The Chinese 'super postwoman' who has covered 124,000 miles
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Each day for the last 15 years, no matter the weather, a Chinese postwoman has set off on a round that would make her British counterparts wince.
Luo Xiying, 43, collects and delivers all the mail for a county of eight villages (pop. 20,000) in the mountains of the southern Chinese province of Jiangxi.
She has to decide every day between a round of 25 miles, hiking through the steep mountains on foot, or one of 43 miles, some of which she has been able to cover by bicycle since a mountain road was built last year. Each route covers four of her eight villages and she alternates between the two.
Since she started work at the post office in 1996, she believes she has worn through more than 60 pairs of shoes and covered around 124,000 miles.
Born in Chengfang county, Mrs Luo's parents were farmers, and she and her husband were farmers too until the day when the local postman was reassigned elsewhere.
"The people from the post office came by my house and asked me if I would take on his duties temporarily. But I turned out to be a good worker, so they gave me the job permanently," she said. Her salary is 1100 yuan (£105) a month.
Mrs Luo eats a breakfast of rice porridge before arriving at the Chengfang central post office at 7.30am. "I am the only worker, so I clean the place up a bit and work in the depot until 12pm, when I go home for lunch," she said.
After a simple meal of stir-fried vegetables, sometimes with a little pork, Mrs Luo then sets out for her ten-hour afternoon round.
In 15 years, she has never lost a letter, the post office said proudly, naming her a "model worker".
"When I started I used to get bad blisters, but these days I am in good shape and the journey is not too difficult. I work six days a week and rest on Sundays, although because I am the only postwoman, villagers often stop by my house on my day off and I give them their post anyway," she said. "My husband handles the housework and the laundry and sometimes cooks dinner if I am back late."
Mrs Luo said she felt invigorated by the blue skies and green hills of the route, but that the job was lonely. "Up in the mountains, there is usually no one else around. Sometimes I sing snatches of songs, sometimes I shout out, and sometimes I even skip along a little," she said. "After all these years, I feel very close to the people who I see on my deliveries every day." Only once has she been threatened on the road, while she was carrying two sacks of letters hung on a pole, but she said she scared off her robber by screaming out.
To ward off tiredness, she said she carried sweet potatoes to nibble on in season, or steamed buns. "I do get tired and sometimes I will stop for a rest, or even a nap, although there are plenty of mosquitoes and ants," she said. "If the farm work is done, my husband sometimes walks with me, or rides his motorbike."
Mrs Luo's 21-year-old daughter is in a teacher-training college in Jiangxi Normal University. "If she graduates and gets a good job, and then marries a good man, I will be able to put my feet up then. But I reckon I can keep going for another seven years at least until I hit the official retirement age of 50," she said.
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