ZHU Wenqing was in a desperate state as the new year approached, due to the verdict on compensation for his disabled daughter, announced the week before.

　　The family will receive 480,000 yuan (US$57,831), less than one-third of the sum they had sought from the dancing school they blamed for their daughter's crippled condition.

　　Unlike other people, they were in no mood to celebrate the arrival of the new year.

　　Zhu's eight-year-old daughter, Zhu Min, was paralyzed from the waist down after an accident at a dancing class in July, 2002. Zhu thought that the school had not fulfilled its responsibility to protect his child.

　　The father said he was entirely dissatisfied with the compensation decision. He would hand his daughter over to the school to look after, since he couldn't support the daily cost of caring for the girl for the rest of her life by himself.

　　Zhu and his wife have been unemployed for about a year. The family is presently dependent on their limited savings and on loans from the school.

　　"Just for the adult diapers she uses, we spend about 400 yuan (US$48) every month. It's too much for us," the father said.

　　Zhu Min's entry into primary school has been delayed. The parents planned to send her to school in 2004 but now they have changed their minds.

　　"We won't look after the girl any more - we will leave it all to the school," the father said.

　　The girl has to stay at home in front of the table every day, drawing pictures and dreaming of going to school with her peers.

　　She may have felt the bad consequences for herself after the verdict. She said if her parents decided to give her up to the dancing school in the coming new year, she hoped they could pick her up to take her back home at weekends.