Liu conquers rare bone disease to become leading English teacher.

Liu Guoqi (centre) explains the World Trade Organization to his students in a class at Shifang in Southwest ChinaSichuan Province.

The story of the young man in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, who was struck by a rare illness but has made unremitting efforts to improve himself, touched many readers. China Daily staff reporters HUANG ZHILING and HAO YUENAN find out more about Liu Guoqi's life in the 10 years that have passed.

Sichuan: Liu Guoqi, 39, is only 1.1 metres tall, a really little man.

But he had big hopes - to rely on himself. And he has made it. He has established a career and a loving family.

Wobbling out of his tiny office in the spacious courtyard of his private kindergarten onto a street with the support of a cane, Liu looks like a child who has never grown up. But he appears confident and dignified, and is quite well-known in Shifang, a city in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, where he teaches English.

Involved in such programmes since 1987, Liu runs a private kindergarten, the first to offer both Chinese and English education in his home city of Shifang. He is married to an attractive college graduate who majored in English and the couple has a lovely daughter.

Liu's story justifies the old Chinese saying that one has to endure many hardships if Heaven is to give him the opportunity to make it.

Early misfortune

Liu was born in 1964 to a local official's family.

"I was treasured in my family as the youngest of six children," Liu recalled calmly in his simple but tidy office.

Liu Guoqi poses for a picture with his wife Cheng Longhui and daughter Liu Weihua outside their home in Shifang.

Misfortune came unexpectedly when Liu was only 40 days old. "I had my first fracture in both legs. I suffered from a total of 14 fractures by the age of 12," he said, his voice a bit hoarse.

The fractures were the result of a rare disease that doctors at the Chengdu Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine based in the provincial capital describe as "bone-breaking disease." They told Liu's parents the malady would manifest itself without reason, even if sufferers did nothing to cause the fractures.

"Because of the disease, my legs stopped growing when I was still a small child and my body became disproportionate," Liu said.

In spite of his disability, Liu did well in both primary and junior high schools.

Several days before sitting for the entrance examination to junior high, Liu suffered another bout of fractures in both legs. With the permission of the school, he was carried to the test centre on a litter. With a very high score, he passed the examination and was enrolled at the well-respected Shifang High School in Sichuan.

"However, I wasn't happy in the school because many of my schoolmates made fun of my handicap. Feeling hurt, I gave up the opportunity to attend senior high school in 1981," Liu said.

As a dropout at 17, Liu worried about his future. "As a handicapped person, I couldn't do manual work to support myself. Nor could I rely on my parents forever," he said.

Liu, who had excelled in English in junior high, decided to improve his language proficiency through an English- teaching programme on radio offered by the Central Radio and Television University in Beijing. Later he enrolled in the Sichuan Radio and Television University to study English.

In May 1987, Liu received a letter from his friend Wang Zhengkun that changed the direction for Liu's life-long career. A student in the Foreign Languages Department in the Southwest China Normal University in Chongqing Municipality, Wang told Liu that he would be running a summer English-teaching class in Shifang to help senior high students improve their English. He asked if Liu would be interested in joining him.

"I accepted Wang's invitation and placed advertisements to enroll students in Shifang. Although I made it clear that the class only enrolled senior high school students, many junior high school students came anyway. Since no teacher was available for the junior high school students, Wang asked me to have a try," Liu said.

Although his English wasn't bad, Liu was afraid that students who were much taller than he was would mock him. To his great relief, they respected him and many of them became close to him.

"One night before the summer vacation was over, I received a note from a student that read: 'Mr Liu: Could you help me with my English when my new semester starts? I don't want to part with you,'" Liu recalled.

Encouraged by the initial success, Liu decided to mete out a living through running an English-teaching class. With the support of his family, his Guoqi English Class started operating. Since then, Liu has taught more than 10,000 students in Shifang.

"More than 20 have become English teachers themselves after graduating from college," he said.

In 1993, China Daily carried a picture story of Liu Guoqi. Many people called the editor's office and wrote letters asking the newspaper to forward the letters to Liu.

"Most of the letters were from university students in Beijing and Shanghai. They expressed their admiration for my optimism toward life and encouraged me to further advance my career. The letters did give major impetus to a new educator like me," Liu said.

