The enlightenment of living on the fringe

Dong Fen at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Dong Fen has given, given and given more. Now she would like something back

When Dong Fen was 16 she waived the opportunity to get a high school education because sending two children to school was beyond her parents' means. Instead she passed the chance on to her younger brother, and now, 14 years later, giving other people a chance has become something of a mission for her.

Dong, 30, a former waitress and saleswoman in a beauty salon, is the general manager of Hua Dan, a Beijing non-profit organization that tries to empower migrant women and children through theater training.

In most schools in China drama is not on the syllabus, and theater training is hard to come by, and Hua Dan aims to bring performing arts to the disadvantaged.

"For starters, the voices of migrant workers are rarely heard, and women in migrant families are always more vulnerable," Dong says. "I hope they can be inspired and enlightened just as I have."

Dong, from a village in Yunnan province, came to Beijing in 2004 and worked as a waitress in a hotel after two months' training in the Rural Women Knowing All School, a Beijing group that provides free vocational training for rural women.

The job was not her cup of tea, and one day she went to a Hua Dan workshop that was held near her workplace.

"It was a new world for me. It was not only fun but also the first time I had felt freedom, equality and respect as a migrant worker in Beijing.

"As a waitress I always took the initiative to give ideas to my supervisor on how to improve our service, but that was not appreciated at all. But at the workshop our voices were heard."

A year later she started selling cosmetics in a beauty salon and was paid up to 5,000 yuan ($790) a month, more than the average salary for new university graduates.

However, when a job opportunity came up with Hua Dan in 2007 she seized it, though it meant taking a 3,800 pay cut.

"It was not an easy decision. But I really felt guilty when I exaggerated the effect of beauty products. Every time I attended the workshop I felt fulfilled, so I could not say no."

Eight years on, she says that is the best decision she has ever made. The personal growth, sense of achievement and, most of all, the change it brings to the community was something she could never get in the salon, she says.

Just one fruit of those efforts was seeing a dozen children who trained in a Hua Dan program attend the annual Beijing Interactive Arts Improv Festival in April last year.

Four months later, Dong and another migrant worker traveled to Scotland and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, telling stories of migrant women in China.

It's not that life has become a bed of roses for her. For one thing, she now earns about 7,000 yuan a month, not bad in the NGO field but not much more than what she was paid as a saleswoman eight years ago.

"I am not a foodie and I don't like luxury brands, of course," says Dong, who lives in a hutong and has to use a public toilet.

"On the other hand, I would like to have a better life after working so hard for so long."

She is now thinking about starting a socially conscious company that offers training programs for elite schools and companies. But other people have other things in mind for her.

"My parents are pushing me to get married," Dong says.

"Sometimes I think I may be too independent and determined, which most men don't like. I should change a bit. But then again I think that's wrong; this is who I am. Who says women shouldn't be strong?"