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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 13th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2010> Number One in the world—Wang Xiao-Yu from Australia
From autistic to a pilot
      Wang Xiao-Yu, the first year graduate student at the Social Science Department of University of Melbourne, Australia, had attended the examination of International Baccalaureate (IB) held by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and defeated 60,000 competitors from around the world with a high score of 99.95. She was the champion of the test, who was also the youngest female IB champion in the history of the United Nations. After entering the college, she obtained the national student awards of Australia at the age of nineteen. At the age of twenty, she obtained the Excellence of Student Social Service Award, Victoria and was selected as a teaching assistant at her school. At twenty-one, she obtained the title of “ Australia 's outstanding young women” and was elected as the president of the Youth Work Committee of Victoria, Australia.
      Xiao-Yu was diagnosed with serious autism since she was little. Her parents Wang Zheng-Liang and Fang Chien-Chun guided her with meticulous care. She not only performed well in school, but also became the most popular volunteer worker in the elderly service center in the community of Melbourne , the cancer aid center, and African refugee aid center. Since her eighteenth birthday, she has donated 500m l of blood each month, instilling hope into children with cancer, and challenged herself by earning the pilot license in her freshman year. With the dream of flying in the blue sky, her ambition was even higher than the sky. Elected as the President of the Youth Work Committee of Victoria, Australia, she was also accredited with the Excellence in Student Award of Australia, Excellence in Social Service Award, and Outstanding Youth Award in Australia .
 
 
A child who did not dare to run when hit by other children

      Xiao-Yu was not as active as other infants. She did not cry, laugh, or monkey around; she was afraid of strangers and particularly quiet. Since her parents were busy working, she was sent to the kindergarten. From the morning to 2~3pm, she often held a doll and did not play with other children. Her teacher was not concerned about her situation and considered her easy to handle, since there were a lot of children to care for. Nevertheless, her parents were worried about her. Every time they picked her up, they felt bad to see their daughter standing lonely in the corner while other kids happily played with each other.
      Later, when Wang Zheng-Liang and his wife studied in Australia , their daughter was left behind. Three years later, they could either choose to stay in Australia or work at their home country. Based on their educational background, they could easily have good jobs with high pay, but when they thought of their daughter's illness, they were worried that their daughter could not thrive in the competitive environment. Since the environment of Australia was relatively flexible, they thought it was better for their daughter's development and decided to stay in Australia .
 
 
First day of school—the hard task of going to the restroom
      This year, Wang Xiao-Yu was five years old.
      Leaving their daughter for three years, she was still afraid to see strangers though she grew much taller. Her illness even became more serious, and even cried for going back to China . It made Wang Zheng-Liang and his wife delight and worry. Since children in Australia began elementary education earlier, after a while Xiao-Yu began schooling. However, Wang Zheng-Liang and his wife, who just started working did not have much time taking care of their daughter. They could only afford to squeeze three days from their busy schedule to teach their daughter basic English. The word that taught the most was “toilet.” Until their daughter could fluently say this word did they feel safe for sending her to school.
      Unexpectedly, “toilet” became a huge problem on the first day of school.
      Unfamiliar environment, language, classmates and teachers all made Xiao-Yu even more skeptical and nervous. She felt the need to go to the bathroom, but forgot about the word, so she put her hand down and endured it. The teacher saw her shaking with a pale face and asked about her situation, she could not express it. In a panic, her teacher found a Chinese boy in the fifth grade to talk to her and solved the puzzle. Under the surprised gaze of her classmates, the fifth grade student took her to the restroom at maximum speed.
      Hearing about the incident, Wang Zheng-Liang did not know whether to laugh or to cry, so he repeatedly taught his daughter how to say “I want to go to toilet.”
      On the second day, Xiao-Yu wanted to go to the restroom again, but the word she just reviewed on her way to school was completely flew out of the window. Luckily, she improvised a way to solve this problem. Since she already knew where the restroom was, why wouldn't she go by herself? So she did not raise her hand and just ran towards the restroom. The teacher was shocked and told another student to follow her. Realizing the girl was gone for the restroom, the teacher could not help but laugh.
      Maybe this was the first time in her life that Xiao-Yu made the decision on her own!
      Due to the language barrier, she could not understand even a word about what her teacher said.
      At the end of the semester, her class instructor wrote her the comments: in this year, she could not understand the things she must know. She was also afraid to make friends with others. Are there problems with her mentality and intelligence? I recommend that parents take her to the psychiatrist and take an intelligence test.
      And thus, Wang Zheng-Liang took her to the doctor. After the diagnosis, the doctor said, “Her intelligence is normal, but she is under tremendous psychological pressure.”
      Instantly, Wang Zheng-Liang thought about Einstein. Before fifth grade, his teacher thought that he had some mental issues. He said to his doctor: “Isn't my daughter's situation very much like that of Einstein?”
      The doctor laughed hard and said: “You child will be absolutely no problem with a confident father like you!” The doctor told Wang Zheng-Liang that communicating with his daughter more often was the best way to alleviate her pressure.
 
