For doctoral student, determination to success trumps deafness

Judging by her fluent speech and bright smile, strangers likely won't be able to tell that 28-year-old Zhao Youzhu, who is outgoing and loves listening to music, is almost deaf.

Zhao comes from Liaoyang in Northeast China's Liaoning province. She was first diagnosed when she was 3, but with courage and persistence, she has been able to conquer one obstacle after another and ultimately became a doctoral student at Xiamen University, a prestigious college.

Although Zhao is modest when talking about her life, her story, which has been shared widely online recently, has inspired many.

Race against time

According to the World Health Organization, a hearing threshold at or above 20 decibels in both ears indicates hearing loss. Zhao's thresholds are both above 90 decibels, meaning that she is clinically deaf.

When she was a toddler, her parents, who are both doctors, didn't worry about her slow response to sounds, thinking that their daughter might just be developing more slowly than other children.

After Zhao started kindergarten in 1995, her teacher was concerned that she often seemed to be disobedient and preferred to play alone. When her parents were told, they began to suspect that the problem was more than behavioral or developmental. After being examined at a number of different hospitals, the young girl was eventually diagnosed with congenital neurological deafness in Beijing.

Her parents were plunged into anguish by the diagnosis, especially as they learned that their daughter's hearing loss could worsen as a result of colds, coughing or falling over, which might also add vertigo to her symptoms, and eventually lead her to become totally deaf and unable to speak. The couple understood the hardships she would face. Feeling like they were in a race against time, they tried to teach her as many different things as they could, including pinyin, quick calculations, lipreading, English and other survival skills, before she completely lost her hearing.

"We gave her a hearing aid, but when she wore it, sudden noises would frighten her, and she would burst into tears. She would look at us pleadingly as she tugged the strange device out of her ears with her little hands," Jin Guang, her mother, said.

Jin helped Zhao practice English every day, and she started primary school when she was 5, a year earlier than the required age. Over time, Zhao worked out a way to get the most out of her lessons.

She would sit in the front row, closely watching the teacher's mouth as they spoke. She quickly adapted to school life and began to outperform her classmates.

Dealing with health issues

Zhao read a great deal and often spent hours in book stores. Reading improved her writing skills and gave her more confidence, and it became one of the most effective ways for her to learn about the world.

Several sudden bouts of illness forced her out of school for extended periods while she underwent hospital treatment. With grit and determination, however, she overcame those difficulties, one after another.

In 2010, she was admitted to Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, where she majored in hydraulic and hydropower engineering.

Toward the end of her final year in 2013, she completely lost her hearing after coming down with a fever. She went to Changchun, Jilin province, for treatment and spent a whole year recovering in Liaoyang.

During the period, Zhao took the public service exam but because of her hearing problems, she failed. "During the interview, the interviewers sat a long way from me, and I couldn't hear the questions clearly. I tried to ask for written questions but they said no," Zhao said.

Later, she sat the postgraduate examination and was admitted to her alma mater, NAU, where she earned her master's in 2017. In 2019, Zhao became a doctoral student at the School of Environment and Ecology at Xiamen University in Fujian province.

Finding her path

"I am just an ordinary person, and I don't think I have much to show for my life experience. Everyone has their problems, it's just that my problems are more obvious than other peoples'," she said.

She usually doesn't tell people about her hearing issues, except for classmates who need to communicate with her. "I will take the initiative, in case they worry that my slow response is impolite. People who know me often slow down when speaking, so it's not me adapting to them, it's them adapting to me," she said.

Zhao has a healthy social circle of teachers, classmates, family and friends. Her parents taught her to be well-behaved and to try not to trouble others, advice she has taken to heart.

"I also complain about my fate occasionally, but everyone gets down sometimes," she said. "I lost something in my life, but I have received more from the world, like my family, who support me unconditionally, and my wonderful teachers, classmates and friends."

Zhao is determined to work in the marine sector, and hopes to continue her research at universities or institutes and contribute to national development through land and sea coordination. "Advances in technology, like speech-to-text transmission, are helping people like me, and the internet also offers many ways to gather information, allowing us to unite through other people's stories," she said. "I think I benefit from today's developments, and I hope that more people like me can explore their own careers by taking different approaches."