For a middle school social studies class homework assignment, it was not so unusual: write an essay about your personal philosophy.
What was unusual is that her essay put West Windsor teenager Ying Ying Yu in the national spotlight as the youngest person ever to read her words on “This I Believe”, a regular radio series on National Public Radio.
On a hot July day this past summer, when most teenagers were lounging at the pool or traveling with their families, Ying Ying was reading her essay into a microphone in an NPR broadcast heard around the country.
Now a freshman at West Windsor High School South, Ying Ying, in typical teenager fashion, says that she was embarrassed when she heard herself for the first time played back on a recording. “It sounded so personal. It came out kind of awkward. I thought it could have been better then and I still feel the same about it.” She tried to keep her 15 minutes of fame as quiet as possible, especially in front of her friends. “Actually I didn’t want people I know to know about it. There were lots of articles about me in the newspaper but I told my friends not to read them.”
“This I Believe” is broadcast within a national news program. Past participants have included some of the most powerful movers, shakers and thinkers in America: Bill Gates, Gloria Steinem, Colin Powell, and John McCain. The format is a personal essay that may galvanize people to think or to see things in a different way. Ying Ying wrote her essay as an eighth grader at Grover Middle School while studying Confucianism and philosophy.
“Mrs. Kirkpatrick told us to write the essay using the format for the ‘This I Believe’ radio show. I never thought it would be chosen. I was very surprised. It was just a homework assignment.” But what Ying Ying did with a spare but moving 500 words was anything but a routine homework assignment. She successfully crystallized her thoughts about why she was so driven to work hard at school and excel among her peers. Jay Allison, the host of the syndicated show, was the man who chose Ying Ying’s essay from among thousands of submissions. He said he was struck with the maturity and depth of the ideas behind her words. He admired the personal sacrifice that her beliefs about family and duty required in someone so young and he also noted her intellect — “she has a powerful brain.”
In explaining the motivation behind her work ethic, Ying Ying may be speaking for an entire generation of super-achieving, super-driven Chinese students in China and abroad who are hoping to smash existing grade curves and set the bar for academic achievement higher and higher every day. Her words, written almost matter-of-factly, nonetheless reflect some of the pain behind the face of the seemingly perfect student. “I am a good child, obedient. I grew up in China, a country where education is the center of every child’s life and a grade less than 85 percent is considered a failure. Grades mean more to us than a mother’s smile, more than the murmur of a wish lingering on birthday candles.”
For many years, her mother’s smile was indeed a rare sight for Ying Ying, an only child who was born in Ningbo, near Shanghai, the bustling port city and capital of China’s booming international commerce. She lived with her paternal grandparents near Shanghai from the time she was four until she was ten years old, while her parents pursued their careers in Beijing, China’s capital, many miles to the north.
“Since they worked in another city I only saw them summers,” she explains. “I was really proud of them because they were both important people in China. My mom was a college professor at Ren Min Da Xue, one of the most prestigious schools in China. My dad was a government official.” The family immigrated to the United States nine years ago, first living in Princeton, then moving to Boston, Manhattan, and then back to New Jersey. Ying Ying’s mother was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and now works for a medical firm in Princeton. Her father works on Wall Street.
Ying Ying explains that her parents are very private and don’t want to share their reactions to her essay or the fact that it has garnered so much attention. She does reveal that they did not know she wrote the essay that landed her on a national radio program or even heard it until the day of the recording. “I never showed them the essay before I turned it in. I didn’t want them to read it. The day I recorded it, when my mother came with me to the radio station, it was the first time she heard it and she said she was proud of me. She thought it was honest.”
The desire to earn the pride of parents and country is a big part of Ying Ying’s essay. She speaks of the first time she was allowed to wear the red scarf as a child, a symbol in China of responsibility, excellence, and loyalty, and a right that has to be earned. “I remember first grade, the red scarf flapping in the wind, wanting more than anything to be the first one to wear it, that the symbol of responsibility, excellence and loyalty. The first thing that flashed to mind when I put it on was how glad my family would be, how proud the motherland would be of the child it had borne, and how my accomplishments would look on a college application.”
Ying Ying describes the darker side of education in China — the corporal punishment that is still inflicted in Chinese schools to warn students always to be on their best behavior. And she talks about the relentless volume of work. “I had homework during lunch, math and language classes two times a day. There were punishments for not paying attention. I was beaten with a ruler. I learned to do anything to get a good grade.”
In some ways, however, she says that the competition she felt is China is not very much different than what she faces here. “In this district there’s a lot of competition. At High School South, the level of competition is very intense. Right now when I’m together with my friends we mostly talk about movies, music, plays, and classes. And then we start talking about the competition to get into a good college and we say to each other of course you’re going to get in, but I’m not going to get in because I’m so stupid. It’s like an ongoing argument. But I kind of worry about becoming competitors with my friends when we get to junior year.”
She’s taking Spanish 3 Accelerated, Honors Math, Honors Biology, Honors Language Arts, and World History. Orchestra is her elective and she plays first violin in the school orchestra. She participated in the academic decathlon and logs many hours of community service by helping the Red Cross with blood drives. She enjoys swimming, but says she has no time to be on a team. And when she has just a little bit of time left over in her busy schedule, she takes Tae Kwon Do classes just for fun. “There was so much less emphasis on sports in China, but here there is so much emphasis,” she observes.
Ying Ying received a prize of $200 for having her essay chosen for broadcast. It will also be published in a collection of “This I Believe” essays. Now that she’s won some national acclaim, what’s next on her horizon? College is several years away but she’s already got her eye on top schools like Yale or Harvard. She thinks she would like to be a lawyer doing international business with China but no matter where life takes her, she’s determined to be successful at whatever she does. It is, after all, her duty, as she explains in her essay. “We struggle on because duty reminds us that the awaiting success is not just for us. It’s for our families, our heritage and our country.”
The weight of such expectations seems like it might be too much to bear for someone so young, but Ying Ying takes it all in stride. “I think sometimes it’s true that the pressure is overwhelming you. From birth you’re taught that education is the key to everything. You want to relax, but then, deep down inside you don’t want to do that because the belief is established that you have to work hard. So I do.”
