Yuan Shuping, 20, care nurse

Yuan Shuping tried to sound older over the phone, yet her voice glistened with the mellowness of a 20-year-old who has been working as a rest home nurse for three years.

Majoring in elderly care, Yuan graduated from a technical secondary school in Nanchang, Jiangxi province in 2009 at the age of 18.

As a student, Yuan worked as an intern with Red Cross Society of China Jiangxi Branch for about a year. After graduation, she worked for two years at Beijing Taiyangcheng, or Beijing Sun City, a special neighborhood for the elderly. There she practiced terminal care for the first time.

It was an 88-year-old man, whose children were all overseas. For a month, she helped him take baths, change his clothes and sheets. She admitted it was a shock at first, "In the month, I watched the old gentleman growing weaker, and eventually barely speaking or moving. It was like watching a robot whose parts gradually but inevitably broke down."

However, she overcame her fear. "I knew I mustn't be afraid. If I was gripped by fear and sorrow, the person I took care of and their family would be frightened more. I called the old gentleman ‘grandpa', and acted as his grand daughter as well as a nurse. I talked to him, and made him food that he liked in his younger days."

Yuan now works in a rest home in Ganzhou, South Jiangxi province, and gave terminal care to three senior citizens, "I lost my grandparents when I was very young. I guess that's why I love to take care of older people. I feel empty when they pass away, but I must be strong, and tell their family everything's going to be ok."

Yuan said three years of nursing made her realize that death is not what she fears most, "Life is short, so short that it's very important to live happily and fully instead of wasting it away."