A photo of an elderly COVID-19 patient in a hospital bed watching the evening glow with his doctor in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, spread rapidly online in March. 

Dr. Liu Kai and 87-year-old Wang Xin stopped to gaze at the view on their way from an examination room to a ward. It was a touching moment that sparked over a million responses on social media.

More than 2,000 years ago, "Mencius," one of the Confucian classics, first told people to "treat your elders as elders, and extend it to the elders of others; treat your young ones as young ones, and extend it to the young ones of others." The concept remains deeply rooted in Chinese culture to this day.