When Madam Zhang Jin Mei found out in 2002 that her husband was cheating on her, she divorced him and left China with their only child.

She paid an agent $500 to arrange for the girl, then 15, to be enrolled in a government school in Singapore.

Then with $4,000 borrowed from friends and family, the mother and daughter left Shandong province in eastern China to start a new life.

'I have one good pair of hands, I was sure we could survive here,' Madam Zhang, 54, said in Mandarin.

She had never been to Singapore before, and did not have any family here.

When they arrived, the soft-spoken mother found out that the school in which the agent had enrolled her daughter was just a private language centre.

'We went from school to school, at least 10 of them, to see which one would take my daughter in,' she said. 'We didn't know English. It was so tough.'

Depressed, she wanted to go back to China but her daughter, Amy, said no. 'We left everything behind. It would have been a disgrace to go back,' said Amy, now 21.

The girl was eventually accepted into a secondary school in Woodlands and Madam Zhang found work as a waitress at a steamboat restaurant.

Today, Amy is studying for a diploma in electrical engineering at Singapore Polytechnic and hopes to work here. They live in a four-room flat in Bukit Batok.

Life is better for them now, but their financial struggles are not over.

Two weeks ago, the restaurant Madam Zhang had been working in for five years closed down. She now cleans up to five houses a week for $10 an hour.

'Every day I worry about money,' she said, adding that she cannot wait to return to China once her daughter graduates.

Mavis Toh

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Sept 28, 2008.

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