A girl sets out with a dream
When other girls her age were pestering their parents for pretty clothes, 9-year-old Feng Jinghan had already embarked on her dream journey: traveling on foot across 30 provinces and cities with just 213.5 yuan in 40 days. Yesterday at around 9 a.m. on Changle Road, a little girl in a red down jacket and a backpack caught the attention of passersby.
She is Feng Jinghan, 9 years old, from Jinzhou, Liaoning, and in the fourth grade. Before arriving in Xi'an, she had already traveled through 8 provinces and cities by hiking and hitching rides on free trucks.
At the beginning of the winter vacation, Jinghan told her father about her dream of hiking. At that time, Father Feng was quite surprised—how could such a plan be possible for a 9-year-old? But when Jinghan showed him her pocket money plus 213.5 yuan in “sponsorship” collected from selling recyclables with friends, Father Feng grew concerned.
Father Feng Yongli, 32, is a van driver at a local workplace. Being a single-parent family, Feng Yongli values his child’s opinions, but how could a 9-year-old carry out such an ambitious plan?
“It’s too dangerous.” However, a conversation between Jinghan and her father led Feng Yongli to decide to take a month off work to accompany his daughter in realizing her dream. “The child said, ‘I am a child of the new era. Give me a chance to train myself. I want to prove to adults that we are no longer ’little emperors’ or ’little princesses.’” Nine-year-old Feng Jinghan is already something of a local celebrity. She started martial arts at age 3, mastering a large over two-meter-long sword, and at age 7 appeared on China’s Got Talent, excelling in both martial arts and music. She later began filming TV shows with celebrities, among other activities. But she has an even bigger dream: to use concrete actions to change the adult perception that children of her generation are spoiled.
With her father’s support, on the evening of January 20, the father and daughter set off from Jinzhou, passing through Harbin, Shenyang, Tianjin, Hohhot, Yinchuan, Xining, and Lanzhou. After a 15-hour truck ride, they arrived in Xi’an yesterday morning, the ninth stop on their dream journey. According to Jinghan’s plan, in each city they visit, they give local children small gifts she prepared and encourage them to be self-reliant. Upon arriving in Xi’an, Jinghan and her father gave a two-year-old child being treated at Xijing Hospital a jade pendant as a token of goodwill.
The next stop for the father and daughter is Chengdu. Though their long journey has left their feet swollen and they have only about 80 yuan left, Feng Jinghan remains optimistic. “We’re one step closer to my dream, and I will definitely persevere.”