China's 1st female tractor driver dies

Liang Jun, the first woman in China to drive a tractor, died at the age of 90 on Tuesday in Harbin, capital city of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, according to the local media.

"Over the past two years, my mother was plagued by various illnesses suffered by the elderly, including cerebral infarction and pulmonary syndrome," said her son Wang Yanbing. "Moreover, after she broke her legs two years ago, she had to stay in bed."

Born in 1930 into a poverty-stricken peasant family in Heilongjiang's Mingshui county, Liang was sent to live and work in a nearby landlord's family as a child bride when she was 12.

In 1945, when the province was liberated and came under the rule of the Communist Party of China, Liang became a student at Mengya Normal School in Dedu county — now a city named Wudalianchi.

"The first time I saw a woman driving a tractor was in a Soviet film I saw at school," Liang told China Daily in 2013. "It was also when I made up my mind to become a tractor driver."

In those old days, however, it was inconceivable that women could drive tractors.

In February 1948, Liang attended a tractor driver training class held in Bei'an, a county 48 kilometers from Dejun.

When she arrived there, Liang discovered she was the only female student in the class because people believed driving a tractor was men's work.