Wang, now 43 and working as deputy head of Temuli, Butuo county, Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture, Southeast China's Sichuan province, said she would have lived a very different life if she had quit school and got married as her parents had wanted.
In the 1990 s, most of the girls who lived in villages deep in Sichuan's mountains dropped out of school after just a few years because they were either engaged or destined to become housewives in arranged marriages. When Wang Fumei told her parents about her dream of attending classes again, she was met with opposition. Her mother refused because Wang was the family's oldest child, so she had to do farm work and take care of her younger siblings. The lack of available labor meant the family could only just make ends meet by planting corn and rice. Wang went on a hunger strike to protest her parents decision. On the seventh day, however, seeing Wang's determination, her parents finally allowed her to go to school and her arranged marriage was canceled.
"I envied the lifestyle of female teachers and doctors in my village. I knew my parents had their difficulties, but the only thing in my mind back then was that education can change people's destinies. If I wasn't permitted to go to school, then I'd rather die. " she said.
She cherished the opportunity so much that she devoted all her time to studying. In 2000, she returned to Butuo to work as a civil servant. At the same time, she made up her mind to improve the lives of the people in the village, and also helped solve the problem of local children dropping out of school as there was still an attitude of "boys over girls" in the isolated village.
"No matter how capable you are and no matter what situation you are in, you must be grateful in your heart. Only you can change your destiny: no one else can do that for you," she said.
