However, she ended up having to do more traditional work due to her poor family background.

When she was pregnant, she decided she would train her child to develop an interest in music and become a tenor as renowned as Luciano Pavarotti.

Every day, she let her unborn baby listen to music and on March 4, 1982, Lu gave birth to a boy.

But a medical examination - eight days after his birth - found her son was suffering from haemolytic disease of the newborn.

"There is almost no hope for his survival," said a doctor, asking Lu whether to treat the baby.

She signed her consent on the medical papers without hesitation and said: "Try your best to save my boy."

Lu would not have thought it was just the beginning of a testing 20 years.

After emergency treatment, the baby survived, but his condition was serious.

He had kernicterus, a type of brain damage that caused him to suffer from athetoid cerebral palsy. There were also problems with his arms, legs and vision.

Just as a Chinese saying goes, misfortune never comes alone, and five months later, the boy was found to have epilepsy.

Lu struggled to come to terms with her son's condition and instead of simply accepting the reality, she decided to challenge the medical prediction that he would not be able to complete primary school.

She named the baby Feng Cong, with the given name meaning clever.

Twenty years later, Feng has successfully completed high school. He now can speak fluent English and play the violin and piano.

"On the day Feng Cong got his high school diploma, his father and I cried," a proud Lu recalled.

A dream

To Lu, life over the past two decades has been hard. Even today, she can clearly remember every moment she has spent with Feng.

After Feng was born, Lu tried many methods - most of which were invented by herself - to improve his physical condition.

In order to correct his squint, Lu bought a flashlight. At night she would turn off the light and cast the beam from the flashlight onto the ceiling.

After the baby's eyesight was attracted by the beam, Lu gradually moved the light.

Feng was encouraged to rub his arms and legs to exercise his muscles.

Lu used pingpong balls to improve the agility of Feng's fingers. She put a ball in a basin full of water and got Feng to take it out.

She also let him grasp string bags.

Two years and 23 worn out string bags later, Feng's left hand became as agile as those of ordinary people.

In the meantime, music lessons had become one of Feng's major past times. Every day, Lu sang songs to Feng, believing music would help nurture the development of his nerve cells.

She often took Feng as a baby to a violin training school, to let him listen to the music. In 1983 when Feng was one year old, Lu and her husband wanted to buy him a tape recorder.

But they could not afford it as Lu had quit her factory job to better care for her son and the whole family had to rely on her husband's irregular salary from working as a stage manager. The only way to get the money was to sell blood. Besides playing music to Feng, Lu also let him listen to English and he showed an amazing talent for learning the language. When he attended school, English was always his best subject.

When Feng was four years old, Lu sent him to a kindergarten that was famous for its musical education. Yu Hui'geng, then the president of the Middle School Affiliated to the Central Conservatory of Music, who was also in charge of the kindergarten, exempted Feng's tuition fees.

Later, after saving enough money, the family bought a second-hand piano for Feng.

"All the efforts we made were the preparation for Feng Cong's primary school education. I did not want him to lag behind other children when he went to school," Lu said.

In 1988, Feng became a primary school student. Compared with his peers, he was somewhat slow in academic learning. So Lu decided to teach him beforehand.

Every night, Lu would help him review what he had learned during the day and teach him what he was to learn the following day.

In this way, Feng successfully graduated from primary school in 1994. His mark for Chinese was 85 per cent and he got 87 per cent for maths.

During his spare time, Feng stuck to practising the piano.

On March 4, 1993, the family got together and ate boiled dumplings to celebrate Feng's birthday.

But it was Feng who gave his parents a present - he sat down in front of the piano and played them a song.

"Tears came to our eyes," Lu recalled.

"Feng Cong also cried. He told us that he had prepared the gift for a long time."

In 2000, Feng graduated from senior high school and was admitted by a private college.

Mixed memories

Recalling all the pain she and her family have suffered over the past 20 years, Lu is very calm.

"I am only an ordinary woman. I have only done what any woman would do for her child," said Lu when she was invited to attend a talk show at a Beijing TV station in 2001, where she told her story for the first time in public.

She said she would forever remember those people who had helped her. Without them, she would not have been able to persist for such a long time.

The darkest time for Lu was in 1986 when the family went to the Great Wall.

Lu kept away from her husband and son and stood beside the wall for a long time.

She was thinking of jumping until several middle-aged women grabbed her clothes while weeping. They pointed to the distance.

Lu saw her son was with a tourist who raised Feng over his head, put his forehead on Feng's forehead, and handed the boy to another tourist. In this way, Feng was passed among the tourists.

Never before had he received such a courteous reception. Lu said it was at that time that she gave up the notion of committing suicide and decided she wanted to live.

(China Daily February 10, 2003)