(XINHUA)

Cui Yongyuan, a famous anchorman from China Central Television (CCTV), treated 154 migrant workers to dinner on the evening of July 30 to show respect for their heroic rescue of about 200 people trapped in a torrential downpour a week earlier. The migrant workers, who work for a water treatment factory in Fengtai District of Beijing, raced to move people stranded by floodwaters on the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway when the heaviest rainfall in 61 years lashed Beijing on July 21.

The TV icon responded to an online campaign on Sohu Weibo, a popular micro-blogging site, to take the workers out for dinner after he read about the life-saving stories. The campaign, organized by three scholars in May, called for urban residents to treat migrant workers to dinner as a way to promote equality among different social groups and eliminate class discrimination. Cui toasted all the migrant workers seated around 18 tables. He paid 14,400 yuan ($2,250) for the dinner.

Cui, 49, won fame by hosting the CCTV talk show Tell It Like It Is, the first of its kind on the Chinese mainland. His humor has attracted many fans, and though a bout with depression forced his retirement from the show in 2002, he resumed his position several years later.