Yang Yang and his wife, Meng Qingyuan, brave a freezing low temperature of minus 20 C to give festival dumplings to soldiers on duty in Heihe city, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, on Chinese Lunar New Year's Eve on Feb 18, 2015. [Photo/CFP]

For the past two decades, soldiers and their wives have been guarding China's northern border at outposts in Heihe city, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, while allowing the sentries on duty to go back to border army headquarters to have warm dumplings and send their best regards to their families via telephone on the eve of Chinese Lunar New Year.

This warm-hearted arrangement became an online hit once it was known. Some Internet users are moved by the sacrifice of the couples acting as sentries while others doubt it's proper to let civilian wives take the responsibility of well-trained, on-duty guards.