On the eve of the Lunar New Year, soldiers from the unit of the late Wang Zhuoran visited his parents to share a meal, offer New Year greetings and tend to the rituals of remembrance. Dressed in uniform, they brought spring couplets, lanterns and a stack of handwritten letters from comrades; in the kitchen a young officer rolled dumpling skins and the house filled with steam and chatter, folding camaraderie into a domestic form of consolation.
The visit combined simple comforts with symbolic care. Men and women in uniform helped hang the red “fu” character over the door, cleaned the threshold and sat with Wang's mother and father, recounting anecdotes from the barracks and reading letters from those on duty who could not attend. A video link allowed distant comrades to join the call, their voices calling out “Happy New Year” and offering reassurance, while Wang’s parents listened with damp eyes but visible relief.
After the meal the group made a pilgrimage to Wang’s gravesite, laying flowers and bowing in a brief, solemn ceremony. The soldiers pledged to “inherit his will” and continue to guard the border, framing their attendance as both filial duty to the fallen and a public reinforcement of unit cohesion. The scene married private grief with the public ritual of military commemoration, a pattern common in China’s state and military media.
This episode matters beyond its immediate human tenderness. Messages about martyrs and the care extended to their families are a recurrent theme in Chinese official communication: they foster morale within the People’s Liberation Army, shore up public support for deployments deemed necessary by the state, and project an image of the military as a reliable social institution that looks after its own. Timing such visits around the Lunar New Year amplifies the emotional resonance, placing military sacrifice in the foreground of the nation’s most intimate holiday.
For international observers, the visit is a reminder that stories of individual soldiers are routinely used to bind military, society and state. The portrayal of comrades tending to a veteran’s parents and promising to continue his work reinforces narratives of duty, sacrifice and continuity that underpin authority at home. It is not a signal of imminent external action, but it does illuminate how the PLA cultivates loyalty and public legitimacy at moments when domestic sentiment is particularly attentive.
The scene at Wang’s home — dumplings shared, letters read, a grave tended — is a small, intimate vignette with larger implications. It shows the Chinese military’s effort to humanize its ranks, to normalize sacrifice as part of civic life, and to comfort families left behind. In doing so, it contributes to the steady social glue that sustains long-term commitments to frontier duty and to the narratives that justify them.