Qingmei Dorlma was smiling- something she says she physically couldn't do until age 14. And she previously felt little reason to, she said.

I couldn't help but smile back.

Nobody calls her "monster" anymore. The teenager has friends - something she'd never imagined before her cleft-palate surgery three years ago.

Her father left the day she was born. Doctors said her condition was particularly difficult to treat, since the operation should have been done during infancy.

But her mother couldn't afford it. She earns about 1,500 yuan ($225) a year herding yaks on the isolated Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Qingmei no longer hides behind the literal and metaphorical masks she has worn most of her life. (She used to eat in private so that others couldn't see her mouth.)

Now, she faces the world with confidence- enough to perform as a singer and dancer.

There's a Tibetan saying: "If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance."

Qingmei felt too stigmatized to do either.

Not anymore.

And her school performance has drastically improved, her teachers said.

I was visiting her home in the migrant district of Qumalai county- a community of nomadic Tibetan yak herders in Qinghai province's Yushu prefecture - three years after a volunteer initiative I founded in 2011 provided the surgery that transformed her life.

We'd saved for nearly a year to pay for the operation in Beijing. It was estimated to cost 30,000 yuan.

The doctor immediately offered to do it for free when he met her.

It was but one of many such compassionate acts Qingmei experienced in the capital.

We'd arranged for her to stay in a rented apartment. The owner refused to take her mother's money. Instead, he gave her the equivalent of her annual income and served them meals.

So, too, did my gandie (the Chinese equivalent of a godfather), when he treated them to food unlike anything they'd seen- let alone tasted- on the grassland.

I don't know if I've ever seen anyone smile as much as her mom during that time.

Beijing stunned Qingmei, who'd never left her isolated home on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

She'd only seen high-rises, crowds and elevators on TV. The girl relished the experience but says she missed vast green expanses.

Her Beijing experience also inspired a new life goal - to become a doctor.

She wants to help others in the way others have helped her, she explains.

Indeed, doctors, teachers, volunteers, renters and friends showed empathy for Qingmei that I'd categorize more as solidarity than charity. It's a universal unanimity that extends beyond ethnic, national and professional borders.

As I left her home, Qingmei leaned toward me and touched her forehead to mine - a Tibetan custom typically reserved for major life events like weddings and funerals.

An indescribable force - warm, electric, kinetic - coursed between us.

It was like my heart jump-started at the point where our scalp lines made contact.

My friends and I waved goodbye to Qingmei and her family.

We all smiled. Together.

Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/30/2017 page2)