The girl who got into a car

Before Zheng Shaoxiong (Dennis), there was Zhang Yingying, a female student murdered in Illinois, the United States, in 2017.

The similarities in the fates of the two Chinese students are unnerving. Dennis, 24, a Master of Arts graduate at the University of Chicago, was shot to death in a mugging incident in November 2021. Zhang, 26, a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was brutally murdered in June 2017.

Both exemplary students died in the state of Illinois which has 125 colleges and universities where many foreigners, including Chinese students, attend school in the hope of getting an American education. Some Chinese parents believe a foreign education would set up their children for a promising career and eventually provide for their families back home. Others sadly did not reach their goals.

I watched the heartbreaking documentary Finding Yingying filmed by her friend Jenny Shi. The film tells Yingying's story through her diary and follows her family and boyfriend as they navigate the US judicial system over a period of two years until her killer, a man named Brendt Allen Christensen, is arrested and convicted in 2019.

The film shows that Yingying comes from a poor family in Nanping, a small city in Fujian province in East China. She had always wanted to study in the US to finish her PhD in biology studies. Although her parents could not afford to send her abroad, they supported her dream.

When they learned of her death, the parents blamed themselves. The film shows the father and the mother sobbing because they allowed her to go to the US. The film also shows the humble family home in Nanping where piles of Yingying's books can be seen atop tables and cabinets. She loved to study. Her mother used to ask her, "But when will you stop?"

On that fateful day, according to the film, Yingying has an appointment with a leasing agent. Somehow she misses her bus stop and finds herself in an unfamiliar location. CCTV cameras show her looking lost and disoriented. The film shows a dark-colored car passing, circling around and stopping as it approaches Yingying. She gets into the car.

That's as far as the film could show. The police continued the rest of the story in a narrative: The driver of the car, who turns out to be the abductor, took her to his apartment where her life would tragically end. Investigators say in the film that Christensen "pretended to be a cop".

Chinese friends of Yingying interviewed by the filmmaker say they could understand why she got inside the car. She thought she was speaking with a police officer. Another one says she was running late for her meeting with the leasing agent and she is the kind of person who did not like being late.

The film shows what a sick, depraved individual Christensen, a PhD student in the same school, was then. He even attended a vigil parade for Yingying around the campus.

Finding Yingying is an honest narrative of the life of a young Chinese scholar driven to become an accomplished scientist "so I can make lots of money to empower myself so I can take care of my family". How many Chinese students have the same wish for themselves?

Some Chinese students see takeaways from the lives of Dennis and Yingying. Asking for help is always a good thing to keep in mind, also not to be too trusting even though the local community appears to be a friendly neighborhood. They also remind themselves to always be in the company of friends when going to places.

Chinese students are resilient and smart people and can excel anywhere. The stories of Dennis and Yingying are painful lessons and useful reminders.