First female paratrooper donates savings to hometown

Ma Xu, China's first female paratrooper and a doctor for the People's Liberation Army in the 1940s, donated her life savings of 10 million yuan ($1.45 million) earlier this month to her hometown, Mulan county, in Heilongjiang province.

Ma was born into a doctor's family in 1933 and joined the PLA as a doctor herself in 1947.

In 1961, she applied to become a paratrooper when a new airborne branch of the PLA was founded in the unit in which she worked. However, she failed to get permission. She was not strong enough, and female paratroopers were unheard of.