Yingying Zhang came to this country with one goal — to further her education, so she could take care of her family back in China.
Yingying Zhang came to this country with one goal — to further her education, so she could take care of her family back in China.
“Since she was very young, she was very kind and really gets along with people and she cares what happens to the people surrounding her, ” her father, Ronggao Zhang, said in a recent interview with The News-Gazette. “She is very caring for her friends and other people she interacts with.”
On Saturday, the day after the FBI arrested Brendt Christensen, 28, in connection with Ms. Zhang’s kidnapping, authorities offered no new details about the case. Authorities said Friday night they believe the visiting University of Illinois scholar is no longer alive but Ms. Zhang has not been found.
A campus memorial tentatively planned for Saturday was called off by UI officials at the wishes of Ms. Zhang’s family.
Anna Tsai, an assistant student affairs staff member who served as a translator for Ms. Zhang’s family, met with them Friday night when the arrest was announced.
It was a very difficult time, ” she said.
“At this point, all I can say is that the family is very devastated and very sad, and just needs to find a way to sort through this, ” she said Saturday. “Obviously at this point, they’ re still looking for the police to find Yingying.”
Ronggao Zhang; his sister-in-law, Liqin Ye; and Ms. Zhang’s boyfriend traveled to Champaign-Urbana from China on June 17 to join in the search for Yingying, who they described as serious-minded but fun and committed to her family and her education.
Ms. Zhang arrived in Champaign-Urbana on April 24. Although she had the opportunity to study at other universities, she chose the UI because of its “very prominent reputation in the field of agriculture, ” said Hou, her boyfriend and a Ph. D. student in agriculture at Peking University in China.
Ms. Zhang received her master’s degree in environmental engineering last year from Peking University.
She met Hou about eight years ago in a college class. Their fields of study concerning crop productivity are similar.
The other main reason Zhang chose the UI, Hou said, was because she received enough money from a grant to afford to live and study here. She didn’ t want to be a financial burden to her parents, he said.
Neither of her parents went to college. Her father works as a truck driver at an electrical company and her mother is a housewife. Her only sibling, brother Xin Yang Zhang, 24, did not go to college.
Ms. Zhang’s plan, family and friends said, was to ultimately become an agriculture professor — maybe in China, maybe elsewhere.
“She was very excited to have the opportunity to come to the United States, not only to expand her research, but also more importantly to experience internationally and expand her views of various things and get a much broader perspective, ” Hou said in a recent interview.
It was a dreams of hers — “for a very long time, ” Hou said.
It was her first time in this country and her first major trip abroad, aside from once attending a professional conference in Holland, her boyfriend said.
Family members described Ms. Zhang as a self-sufficient, hard-working and studious young woman committed to her family back in Nanping in southeastern China.
Ms. Zhang’s commitment to her studies left her little time for outside interests, although Hou she likes to sing and plays the guitar. Her favorite song, friends said, was “The Rose, ” by Bette Midler.
“Since she was in grade school, she was the head of the class, ” her father said. “In grade school, they may have 30,40,50 students and the teacher would appoint someone to be the ‘leader’ of that classroom. Typically, that position goes to the best student in the class. She was always in that role since she was in grade school.”
