Peng Chao, 19, from Panzhihua, Sichuan province, lost both his arms in a childhood accident and has to write with his foot. Photos by Wang Chuanyuan / Xinhua

Peng Chao and his classmates prepare for the national university entrance examinations, or gaokao, in Panzhihua No 7 Senior Middle School on June 5.

Perseverence pays off for student hoping to reap the reward of hard-won gaokao success, Huang Zhiling reports from Chengdu.

When he was 6, Peng Chao was playing in a factory in the county seat of Miyi in Sichuan province where his family lives, when he touched a live transformer. Both his arms had to be amputated after the electric shock.

Now at 19, he has become something of a national hero, because his score in the national university entrance examinations, or gaokao, which were held early last month, was 543 points, 3 points higher than Sichuan's minimum score for applicants to top universities.

Peng has applied to take a software-engineering course at Sichuan University, the top university in the province.

"Without arms, I have to enter a good university if I am to get a job," says the teenager, who has a sunny temperament and always has a smile when he talks, despite the difficulties he has had to overcome and the challenges he faces.

"Before he was discharged from the hospital where his wounds were being treated, I taught him how to use his foot to write with a pencil," says his father Peng Changfu, 49, who does odd jobs to support the family.

At first, Peng Chao could write only a dozen words at most a day. Frustrated because he found it difficult to hold a pencil between the big toe and second toe of the right foot, he would burst into tears and want to give up.

However, his father kept encouraging him and persuaded him to persevere.

"With tears, I told him he would be useless if he could not attend a school and earn a living himself," says his father.

Although he can now type using his foot - "He can type about 100 words a minute," his father says - he still needed to write when at school, so he had to wear slippers all the time. In winter, his feet would become numb with cold.

"When he was in the second year of his junior high school, several classmates made fun of his handicap and he had a sense of inferiority. He changed after I told him he could prove a worthy man with his high scores," says his father.

When Peng started showing a keen interest in computers when he was younger, he would spend hours watching people playing computer games, his father spent 6,000 yuan ($968) buying a computer for his son.

Now using QQ, Tencent's instant messaging service, Peng can carry on a conversation with three former classmates at the same time in a chatroom.

Peng did not have time to answer some of the questions in this year's gaokao because he cannot write fast using his foot. He says he will practice writing with his foot more quickly this summer in case no university will enroll him and he has to study for one more year and take next year's exams.

"His footwriting is ugly. He says he will practice to make it more presentable," his father says.

He was among the top 10 students in his primary school class, says Huang Lihua, one of his senior high school teachers.

"But he was in the top 20 among 65 students in the third year of the senior high school because there were many tests to take and he had no time to answer all the questions writing with his foot," she says.

After the gaokao, the father accompanied his son to Beijing and they visited Tsinghua University and Peking University.

"Both are my dream universities. If I am not accepted by Sichuan University, I will study for one more year and try to get a score of 630 on the gaokao next year so that I will be eligible to apply for Tsinghua University or Peking University," Peng says.

Contact the writer at huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/06/2014 page5)