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)