Unexpected love

It seemed 1993 was a year of good luck for Liu. As his English class expanded, love also unexpectedly came to him.

"In the summer of 1993, many students wanted to enroll in my class and I had to hire one more teacher. Then I met Cheng Longhui, my wife," Liu said.

Born in 1968, Cheng, a native of Shifang, was an English major in the Dachuan Teachers College in eastern Sichuan. "Several days before the summer vacation started in 1993, I learned the story of Liu Guoqi and was so curious about him that I decided to pay him a visit," Cheng recalled.

"I was deeply moved at the first sight of him," she said, recalling that she could not help shedding tears watching her future husband attentively prepare his teaching plan in the scorching hot weather.

"I decided to help him," Cheng said.

For the next 30 days, Cheng and Liu worked together, discussing and revising the teaching plan and teaching students in the summer session. When the summer vacation was over, Cheng felt that she had fallen in love with Liu. "His optimism and diligence impressed me greatly and I considered him a great man," Cheng said.

The night before Cheng left for Dachuan to continue her college studies, she invited Liu to take a walk outside the school.

"We walked for quite a long time and nobody talked at first. I finally broke the ice to ask him about his attitude toward love," Cheng said.

Despite his admiration for Cheng, Liu did not expect her to talk about such a "sensitive" issue with a man like him. After a long silence, he mustered up courage and replied: "I would tell her I love her if I felt a woman I admired loved me. I wouldn't give up on love."

Listening attentively, Cheng asked: "May I write to you after we part?" Liu bolted out: "Of course. I would write to you even if you don't."

With the constant exchange of letters, Liu and Cheng became lovers. They got married in the summer of 1994 after Cheng graduated from college and worked as a high school English teacher in a town in Shifang.

"We didn't hold a wedding ceremony because my parents and friends were opposed to my marriage," Cheng said with a smile.

Since Cheng's school was 10 kilometres from their home, Liu learned how to ride a motorcycle to take his wife to school in the morning and take her back in the afternoon each day. "Life was hard. But we felt happy," Cheng said.

In 1997, their daughter Liu Weihua was born. "Weihua is healthy and intelligent. She is our pride. With the success in Guoqi's career and birth of our daughter, my parents and friends finally recognized him," she said.

With profound love for their daughter, the couple decided to run a kindergarten in 2000. The school, the first in Shifang to offer bilingual education in both Chinese and English, now has more than 100 students with eight teachers. The students learn to speak English through games and cartoons.

Liu's kindergarten and school are acclaimed by students and their parents.

Yang Fu, a worker in Hongbai, a town in Shifang, has been sending his 10-year-old son Yang Zhi to Liu's school every Saturday and Sunday for a year.

"Each time, we take a bus and then a taxi to reach the school because Hongbai is more than 30 kilometres from the school. But we think it worthwhile since my son's English has improved remarkably," Yang said.

Liu the teacher is also Liu the learner.

He taught himself Chinese prose composition in 1981, and his poems have won prizes in a national poetry competition in 1989. One of his compositions has been selected for use in a textbook in an adult high school education programme.

In 2000, Liu studied psychology consultation methods at the Language Research Institute under the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences in Chengdu and received a consultant's certificate. Since then, Liu has offered consultancy services free of charge.

By helping those who have coping problems, Liu hopes to accumulate experiences to improve his teaching.

"Although handicapped, I have the right state of mind," Liu said. "I believe that one's success relies on his or her state of mind."

Close

Today's Top News		Top Lifestyle News
+Experts: Price surge won't cause inflation ( 2003-11-04) +Sino-Pak pledge to fight the '3 evils' ( 2003-11-04) +Six firefighters killed in southern China ( 2003-11-04) +Shanghai offers tax credits to poor families ( 2003-11-04) +Focus: Escalating pressure on yuan revaluation ( 2003-11-04)		+Fatigue, sleeplessness may warn of heart attacks ( 2003-11-04) +Reborn Polaroid betting big on digital kiosks ( 2003-11-04) +Hong Kong steps up hunt for elusive crocodile ( 2003-11-04) +Jiang Wen: a good film tastes like strong liquor ( 2003-11-04) +Little man with a giant's heart ( 2003-11-04)