He Yuqing's hometown was in the countryside, and she had a younger brother and two younger sisters. It was possibly because her family was poor and the rural community heavily favored boys over girls.
Before she could finish junior high, her parents could no longer afford her school fees, so He Yuqing followed the local youth to work in a factory in Jinling.
There were many textile factories there. However, the work was very tedious, involving overtime every day, and she earned only a little over three thousand a month. But since she had no diploma or education, she couldn't take on other work and endured almost four years in the textile factory until she heard a fellow villager talk about washing hair for people, earning at least five to six thousand a month.
