Wang Chunhui, a 45-year-old woman stricken with severe physical disabilities, has overcome her condition to create nearly 500 classical Chinese poems in the past decade, by writing or typing with a pen or a chopstick held in her teeth.
Wang Chunhui suffers with congenital cerebral hypoplasia, cerebral ischemic myelomalacia, extrapyramidal systemic necrosis, severe hip dislocation, and femoral head osteonecrosis as well as limb spasms and paralysis. Despite this, she has created a prodigious body of literary work, beginning in 1995. Li Duoze, professor of the Chinese Department, Beijing University, praised Wang Chunhui: "I admire people like you who strive to excel regardless of their delicate bodies, and always take on challenges awesomely."
Grim Prognosis at an Early Age
In 1972, when Wang Chunhui was six months old, her parents who lived in Chaoyang City found that she was different from other babies, being weaker and more susceptible to illnesses. At first, they thought that it might have been from a lack of calcium. Because her health was deteriorating day by day, they took her to various places for treatments, but to no avail.
In 1974, she was diagnosed with cerebral ischemic myelomalacia by China's three most prestigious hospitals, and the doctors told her family that she would only survive two or three more years at most. China Medical University Hospital's final diagnosis in 1979 indicated that she suffered from congenital cerebral hypoplasia. In 1979, after being treated in Shanghai, she suffered a hip dislocation and femoral head osteonecrosis, and her spine started to curve in 1980.
In 1995, when she was 23 years old, she begged her parents to give up the endless medication. Her family cannot calculate how much they had spent on her medication over the past 23 years; they only remembered that they had been to various famous hospitals in many big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.
24 Chopsticks Used to Create Poems Over the Past Two Years
Because of her illnesses, Wang Chunhui did not attend public school. She had no formal education for the first 23 years of her life. However, her mother began teaching her classical poetry from the time Wang was two or three years old. Much to her mother's amazement, Wang Chunhui was able to recite any poem after her mother read it to her a couple of time. These poems were quite complex and full of deep meaning, yet Chunhui learned them. Wang Chunhui began recognizing characters by the age of five, and soon thereafter learned the entire elementary school curriculum.
In 1995, after Wang Chunhui begged her parents to give up the endless medical treatment, she started to create classic poems by writing the characters with a pen or chopstick in her mouth. Her parents told Epoch Times reporters that back then, Wang Chunhui often hurt her lips simply by writing or typing a character.
On November 11, 1998, she published her first collection, entitled Ru Meng Ling—My Morning Reflections in the Chaoyang Daily News. To date, Wang Chunhui has written nearly 500 classical poems, and over 50 of them have been published by various media.
Since Wang Chunhui gained access to the Internet on May 19, 2004, her world has expanded. She has made many friends online and has learned a lot more about poetry from them. However, spending time online also brings increased discomfort, as her family has to tie Wang Chunhui upright in a chair so she can see they screen and manipulate the keys. Her hands have to be tied firmly to the arms of the chair. In order to type, she has to swing her entire head, which takes great effort.
When Epoch Times reporters visited Wang Chunhui at her home, they could see sweat streaming down her face as Wang Chunhui struggled to communicate with her cyber-friends.
Wang Chunhui's mother told our reporters that the chopsticks employed by Wang Chunhui become deformed or broken very quickly, and she uses up at least one chopstick each month.
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