France study dream dies as China woman succumbs to malaria in Africa after fleeing abusive family to make money

Tragic Zhou dreamed of studying in France and was willing to work hard in Africa to pay for it. Photo: Weibo

• Majors in French at university, finds job in Africa, dreams of France
• Dies from malaria, abusive family says 'no' to funeral, only take her property

A young woman from China who went to work overseas to escape her abusive family and pursue a dream of studying in France has died from malaria in Africa.

Zhou Yanling, 25, was born in a village in Yulin in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

She was determined to live in Africa after majoring in French at Guangxi University of Foreign Languages in 2021, despite what many considered the continent's environment challenging.

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Her reasons were straightforward.

The pay was good, so she could save enough money to further her studies in France and get away from close family who made it clear they preferred boys to girls.

Zhou was the eldest daughter with a sister who married at 16, and a younger brother. In China, the official legal age for females to marry is 20, but people in some rural regions still wed without registering.

A secondary school classmate, surnamed Lin, said Zhou's parents would verbally abuse her and expected her to buy things for her brother as soon as she started working.

Zhou was infected with malaria while working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in March. She received treatment, but died on April 2.

Shortly before her death, Zhou told her friends she only needed another year to save the one million yuan (US$140,000) required to realise her dream of studying in France. She also said she wanted to be in Paris for the 2024 Olympics.

After she passed away, Zhou's company contacted her parents and offered to pay for them to travel to the DRC for her funeral and bring her home.

They refused and asked the company and the Chinese embassy to scatter her ashes over the Congo River.

They also asked the embassy to send them her mobile phone, jewellery and bank cards.

Zhou's friends told Chinese magazine People that her parents had agreed on a compensation plan with the company.

Chinese people usually believe that "fallen leaves should return to their roots".

However, an online observer from the rural Guangxi region said they have a superstitious belief there that unmarried women are "rootless", so Zhou could not be buried properly even if her ashes were brought back.

Zhou's friends found it difficult to say goodbye, so as a memorial, they bought a spirit tablet for her at a Buddhist temple in Ningbo in eastern China's Zhejiang province, where she had spent happy times.

A university classmate, surnamed Zou, said she checked Zhou's social media posts regularly and she had expressed desire for "happiness" and "freedom" repeatedly.

"Life is too ridiculous. She lived and worked so hard to run away from her family, and her family harvested all her savings in the end," said one online observer on Weibo.

"She was so close to her dream, but I believe she is free as a bird now in another world, away from the land that once trapped her," another said.

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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