Diaspora Diaries

Tien Ching cried when she read Sheng Xuxia's letter. A student at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics in northeast China, Sheng wrote a letter to Tien in March of 2007, but it took three months for her to mail it. She needed time to save the 80 cents she had to pay for postage.

Sheng's mother was chronically ill and had been for years. Her father, a carpenter, lost three of his fingers in an accident and no longer had a job. On top of that, her family was too poor to afford medical treatment for her brother who was afflicted with a mental condition. So, when Sheng took the entrance exam for Tianjin University, she took it only to prove to herself she was capable. However, with a donation from Tien's organization, the BC Society for Educating Girls of Rural China (EGRC), Sheng is today at university, fulfilling a dream she never thought she could.

Sheng is one of more than 100 girls from rural villages in China's Gansu province who have received scholarships from Tien's organization. Tien gave birth to ERGC in 2005 out of a desire to give young women the opportunity to acquire a university education, an opportunity she was denied growing up during China's Cultural Revolution.

Like Sheng, Tien yearned for years to have the opportunity to go to university. Unlike Sheng, she was not born in a small rural village, but in China's capital Beijing. She went to school where the daughters of communist China's Chairman Mao Zedong and communist party leader Deng Xiaoping were sent, along with other daughters of China's elite.

Hers was a privileged life, being the daughter of Tien Li, a man considered a hero for helping The Flying Tigers, the famous group of WWII American pilots who fought the Japanese. However, in one night in 1966 says Tien, "The whole world went upside down." Teachers at our school were forced to lower their heads when they spoke. Students were given Red Guard clothes and wigs to wear on their heads. Many students became evil and a group of them beat our principal to death," says Tien. Not long after Tien was removed from the prestigious all-girls middle school in Beijing.

"All the young people, the children of intellectuals were sent to the countryside, to be re-educated by working class people, by peasants," says Tien. She and her mother were sent to Gansu province. Her mother Xiao Shu Hua was tortured on a number of occasions by members of Mao's Red Guard. The communists had jailed her father in 1958. He dared to speak out against the regime and for that was imprisoned for 12 years. "The communists put him in jail when I was only six. He was in jail all the time I was growing up. The first time I saw him, I was 18," says Tien. "By then he was a stranger."

Group shot with Tien

Under Mao Zedong's Red Guard, made up mostly of groups of young people, millions were imprisoned, tortured or killed. "Some would jump into the river and kill themselves because they didn't want to be tortured," says Tien.

Tien, her mother and father managed to escape death during the revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976. Tien, however, never got the chance to go to university, working in a chemical factory until she was 26. Her mother died in 1994 and today her 89-year old father lives in a seniors' home in Beijing.

Tien eventually left China in 1983. President Richard Nixon's visit to the Republic in 1972 thawed relations between China and the United States, making it easier for Chinese citizens to migrate. With the help of friends and a sponsor in Canada, Tien arrived in Vancouver in June. Not long after she married and gave birth to two children, a son and a daughter.

Tien and her husband eventually divorced. She took over the small art gallery and framing business he established. By then, she had learned to speak English. With a university degree still in the back of her mind, she ran the business and cared for the children.

Once her son was in university, friends encouraged Tien to pursue her dream. But a concert where her daughter performed as a member of the Vancouver Children's Choir turned her attention towards helping the new generation of young women in China who long for a university education, but don't have the means.

"My daughter was 14 then and they were singing for UNICEF. At the end of the concert a woman told the audience, the money raised is going to a programme called Go Girls to educate young women in three countries in Africa. Then she said I believe if a woman is educated, her children will be educated," says Tien. I was totally inspired by this idea."

Two years later Tien established EGRC.

"I wanted to go back to China to take a look at the situation, to help those women who didn't have a chance to go to university," says Tien. "I thought that is more meaningful. They are young, probably as desperate as I was, although what they face today is poverty, not political persecution."

Tien returned for the first time to Gansu province in 2005, gathering information and listening to the stories of young women she met in villages. On her return Tien looked for ways to raise the money she needed.

Group shot with Tien

She held art auctions, convinced young musicians to perform for fundraising events and through art gallery patrons began raising money, providing girls in Gansu province with scholarships ranging from $300 to $1000.

Tien plans to increase her fundraising efforts to support as many young women as possible through four years of university. She visits the girls each year and says she sees their transformation.

"They gain confidence and you can tell they have learned a lot. In the first year, all the new girls are shy and timid. After one or two years at university, they are much happier and more confident. They laugh, talk to me and ask many questions," says Tien.

EGRC now sponsors 124 young women. All are from remote villages and are either orphans or have parents who are in poor health or handicapped. "Despite these difficulties and desperate situations, all 44 girls sponsored in 2007 achieved high marks in their entrance exams," says Tien.

Although not a university graduate, Tien was invited by a local university women's club to be their keynote speaker on International Women's Day in 2007. She is often asked for advice by women interested in helping young women from their countries of origin gain an education.

"Educating women is a world issue. I think this is a fundamental way to make the world a better place," says Tien, whose donation Sheng described in her letter as "a star falling into her hands from the sky."