Humble China street vendor makes sacrifices to support academically gifted daughters who gain PhD and master’s degree
- Mother sells roasted sweet potatoes, wears broken 70-US-cent glasses
- Encourages daughters to study hard, they achieve academic excellence
A street hawker in China who made many sacrifices to pay for the education of her two daughters has been richly rewarded after they both excelled academically.
Zhang Bingbing, who was recently accepted as a PhD candidate at Dalian University of Technology in Liaoning province, northeastern China, said she was the first student in her village to be accepted by a 985 university.
In China, only the best 39 universities belong to the 985 project, which is a government scheme to create world-class higher education institutions. Fewer than two per cent of candidates gain entrance to them.
Zhang said she is most grateful to her mother, and her parents were so proud of her that they could not sleep the day they learned about her achievement.
Zhang’s older sister also has a master’s degree.
The younger sister said when they were growing up in a rural location in central China’s Henan province, her family was poor and their father went to a big city to work.