A picture of Chen Shentao taken during a honor ceremony for fighting in China's 1998 floods.[Photo/Xinhua]

The father once told his son that a person's strength is insignificant. "Even if he is cast in iron, he can't beat a few nails", let alone stop this monstrous flood. "Dad told me to be a good person and keep my feet on the ground," Chen Jian says. This was what his grandfather told his father, and his father told him again. He has always remembered and kept the sentence as a family motto.

"My father had been fighting the floods on the embankment 22 years ago. When he came back, I could hardly recognize him. Now, I can fight side by side with my father, which is a happy thing," Chen Jian says.