against the virus,” he said. Local realtor Don Gruber, who is not Chinese himself, also played a critical role in the plan. 

Soon after the story appeared, the organizers heard from Changling Qin, the CEO of China Shandong Makeronly Digital Technology Co., whose son has been admitted to the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. The China-based executive was already planning on donating to the university when he decided to also send 20,000 gloves to Monterey County, according to Tan. 

Meanwhile, Tan and his two colleagues have been recognized as “Heroes of the Battlefield” by DLI commandant Col. Gary Hausman.

“DLI Faculty members Danni Liu, Hanwei Tan, and Yue Meng, volunteered with a local Monterey realtor to leverage family contacts in China to have 10,000 N95 masks ordered for the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services,” Hausman recently wrote to his superiors. “All wanted to do something to help our local emergency services providers.”