Determined to look ahead

Hu Fenglian, who lost the lower part of her legs, works at a stone factory in Longsheng county, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. (Huo Yan/China Daily)

Although childhood accident resulted in loss of lower legs, woman resolves to make a living

Walking on her knees is natural for 50-year-old Hu Fenglian, and she has been walking that way for as long as she can remember.

Both her legs were burned below the knees when she fell into a fire pit at the age of 6 months. The accident left her without the function of her lower legs.

Her life has certainly not been easy. From the age of 6 she worked growing sweet potatoes, raising pigs and chickens in her village to help her parents support the family of six.

Later, she had to raise her daughter by herself when her husband left her when the child was 4 months old.

But after enduring those hardships, Hu, from Weizi, a village in Longsheng county in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, is still optimistic about life.

"I never feel myself to be inferior, and people are nice to me," she said. "I think the only difference between me and others is I walk slower."

In 2009, with the help of a local association for the disabled, Hu had an operation in Nanning, capital of the region, to remove the lower part of both legs so she could be fitted with artificial legs.

However, the artificial legs caused her discomfort, and she turned back to walking on her knees.

"The association also donated a wheelchair to me, but it was too high for me to be able to sit on it by myself," she said.

In December, with the help of the association, Hu started to work at a souvenir factory in Longsheng county as a stone polisher. She polishes small pieces of "chicken-blood stone", a local and prized ornamental stone composed of clay and quartz, with varying amounts of red cinnabar.