Four-year-old son proud of his "pocket-size" mother

Yi, who lives in Yuzhong District, has a four-year-old son who is taller than her. When they walk together on the street, no one believes that they are mother and son. "She is my mother," Yi's son Little Qiang told passers-by proudly in front of Yi's shoe polishing stand on Renmin Road in Yuzhong District on November 22.

28-year-old Yi is from Fengdu County. Her father is crippled and her mother was deaf and mute. Yi stopped growing when she was 1.1 meters tall and she was not able to walk until she was 10 years old. After Li's mother died in 1998 Yi went to Zhucheng City alone and earned money to support her family by polishing shoes.

In 2003, Yi met Chen Jiu, who is from Tongliang County and suffers from poliomyelitis. Later they married. Their son, Little Qiang, was born in December 2004.

After their son's birth, the couple invited Yi's father Yi Daxu to run the shoe polishing stand together with them. One day, the couple saw a news story about a female middle school student who went to a restaurant with her classmates and found her mother working there as a waitress but she felt too embarrassed to greet her. When they returned home, she asked her mother to quit the job.

Afraid that Little Qiang would feel embarrassed by them, the couple decided to set a positive example for their son from the day he was born. They welcome both customers and passers-by sincerely and never avoid people who give them a strange look. The small shoe polishing stand is always filled with laughter. Yi often tells her son that she almost died giving birth to him because she is so short. Since her son learned to walk, she often walks on the street or goes shopping with her son and always tells curious people that she is Little Qiang's mother. Yi said, "I never think that I am inferior to others."

Now Little Qiang is four years old and he is 1.2 meters tall. He weighs 30 kilograms and is even stronger than his mother. When her son started kindergarten Yi, worried that Little Qiang would feel embarrassed if his classmates saw her so she asked her tall mother-in-law to accompany Little Qiang to the kindergarten. It turned out that this was unnecessary. Her son never feels inferior when other students give him a strange look. Now Little Qiang feels happiest when Yi accompanies him to school every day.

Once a woman asked Yi when she saw Yi and Little Qiang walk slowly across an overpass near Shangqingsi, "Is he your son?" Yi answered with a smile, "Of course." The woman did not believe her and then asked Little Qiang whether Yi is his mother. Little Qiang looked up at the woman and answered calmly, "She is my mother."

"Little Qiang thinks that his parents are great." Ms Zhu, the head teacher of Shangqinsi kindergarten which Little Qiang attends, said that Little Qiang is outgoing and lively. He likes talking with his teachers and playing with his classmates. He often says that his mother almost died giving birth to him. "He does not feel inferior to others at all." Zhu said that Little Qiang's optimistic and outgoing personality is thanks to the Yi couple's education and that she admires the couple very much.

Translated by LOTO