Slain Chinese scholar Zhang Yingying ‘always looked out for others’, family says as they hold US memorial
- Daughter gave up scholarship to needier student and tutored those who were struggling in school, father Zhang Ronggao says
- Relatives still clinging to hope her remains can be recovered despite news that they are buried deep in landfill after brutal murder
A family clinging to fading hope that the remains of a Chinese scholar brutally killed more than two years ago may someday be found gathered on Friday for a memorial service that included only her photograph and their own memories of her life.
Speaking just weeks after Zhang Yingying’s killer was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and just two days after the family’s lawyers held a news conference to explain why the dismembered remains believed to be buried deep in a landfill are unlikely to be recovered, her father, Zhang Ronggao, told stories that he hoped would convey what made his daughter so special.
In Mandarin, with his words translated for those sitting before him at the First Baptist Church in Savoy, near the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana campus where Zhang attended school, he talked about how hard she worked at school and how she excelled despite the financial struggles of a family that could simply not afford to pay for the tutors that are available to wealthier students.
He spoke of a daughter who was willing to give up a scholarship to someone even needier than her, and who tutored other students “who struggled with school”.
And he spoke of his daughter’s small kindnesses to her family, from all the times she walked her little brother to school, to the time on her mother’s birthday she turned out the lights and surprised her mother with a birthday cake, a gesture that moved her mother to tears.
