One man's lost-and-found service

Photo by Xiang Mingchao / China Daily

Bankcards are also often left in the wallets, but Qiu chooses to only send the ID cards because the bankcards can be retrieved easily and sending them can raise the cost of postage.

Qiu's mother, Zhao Yuerong, 90, says she is proud of her son helping so many strangers to recover their lost items.

"Though it is a small thing, it can be transformed into a big one by persistence," Zhao says.

Qiu attributes his love of reuniting valuables with their owners to a good deed he did when he was a teenager. In 1960, when he was 13 years old, he found a valuable letter with a bankbook on the street and handed it in to his teacher. He later received a silk banner from the owner, a military officer.

"I have kept that red silk banner from the military officer in my storage to this day," says Qiu, "It brings me good memories of my time at school."

In his 6-square-meter storage room, tucked in among a bag of bottles and his tool collection, is a collection of what at first glance, looks like scrap paper.

Ten pieces of paper of different sizes list the owners' names and address based on the ID cards he picked, a record of his recovery of stolen IDs.

"Not everyone could understand me in the beginning, but I do it for my conscience," Qiu says.