Wuhan donates 53,000 masks to sister city in Japan to return favor

Wuhan in Hubei province donated a total of 53,000 masks to its sister city, Oita in Japan, on Thursday, according to Japanese media reports.

The masks arrived in boxes marked with words of encouragement and proverbs such as "Stay strong Oita" and "Like the mountain range that stretches before you and me, let's share the same trials and hardships together", and will be sent to medical institutions across the Oita city, which has been a sister city of Wuhan since 1979.

Back in January, when Wuhan faced a serious shortage of medical equipment, Oita donated 30,000 masks from the city's warehouse of disaster relief supplies to Wuhan.

Many people expressed their admiration for the profound friendship between the two cities on the internet. "Just as a Chinese saying goes, a little help brings back much return," some commented.

As the epidemic wanes in China, many cities and regions across the nation that once received help from cities in Japan have offered a helping hand to their counterparts in return, making donations of medical equipment such as masks.

Changzhou in East China's Jiangsu province donated 50,000 surgical masks to Tokorozawa in Saitama prefecture earlier this month, after the Japanese city donated the same amount of masks to Changzhou in February.

Xinwu district in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, donated 50,000 disposable surgical masks to its sister city Toyokawa in March, after the city donated 4,500 masks and other protective medical supplies in early February to Wuxi, when the Chinese city was hit by the novel coronavirus.