Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

For years, Li Zhurun, a retired Chinese reporter and a journalism professor, has kept using "one of the biggest mistakes" of his life as an episode to teach his students the imperativeness of fact-checking. Nearly 35 years ago when he wrote an article under a pen name, Li was duped by a Western paper's April Fool's Day report, which joked that cadets at the famous West Point military academy had been honoring the late Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldier, Lei Feng, for his loyalty, humbleness and devotion to his country.

Li's careless mistake sparked a decades-long myth in China. Although the rumor has been denied numerous times later by many people who actually visited West Point and found no statue or portrait of this PLA hero, it seems that the apologies keep, making the tall tale circulate more widely.

Recent years have seen the rumor at a low ebb till Li posted his confession on his microblog account on Sina Weibo on January 4. His apology, by means of social media, has soon drawn wide attention from both home and abroad.

Western media are jeering at the incredibility of US officer cadets learning from the example of a Communist soldier whose heroism was based on washing his comrades' socks and sharing his pay with the needy instead of military exploits.

A public debate over Lei Feng, once a national role model but now a controversial figure in public opinion, has also been aroused once again among China's traditional media and the Internet after Li's confession. However, the debate has gone way beyond journalist professionalism, but focused on whether the popular "Lei Feng spirit" is legitimate or not.

Put forward by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, the "Lei Feng spirit" was born in a different political and social atmosphere from today. It was a time when the Chinese were crazy about personality cult and the ruling Party's propaganda effectively pervaded the entire country. Lei Feng and his noble traits, under those circumstances, were distorted.

However, since China's closed gates were re-opened in 1978 and the monocultural society started to embrace pluralism, criticisms over the past fanatical age have sprouted. Lei Feng, an icon of the Party's old-school publicity, has unavoidably been targeted. After realizing Lei Feng's image is not entirely and credibly based on his good deeds, some people have gone to the other extreme and totally repudiated his influence, a disguised way to challenge the Party's leadership in social culture.

Now, Lei Feng still plays an important role in the publicity efforts by the Party, and every March 5, the day when Mao called for the whole nation to learn from Lei Feng in 1963, government-led organs around the country will launch local campaigns to learn from Lei Feng and advocate people to do more for the public good.

But apparently fewer people, especially among the young, are buying it. In 2013, Youthful Days, a movie about Lei Feng's adolescence, sold literally no tickets in two major cities, Nanjing and Taiyuan.

It is not Lei Feng's spirit that is out of time, but the way we package him. Lei Feng should be officially dethroned from fabricated perfection and given back flesh and bone. He was a regular young guy who might also have experienced some tough times. Then he can be seen as a noble person whose dedication, loyalty and generosity should be an example in a healthy society.

If people cannot understand how ordinary Lei Feng was, fewer people will buy how noble he was. After all, the old time when people have blind belief in something has long gone.

The author is a Global Times reporter. liuzhun@globaltimes.com.cn