Chang Meng with Deng Pufang, chairman of China Disabled Person's Federation, taken just before the China Disabled People's Arts Troupe's performance.

By staff reporter LI WUZHOU

BEIJINGER Chang Meng was once one of those fortunate types that seem not to have a care in the world. On marrying twenty years ago, following a sweet and loving courtship, Chang Meng and her husband opened an hotel that prospered daily. Her life was bliss. Then one day came the bolt from the blue when her husband sued her for divorce. Chang Meng was inconsolable, to the point of clinical depression. At that time there were few psychiatrists in China, and practically no counseling institutions. Having nowhere to turn, Chang Meng came to the point of nervous collapse.

It took her several years to emerge from this depression, and on recalling her marriage Chang Meng now realizes that the main reason for its failure was a lack of trust.

Something that also became apparent to her was the influence of the current social situation in China. It is clear that economic development has improved living conditions, but it has also had a negative affect on family relationships. This has had particular impact on Chinese women, whom society still expects to fulfill the role of loving wife and perfect mother. The strong desire to help women who had been through the same bitter experience as her prompted Chang to establish the Understanding Friends Salon in 1986. The organization's function is to provide professional psychological guidance, and since it opened 65 divorced women who came for counseling have rejected the previously attractive alternative of suicide and begun a brand-new life.

Developing a Career Through Learning

On establishing the salon, Chang had no specialized knowledge. All she could offer was her own experience. Consequently it generally took six months before she could achieve any significant results. Chang soon realized that her absence of theory meant that her counseling methods lacked substance. She began to consult psychoanalysts on her own problems, to study sociology, and to attend the women's forums and workshops put on by the All-China Women's Federation. These painstaking efforts bore fruit. Her studies, combined with her own experience, enabled her to formulate her Five Steps Towards Alleviating Pressure. They are: revealing one's innermost feelings, sharing experiences, seeking guidance from psychological experts, meditation, and participating in a love group as a means of helping oneself and others.

Chang Meng's social concern extends to the children of broken marriages, and those without parents or family of any kind. Prompted by deep love and empathy, she calls on society to help these unfortunates, and has set an example by adopting four orphans.

One of them is Mao Lan, a girl who suffered burns to 98 percent of her body and who was abandoned 20 years ago. Another is Wang Bao who, at the age of 12, ran away from home to escape his stepmother, but suffered frostbite to both his legs and had to have them amputated. He was also abandoned. Pan Wenshuo's parents divorced when he was just two and a half years old, and his mother was so depressed that she lay on a railway track with her son. Pan Wenshuo was hurled off the tracks at the last moment, but he lost his right leg and hand. The fourth, six-year-old girl Meng Yan is seriously ill.

Chang Meng considers it important to create a family atmosphere. Her male and female workers play the roles of fathers and mothers, and those working as volunteers are regarded as the children's brothers and sisters. "What touches me most is the warm atmosphere here, where the older children look after the younger ones, and the 'parents' look after their 'children.' There is a palpable feeling of love," declares one volunteer.

Gains and Losses

Chang is devoted to her public welfare undertakings to the extent that she contributes her own savings and sacrifices her personal life to them. During the past 17 years she has seen only two movies, both of which are about welfare undertakings.

Gains often follow losses, and Chang's second husband is now the love of her life. She met him when she was canvassing for charity donations at a big Beijing company. Though she was refused by the company, one of the its employees, Huang Yanping, who had also suffered broken marriage, felt moved by her philanthropy and used his own savings to buy her a car when soliciting public support. Huang also quit his well-paid job and now works alongside Chang in their welfare undertakings.

"My husband is a gift from the gods," says Chang Meng, gazing lovingly at her husband, a tall, gentle, smiling man standing a short distance from us.

My Biggest Dream

On being asked what her greatest wish is, Chang immediately says: "I want the government, enterprises, and the whole of society to be more understanding and supportive of non-public welfare organizations, and more mindful of unfortunate children."

On recalling the past 17 years, Chang's only negative feeling is that of being constantly tired. In addition to helping handicapped children and providing psychological consultations, she also spends a great deal of time seeking support from the government, enterprises, and the media. Chang explains, "As a non-public organization, we get little support from the government, and big enterprises are not willing to help us because we cannot enhance their corporate public image. There are few welfare foundations in China, and practically none in the non-public sector. Our main supporters are small and medium-sized non-public enterprises. This paucity of funds prevents us from giving more help to abandoned, handicapped children in need."

A shortage of funds has made it impossible for Chang to go abroad to study and exchange experience with foreign counterparts. Her management style is that of Hong Kong's Caritas Family Service, which she had the chance to observe during an inspection tour of Hong Kong and Macao, sponsored by a Chinese magazine.

"What I learned from Hong Kong -- that it is only after developing a good relationship with the media that you can first get government back-up and then financial support from enterprises -- was very useful," Chang comments. Since taking a mass communications course, she now has PR skills, and knows how to catch the media's attention.

The Care Center she runs has been the focus at various times of over 100 foreign and domestic media, and has won government support. When talking about the Chinese media, she expresses extreme gratitude for their enthusiastic support of public welfare undertakings, obvious from their positive responses to her invitations, and also from their generous donations.