This man starred in one of the strangest stories in living memory when he won a £30 million prize and hid it from his entire family. The world is full of peculiar people with remarkable stories. The one in this article clearly meets both requirements, both because of its protagonist and the reasons that led to its story being told. Mr Li is the man in question, and a winning lottery ticket is the reason.
The story took place in China in October 2022, according to Bloomberg, citing local media. The protagonist is a man identified as Mr Li, whose lottery ticket was awarded 219 million yuan, about 26 million euros, in Nanning, Guangxi. Up to this point, there is little to highlight other than the role that luck played in Li’s favour, completely changing his life… or at least that would seem to be the case to anyone, but that was not the case. Li went to collect his prize in disguise, which in itself is a peculiar way to mark one of the most important moments of his life. But what is really important in this story is the reason behind his decision to go and collect the cheque for the aforementioned amount.
The reason, unprecedented
Everyone is familiar with the discipline and work ethic of certain Asian countries, such as Japan or China, but this man went much further. His only reason for going to the administration wearing a yellow costume was none other than to hide from his family (wife and son) that he had been the lucky winner of the prize. ‘I didn’t want to be recognised so that my wife and son wouldn’t become lazy,’ the media reported. In fact, this practice is quite common in the Asian giant, as confirmed by the Chinese media outlet South China Morning Post. ‘I didn’t do it for fear that they would become too complacent and wouldn’t work hard in the future,’ he confessed after winning the prize. In addition, the lucky winner reported that he spent the weekend in a hotel due to the panic he felt about going out onto the street and losing the ticket.