A 43-year-old woman in China is being praised online for her remarkable ability to climb cliffs exceeding 100 meters in height without safety gear. According to the South China Morning Post, Luo Dengpin, who has earned the title of "Chinese Spider-Woman," is recognised as the world's only female practitioner of the ancient Miao tradition of bare-handed rock climbing. She is able to climb a 108-metre-high cliff, which is equivalent to a 30-storey building, and effortlessly move across vertical rock faces.
According to SCMP, Ms Luo is currently the only female among the region's "spider people". She started rock climbing at the age of 15 under the guidance of her father. Initially, her motivation stemmed from a desire to compete with boys and earn a living by collecting medicinal herbs and gathering bird droppings from swallows' nests on cliffs, which served as fertiliser.
"They said this was only for boys, but I believe men and women are equal, so I learned. That is how my journey as a spider woman began," said Ms Luo, while speaking to the BBC in 2017.
"Before this area was developed, I climbed every day to collect swallows' droppings. We would scale 108 metres. Foreigners were often frightened by our bare-handed climbing, but I grew accustomed to it. After doing it so many times, my hands became callused," she said in an interview with Shandong TV.
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Notably, Ms Luo's exceptional skill is rooted in the ancient Miao practice of cliff burials. The Miao people traditionally inhabit remote and mountainous regions. They believe that high-altitude burials allow the deceased to "look towards their ancestral homeland" in central China. Over time, they have continued to hone their bare-handed climbing skills, a tradition passed down through generations.
In today's time, Ms Luo has transformed her skill into a form of entertainment for tourists. "Many visitors wanted to see how we gathered the herbs and paid us to demonstrate. My income isn't high, but I take pride in being a spider woman," she stated.
Ms Luo's story has inspired many on social media. "People in the past were truly capable of everything. Cliffs and steep mountains did not deter them from exploration," wrote one user. "Kudos to the brave spider woman. Women are just as capable as men, and true masters live among the people," said another.
