Li Yanping wore black fur and exquisite makeup in the chilling Beijing wind, waiting by the gate of the Central Academy of Drama for her daughter, who was inside taking an exam.

The moment her daughter came out, she sped toward her.

"Go to granny's place for a break," she said. They ducked into a lane and into a small cabin.

Ma Junzhen (left), who leases her flat to students taking entrance exams at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, chats with An Yongchang, an aspiring actress from Changchun, Jilin province, on Tuesday. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

Inside the 9-square-meter room stood two bunk beds, and every corner was filled with racks of clothes, books and all sorts of sundries.

An old lady rose from a bed and motioned for the girl to rest on it.

The lady, Ma Junzhen, 60, is "granny".

For about 15 years, hundreds of aspiring applicants for the Central Academy of Drama have come to stay with her.

Ma used to work as a cleaner in the academy, one of the most prestigious schools for performing arts in China and where stars Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi studied. Years ago she rented her cabin to a friend's child who traveled from Xi'an to attend the academy's entrance exam, and found it a good way to make a living.

Most of her lodgers have been girls applying for the academy's acting department. The competition has been fierce - this year only 50 of 9,000 will be recruited - so many applicants take extra acting classes that start two or three months before the entrance exam every spring and are taught by retired acting teachers.

Li's daughter An Yongchang is one of the aspiring actresses. The girl traveled from Changchun, a city about 1,000 kilometers from Beijing, to attend a two-month acting class.

Her mother was worried at first about the shabby living conditions of the lodge - four girls lived together with Ma, who put a small couch between the two bunk beds. There is no private toilet, only the public one in the lane.

But she decided to leave her daughter there - the most important reason being granny's "three principles".

The day the girls arrive, Ma makes three things clear: They must go to class every day, return before 11 pm and stay away from alcohol.

She charges 900 yuan ($142) a month. An's mother does not think it expensive, in view of its proximity to the academy and Ma's strict discipline.

"I can afford more expensive accommodation, but I feel more at ease leaving my daughter here," she said.

Ma has seen hundreds of aspirants come and go year after year, but she has no secret tips for her tenants. She shares only her instincts and frankness.

"Picture the examiners sitting in front of you as five watermelons and relax," she said.

She once told a girl the first time they met: "You will never make it, because you are not good looking at all." The girl burst into tears immediately, but she did fail the exam.

The booming film and TV industry in China has benefited Ma. She does not shy from the profits she has earned thanks to the industry's prosperity. While her son earned 2,000 yuan a month at his job, her cabin raked in 3,600 yuan.

Her business also brings emotional bonds. "They brought boyfriends to me, and came to me, too, when breaking up with them," she says.

When her brother got cancer in 2011, one of her former lodgers, now an actor, brought her 10,000 yuan and raised nearly 200,000 yuan for her from other tenants.

Once a girl who lived with her said she met someone who called himself a commercial director and wanted to offer her an audition. The man promised Ma he would send the girl back before 6 pm. Ma insisted another girl go along with them. They did not return until midnight, and the other girl called her to say they were in a hotel. Ma went to the hotel in a taxi - something she never did to save money - took off her shoe and hit the man, who turned out to be an imposter.

She keeps an album of the tenants, about 100 of whom passed the exam. But more failed, and graduation from the academy does not guarantee stardom.

"This is a very tough road," she said.

liuw@chinadaily.com.cn