As the nation’s first elite female bodyguard, Bian Mei fearlessly protected many of the world’s top leaders who visited China on official visits. She also clinched third place in a beauty pageant, demonstrating a combination of remarkable physical strength and grace. As a young woman she thought nothing of wearing a four-kilo, steel-plated bulletproof vest to safeguard heads of state and royal families.
She took her job seriously and would have laid her life on the line for the people under her protection. The 56-year-old from Beijing, comes from a family of police officers, and her father served as the chief bodyguard for several Chinese political leaders. In 1984, Bian was admitted to the China People’s Police University, majoring in security protection, according to her online resume.
She learned boxing, judo, shooting, driving skills and became proficient in criminal psychology as well as law. In an interview with CCTV in 2009, Bian said: “Once during a training session, I broke my left leg. But the rule at our school was that you should get to the training ground – crawl there if necessary.
” She said such rigorous challenges cultivated her willpower and determination. Bian was inspired by Tim McCarthy, the bodyguard of former US President Ronald Reagan, and saw him as her role model. In 1981, when Reagan was the subject of an assassination attempt in Washington D.
C., McCarthy shielded him, successfully protecting the president. “When the gunshot rang out, m.