Steeled by suffering

"Strong women tend to have an unhappy family life. Well, that's at least what I learned from magazine stories," says Han Suyun.

In the eyes of many outsiders, Han, 48, is such a "strong woman". She is so celebrated for her stamina and determination that a feature film was made about her, using both her and her husband's real names. Starring Zhang Kaili, it's called A Military Wife. The 1996 movie was recently aired on Nanning TV and Zhang, in an on-air interview, conveyed her "greetings and good wishes" to Han Suyun, the character she played more than a dozen years ago.

Han works as a clerk at the municipal finance bureau of Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. She lives a stone's throw away from the bureau's grand office building. It's a three-bedroom apartment on the first floor, elevated from the often damp ground by a short flight of stairs. "I got this unit as a special favor because they know I have difficulty climbing stairs."