 
The father that talked to his daughter one and half hour a day
      After taking his daughter home, Wang Zheng-Liang reflected deeply. His daughter's autism and psychic pressure was directly caused by his insufficient care. When she was little, he was busy working and studying abroad, and left her inadequate love. After he and his wife studied abroad, they even dumped her in their home country. Worse than that, when they took her to Australia , they were both busy working, making money and still dumped her to the school!
      Wang Zheng-Liang thought, since they lacked communication, they should spend more efforts on communication. So regardless how busy he was, he talked to his daughter at least one and half hour a day! The topic of discussion was mainly about his daughter's daily activities. Despite how trivial these things were and how disorganized she described it, Wang Zheng-Liang was attentive to his daughter, and made comments at the right moment. Gradually, his daughter spoke more often and more reasonably.
      To Wang Xiao-Yu, it was a touching thing that her father would listen carefully to her, since so far in her life no one would respect her and listen to her attentively. She always felt a sense of loss and invisibility. And now, she felt that she was the greatest person in the world. Her father listened to her with respect and solved problems with her. She felt that she was important and cared for, and had a sense of achievement.
      If the daily communication between her father and her was a start, a long process of socialization, the computer brought to their home was the turning point that made Xiao-Yu move from being autistic to being confident.
 
 

A computer that marks the turning point of her life
      At the age of eight, Xiao-Yu's school sent a letter to parents, the purpose of which was to announce that the school would introduce computers into their school and open computer courses so that students could become familiar with advanced technology. At that period, home computers were just introduced to the market. The price was expensive even to the advanced country like Australia . Since a school can only afford to have a few computers, each child could only spend less than five minutes on the computer. In individual households, only rich families could afford to buy one computer.
      At the moment when Wang Zheng-Liang received the letter, an idea emerged from his mind: at home, though he and his daughter communicated well, his daughter still could not stand out among her classmates at school. If she could not draw her classmates' attention, she could not be confident. Since the school was so concerned with the computer lessons, and if they could buy a computer, their daughter could learn to use a computer everyday, and she might learn better than other students and gained confidence from it.
      Although they just bought a house and was under the strain of mortgage, Wang Zheng-Liang did not hesitate to spend his half-year saving on the computer. Compared to her peers who were only allowed to spend five minutes on the computer, Xiao-Yu could use it every day. Soon she become a little computer expert in the eyes of her classmates. All classmates and even teachers asked her questions about computers. She became a central figure of her classmates. Classmates rushed to talk to her; simultaneously, she had more and more friends. She not only became more confident, but also had more opportunities practicing linguistic and social skills. She became self-assertive, extrovert, generous, and happy to help others. Since the fifth and sixth grade, she started to go to school with joy and liked to learn.
      She became an independent person in the society and successfully blended into her classmates
 
 
Being a volunteer worker, feeling the happiness in helping people, feeling the preciousness of health.
      Wang Xiao-Yu's first time being a volunteer worker was at the age of fourteen. She went to the hospital and took care of children with cancer. Singing with and reading stories to them, she felt sorry for those kids lying on the bed with pale faces and intubated bodies. She decided to devote herself to make them happy.
      Every time she finished her volunteer job, regardless the weather being sunny or windy, she felt that the world was beautiful and enjoyed the sweetness of freedom to walk in the street offered by her healthy body. At the same time, she exclaimed about the illness of those children, who might die at any moment. Even though they had little hope, they still smiled and laughed. Why would she have the right to feel unhappy and gloomy?
      She felt deeply that it was the happiest thing to help others and a blessing to have a healthy body.
 
 
In return for her parents and gave up University of Oxford

      The annual national examination held by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization included six subjects: two languages, math, physics or chemistry, art, and human science. In addition to that, test takers were required to do two hundred hours of volunteer work.
      The total score of six subjects was 600. Wang Xiao-Yu scored 599.95 on the test, who deserved the title of Number One in the World. Gaining this score meant acquiring the admission from prestigious schools around the globe. Although she wanted to go to the Oxford University , she gave up her dream school for the University of Melbourne because she was a citizen of Australia , and the UK does not grant scholarship to students from developed countries. The living expenses were also much higher in UK than in Australia , which meant that her parents had to bear the financial burden of 100,000 AUD. She decided that the burden was too heavy for her parents, especially when they had sacrificed for her a lot. The scores she achieved could be a return for her parents. If she went to the University of Melbourne , their parents could be exempted from paying her tuition. The school would also give her living expenses of 6,000 AUD. Exempted from paying the tuition, she could also benefited her parents financially, physically, and emotionally by taking care of her little sister. Xiao-Yu had two expectations before attending the college entrance test: one was to go to the University of Oxford and another was to pay back to her parents. In her view, her parents were getting old, and thus it was more important to show gratitude to her parents than become a student of the University of Oxford .
      Her parents were touched by her decision to give up the University of Oxford . For compensation, they offered 17,000 AUD to let her learn how to pilot a flight. Xiao-Yu learned fast and soon she got a license for piloting medium and small flight. Every time she piloted a flight in the blue sky, she had brand new feelings about life. Looking down from the sky, houses and humans became so trivial regardless of their height and social ranking. This in turn influenced her perspective of world and life.
 
 
Caring for China ; wishes for China to fly high

      As a president of the Youth Work Committee, Xiao-Yu competed for two spots of full scholarship for Chinese students by negotiating with the high school of Melbourne . She intended to make the intelligence of Chinese people known to the mainstream of Australia . As a Chinese Australian, she hoped to do service for Chinese people, to make China develop faster and to become a bigger world nation.