Li Chunhong, 66, became a model after combating cancer. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Li Chunhong, 66, said it was cancer that fired her enthusiasm for life, pushing her to do things she had never dreamed of — being a model, for instance.
Li was a civil servant before retiring in 2017. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through 25 radiation treatments, suffering pain and depression.
"Knowing that life is limited, I wanted to do something I really liked," she said.
Li Chunhong, 66, became a model after combating cancer. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
At the suggestion of a friend, she became a model in 2018. After only a few months of training, she took part in a national catwalk competition for elderly models.
To her surprise, she won the gold award and then repeated the victory twice in consecutive annual competitions.
Li Chunhong, 66, became a model after combating cancer. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Li felt she had been reborn into a wonderful new world. Her identity changed from civil servant dressed only in dark-colored clothes to a model presenting the latest fashions.
"True beauty comes from a state of mind. I still have a young heart and want to make every day meaningful and share my happiness with the people around me," Li said.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, various modeling competitions have been postponed or canceled. So Li turned her attention to short videos. Now she has more than 200,000 followers on a short video platform.
"After retirement, you are actually entering a new battlefield of life," she said. "You have to learn constantly."
Feng Xiaoyun contributed to this story.