A 21-year-old deaf-mute woman railway police found wandering
around the Shanghai Railway Station late last year is now studying
at a primary school for disabled children, thanks in part to an
American man and his girlfriend.
With aid from an American expatriate, whom police only identify
as John, and his girlfriend Shi Yun, Zhang Guangxia began studying
at the school as a Grade-Two student on February 25.
The railway police and John talked to many schools before they
found one willing to accept Zhang.
Police would not name the school Zhang was admitted to.
She spends her weekdays at school, and her weekends with her new
American friend.
Zhang, the daughter of poor farmers in Henan Province, was found wandering around the
Shanghai Railway Station by police last November. She left Henan
eight months earlier after an elderly woman promised to take her to
Shaanxi Province to find a good job. After
Zhang learned she was being trained into a pickpocket, she managed
to escape and spent the next eight months wandering around the
country in search of a way home.
A patrol officer spotted the woman in ragged clothes and helped
her. John wanted to give her a job, but found she lacked the
necessary education to handle the work, so he found her a school
instead.
(Shanghai Daily March 5, 2007)