ALOR SETAR: With only four toes in her right foot, she can nevertheless make use of it to help her write, and do all other chores such as folding shirts, sweeping the floor, making phone calls, opening her schoolbag, playing congkak, and even surfing the net.

Born without upper limbs, 7-year-old Ooi Zhao Qian has learned to do all the things to be done with hands with her two feet ever since she was two.

When she attended a kindergarten at five, her family gave her a custom-made desk while her uncle designed a small wheelchair to help her move along, so that she could study like any physically intact kids.

She starts attending a Chinese primary school this year, and her mother has decided to make her more independent.

Among her 21 classmates, almost half have been her kindergarten classmates before.

Weighing only 10kg, Ooi has become an object of affection among her new and old classmates alike. They like to touch her head and play with her during recess.

Special arrangement by school

School principal Chen Meiyun said in order to make things easier for Ooi, the school had to switch her classroom with a senior class so that she could study inside a more spacious classroom.

"When making arrangements for the students' seats, we had to take into consideration that the other students might knock her. Moreover, her mother told us she was sensitive to heat and had short-sightedness, so we switched a few places on the first day of school and observed, before deciding to put her on the second row."

The principal also said the school might also need to consider whether to take her to the teachers' office during PE classes, as she could not walk on her own nor take part in physical activities.

Due to the longer school hours compared to kindergarten, Ooi's mother now travels to school three times a day instead of staying with her for three hours like what she did when the girl was in kindergarten.

Ooi's mother brings along her own desk and takes her to her classroom in the morning, brings the food and feeds her during recess, and picks her up after school in the afternoon.

Her mother also makes her wear a diaper to solve the problem of having to go to toilet.

Ooi's grandmother will take over the task when her mother, who is now pregnant, is expected to deliver another baby in mid-January.

Writing with her feet

A teacher who taught Ooi for two years in kindergarten, told Sin Chew Daily that she had tried herself to write with her feet but failed.

Ooi demonstrated how she wrote with her feet.

She first took off her shoes, used one foot to take out her pencil box from the schoolbag and then put it on the floor.

She then used both her feet to unzip her pencil box, and clipped the pencil with her toes and wrote her name both in English and Chinese on the whiteboard-like desk tilting at 45 degrees.

After that, she used her feet to keep the pencil inside the pencil box and then in her schoolbag.

According to the teacher, Ooi's writing is very neat and her work is still being displayed on the notice board behind her kindergarten classroom.

Ooi told the reporter she liked to draw pictures. However, her kindergarten teacher has observed that she does not like to put colours on her drawings, as this would make her feet very tired.

All her teachers agree that Ooi is a very smart girl with strong learning power and a special passion for singing and music.

The young girl also has very high expectations for her own writing, and would erase a word that is not neat enough.

As it is much slower writing with her foot than with hand, Ooi concedes that she is most worried about being detained after class for writing too slowly.

She also says she likes drawing and can do many things with her feet, such as taking out a water bottle inside a net beside her desk.

Learning to write since two

Ooi was born without upper limbs, and with a pair of deformed feet, defective skeletal structure as well as a bent backbone.

The doctor has encouraged Ooi's parents to let her write with her mouth, but the little girl has complained that this made her mouth muscles tired.

As a result, Ooi's mother has taught her to write with her feet since she was two years old.

Besides learning to write, Ooi also helps her mother with house chores such as folding shirts, sweeping the floor, teaching her younger sister and picking up the toys scattered all over the floor by her younger sister.

She can put on her own shoes but not socks and shirts. While she can take off her pants, she cannot put them on herself.

She only needs help from her mother in a few things, such as taking a bath, going to toilet and eating. (Translated by DOMINIC LOH/Sin Chew Daily)