Gao Sien, a girl born with no left forearm, experienced a hard life -- being abandoned shortly after birth and living in poverty, but she overcame all that and now is a postgraduate student.

In an early morning in July 1994, then 58 years old Gao Zhanxian heard a baby's cry near her home at Qiaodong Street in Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi province. She found the girl and decided to adopt her.

Gao had no stable income and lived on recycling reusable materials and doing some temporary work. Their economic conditions were poor, and Gao Sien used to help collect materials.

When Gao Sien reached schools age, she found it difficult to enroll in a school as she had no household registration. Luckily, kindhearted people helped the girl to study at the nearby Liushapo primary school.

Gao Zhanxian took the girl to the school for the first few days and asked her to remember the route because Gao was busy earning livelihood, and the girl had to go home herself.

Gao Sien was glad to go to school and she studied under the street lamp because they had no money to pay for electricity.

She studied hard. She remembered the Gao Zhanxian's sayings that "only good study will give her a foothold" and "others will not discriminate against you if you are self-reliant."

She never worried about her school performance, but she did worry about the fees, since the grandma had to borrow from others and do more work to repay.

Having no household registration, she could only go upto middle school far from home, and the travel cost her 3 yuan a day, a large amount. The girl did her practice of running to school during the three-year middle school to save money.

She gained full marks in sports when she graduated from middle school.

A professional coach discovered her running ability at the high school, and Gao Sien became a second-class national athlete. She won all the races she took part in and broke many records in the school.

She then took part in the Shanxi provincial games of disabled persons and the National Games of Disabled Persons.

In 2013, Gao Sien took the national college entrance examination and was enrolled by the Shanxi University. Gao Sien dropped the chance to enter Nankai University in Tianjin, because she had to take care of her grandma.

She had to take out student loans for her university study. She spent all vacations in university on training.

Now, she is a postgraduate student at the School of Political Science and Public Management of Shanxi University. She said she expects to have more time to accompany the grandma who is in poor health conditions.