Party's centennial marks personal milestone

Mei Xueqin is looking forward to a special political birthday celebration that will be held on July 1, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

Mei, 71, a retired civil servant in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, expressed her wish when community workers told her in early April they were promoting an activity among elderly Party members and residents in difficulty in the city's Jianguo subdistrict to "help satisfy your little desires".

"I still remember the day that I joined the Party 50 years ago," she said. "It was on July 1, 1971, when I was working on a farm in Luobei county as a member of 1 million 'educated youths', who had been sent to the countryside to learn from the farmers and helped develop Beidahuang, a fertile but undercultivated region in the north of Heilongjiang.