Security guard goes viral on social media

Chen Yangbo. Photo from Nanfang Daily

Chen Yangbo, a security guard at Shenzhen University (SZU), has gone viral on social media due to his passion for learning English, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Tuesday.

To the students, Chen is the most diligent security guard they’ve ever seen. He has to work 12 hours a day and is responsible for managing the dormitory buildings of the foreign students and teachers, but he still takes time to learn English every day.

In addition to solving everyday problems, Chen is sometimes regarded as a “teacher” by the foreign students, as some come to him with Chinese books for help.

Chen Yangbo and a foreign student.

Chen Yangbo and a foreign student.He can always be seen wearing headphones and listening to English on the campus, and his narrow security booth is piled up with study materials and notebooks.

“As a security guard at SZU, I always meet people who like reading and studying on the campus. It is a kind of good fortune to be able to study in such an environment,” Chen was quoted as saying.

Chen's study materials.

Chen, aged 34, comes from Jiangxi Province and has lived in Shenzhen for 16 years. He once sold toys on the street, and has been a driver, a food courier and a security guard at a bank.

According to him, it was those hard times that made him decide to get more education and find a stable job. Although he only received a monthly salary of around 4,000 yuan (US$576) in 2017, Chen built up the courage to sign up for an English course at a training institution.

When he wore his work uniform to class, there was always someone who would laugh at him, he said. “They didn’t understand why I would spend tens of thousands of yuan to study English. But eventually, my persistence convinced them,” Chen recalled.

Now, as a security guard at SZU, Chen has spent over 10,000 yuan on an online English course. He said he doesn’t have an ambitious goal; he only wants to keep learning English.

Chen’s passion for learning English was first discovered by a student majoring in journalism. The student heard Chen practicing oral English downstairs in the dormitory every day and sometimes saw him reading in the security booth.

This April, a video showing Chen studying English was posted on the Internet and garnered about 3 million views. “I didn’t know I would be famous, but soon all of the students at the school knew me. I felt a lot of pressure,” he said.

But Chen said his work as a security guard would always come first and that he only studies English once his work is finished.