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| China Mourns the Death of a Student in Boston Blast | China Mourns the Death of a Student in Boston Blast |
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| HONG KONG - Mourning for a Chinese student who was the third victim killed in the Boston Marathon bombing rippled across her home country on Wednesday, when Internet sites and news reports described and celebrated a young woman whose ambitions for a career in finance were cut harshly short. | HONG KONG - Mourning for a Chinese student who was the third victim killed in the Boston Marathon bombing rippled across her home country on Wednesday, when Internet sites and news reports described and celebrated a young woman whose ambitions for a career in finance were cut harshly short. |
| Boston University and the Chinese Consulate General in New York have said the victim was a graduate student at the school, but the consulate said her family asked that no personal details be disclosed. But a classmate, a Chinese university official and a state-run newspaper in her home city have said she was Lu Lingzi, who accompanied a friend to watch the Boston Marathon from near where the blasts shook the streets. | Boston University and the Chinese Consulate General in New York have said the victim was a graduate student at the school, but the consulate said her family asked that no personal details be disclosed. But a classmate, a Chinese university official and a state-run newspaper in her home city have said she was Lu Lingzi, who accompanied a friend to watch the Boston Marathon from near where the blasts shook the streets. |
| Even without government confirmation that Ms. Lu was killed in the bomb blast on Monday, Chinese Internet sites filled with mournful messages about a woman in her mid-twenties whose ambitions took her from a rust-belt hometown of Shenyang to Beijing and then the United States. Her account on Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese service used by tens of millions of people, attracted more than 10,000 messages, mostly of condolence, in the hours after Chinese media widely reported her death. | Even without government confirmation that Ms. Lu was killed in the bomb blast on Monday, Chinese Internet sites filled with mournful messages about a woman in her mid-twenties whose ambitions took her from a rust-belt hometown of Shenyang to Beijing and then the United States. Her account on Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese service used by tens of millions of people, attracted more than 10,000 messages, mostly of condolence, in the hours after Chinese media widely reported her death. |
| “You are in heaven now, where there are no bombs,” said one typical message. | “You are in heaven now, where there are no bombs,” said one typical message. |
| Ms. Lu’s own final message on Weibo, the Chinese microblogging service, was posted on Monday and showed a picture of a bowl of Chinese fried bread, and said “My wonderful breakfast.” Ms. Lu, shown on her Weibo page as a petite woman with thick, shoulder-length hair, said there that she enjoyed food, music and finance. Other Facebook photos showed her in poses at Toah Nipi, a Christian retreat center in southern New Hampshire. | Ms. Lu’s own final message on Weibo, the Chinese microblogging service, was posted on Monday and showed a picture of a bowl of Chinese fried bread, and said “My wonderful breakfast.” Ms. Lu, shown on her Weibo page as a petite woman with thick, shoulder-length hair, said there that she enjoyed food, music and finance. Other Facebook photos showed her in poses at Toah Nipi, a Christian retreat center in southern New Hampshire. |
| Although mutual perceptions of China and the United States are often overshadowed by political rancor, Ms. Lu’s death gave a melancholy face to the attraction that America and its colleges exert over many young Chinese. More than 194,000 Chinese students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities in the 2011-12 academic year, far exceeding any other country outside the United States, according to the Institute of International Education. And Boston, with its many colleges and the cachet of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long been a magnet for them. | Although mutual perceptions of China and the United States are often overshadowed by political rancor, Ms. Lu’s death gave a melancholy face to the attraction that America and its colleges exert over many young Chinese. More than 194,000 Chinese students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities in the 2011-12 academic year, far exceeding any other country outside the United States, according to the Institute of International Education. And Boston, with its many colleges and the cachet of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long been a magnet for them. |
| Ms. Lu, whose resume boasts of a succession of academic achievements and internships with financial firms, appeared to be among the many hoping that a U.S. degree would pave the way to a prestigious job in finance or business. She went to high school in Shenyang in northeast China, a cradle of state-driven industrialization that fell on hard times in the 1990s, and then studied international trade at the Beijing Institute of Technology, and statistics at Boston University, according to her resume on LinkedIn, a social networking Web site, where she also gave her score on the Graduate Record Examinations. | Ms. Lu, whose resume boasts of a succession of academic achievements and internships with financial firms, appeared to be among the many hoping that a U.S. degree would pave the way to a prestigious job in finance or business. She went to high school in Shenyang in northeast China, a cradle of state-driven industrialization that fell on hard times in the 1990s, and then studied international trade at the Beijing Institute of Technology, and statistics at Boston University, according to her resume on LinkedIn, a social networking Web site, where she also gave her score on the Graduate Record Examinations. |
| The American embassy in Beijing said it had been in contact with the dead woman’s family in China, as well as the family of a graduate student from Chengdu, in southwestern China, who was “gravely wounded” in the blast. | |
| “We stand ready to provide any assistance to the family members to ensure they are able to personally deal with this tragedy as quickly and easily as possible,” an embassy statement said. “Our hearts go out to the families of all victims of this senseless act of violence.” | |
| In China, the Shenyang Evening News, a state-run newspaper that announced Ms. Lu’s death on its Weibo account, darkened its Web page in honor of “A Shenyanger who passed away in a far away place.” An editor at the newspaper said Ms. Lu’s father confirmed his daughter’s death. | |
| At the heart of the public mourning, however, there was a very private grief. Ms. Lu’s classmates, and students at her former college in Beijing, were reluctant to talk publicly about her death, other than to say that they respected her family’s wishes for privacy | At the heart of the public mourning, however, there was a very private grief. Ms. Lu’s classmates, and students at her former college in Beijing, were reluctant to talk publicly about her death, other than to say that they respected her family’s wishes for privacy |
| A Ph.D. student in the School of Management and Economics, where Ms. Lu once studied, said she was surprised that the Chinese media had disclosed her name. | A Ph.D. student in the School of Management and Economics, where Ms. Lu once studied, said she was surprised that the Chinese media had disclosed her name. |
| “Terrorist attacks always seem far away, yet suddenly it was so close,” said the student, who declined to give her name. “Some friends were thinking about applying for further studies in Boston. They’re quite worried.” | “Terrorist attacks always seem far away, yet suddenly it was so close,” said the student, who declined to give her name. “Some friends were thinking about applying for further studies in Boston. They’re quite worried.” |
| Wang Yao, a graduate student, who said she was Ms. Lu’s former classmate, begged reporters to leave the grieving family alone. “They asked to be left alone,” said Ms. Wang. “And that’s also the general understanding among our peer classmates,” she said | |
| At a daily news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, discussed the Chinese victims, while not releasing the dead student’s name. | At a daily news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, discussed the Chinese victims, while not releasing the dead student’s name. |
| “Chinese leaders and the government are very concerned about the tragic death of a Chinese student and the severe injury of another in the Boston Marathon bombing case on April 15th,” Ms. Hua told reporters. She said the surviving student suffered serious injuries, but her “condition is quite stable.” | “Chinese leaders and the government are very concerned about the tragic death of a Chinese student and the severe injury of another in the Boston Marathon bombing case on April 15th,” Ms. Hua told reporters. She said the surviving student suffered serious injuries, but her “condition is quite stable.” |
Additional research by Mia Li and Patrick Zuo in Beijing, and Mary Hui in Hong Kong. | Additional research by Mia Li and Patrick Zuo in Beijing, and Mary Hui in Hong Kong. |