At 10:30 am on November 4, a farewell ceremony for Xiaodan, a Chinese student who was killed in the stampede accident in Itaewon, was held in Teicheon City, North Chungcheong Province, South Korea. Xiaodan is 22 years old and from Ningbo, Zhejiang. Her father, sister and 20 Chinese classmates and friends attended the farewell ceremony.
Teacher Li Yang from Changchun University Employment and Entrepreneurship Guidance Center confirmed to the Beijing News reporter that Xiaodan is a student of the 2018 International Education College of the school. His major is Sino-foreign cooperative education , and he was awarded a three-year junior college degree. In the third academic year, students can choose to continue studying in the country or go to Semyung University in South Korea. In 2020, Xiaodan went to the School of International Education of Semyung University in South Korea to study business.
Since studying abroad, Xiaodan has not been home for two years. Originally, she planned to go back after the final exam on December 15, and had booked the air ticket in advance, but she spent the last hour of her life in the unusually congested crowd of Itaewon on October 29.
Ticheon City, where Xiaodan is located, is 150 kilometers away from Seoul. Starting from Shimei University in Thikawa City, it takes more than two hours to choose a bus or drive by yourself. No one knows how she decided to participate in this young people's carnival, and how she squeezed into the "deadly" alley with the flow of people.
Local time on November 2, 2022, after the stampede accident in Itaewon, Seoul, South Korea, people offered flowers to mourn. Photo source network
In the memories of many classmates, Xiaodan is a "quiet and simple" girl. She is 1.6 meters tall and has a middle-parted overshoulder hair. Sometimes she tied her hair into a ponytail and wore glasses. She liked to wear sweatshirts, jeans, and shoes. "I think she was very young."
She didn't have a high presence during her studies and class, and she didn't often raise her hands to speak in class. Ajie (pseudonym) is a classmate next door with her, and all the courses are in the same class and are also friends with her undergraduate roommate. In Ajie's impression, Xiaodan is not a person who likes to stand out. He doesn't participate in school activities and has two or three good friends.
She may be such a girl who doesn’t like to be arrogant and has been working hard for her studies and future. "She has good academic performance," Ajie recalled that there were 120 students in the major, and only 8 to 10 people were selected for the joint training program. She obtained this quota with her own efforts and went to South Korea. After studying language for one year, the next year, she began to study professional courses and applied for junior college to undergraduate, hoping to obtain an undergraduate degree from Shiming University.
If there is no such accident, she will graduate next summer. Among Korean students, Xiaodan is one of the few people who want to return to China to find a job. There are many employment opportunities for her major. In recent years, many people have entered the Internet celebrity companies that young people like.
On the day of the farewell ceremony, the temperature in Tikawa City was only 5-6℃. According to Ajie's recollection, Xiaodan's father only wore a thin sports jacket and an old backpack. His hair was pale and his eyes were swollen. He was supported by Xiaodan's sister all the way, looking very tired.
My sister was holding Xiaodan's portrait. In the photo, she had long hair over her shoulders and bangs, which was younger than Ajie's memory, without glasses, and was smiling quietly. On Xiaodan's coffin, there was a sentence written: "Don't worry, my sister will take good care of this family."
The father and sister said the last few words to Xiaodan. Ajie remembered that his father cried in dialect, and he only heard "My little girl!" At that time, several other families of Korean victims were also holding a farewell ceremony for the bodies, and the scene was once very sad.
0 At around 1:30 pm on the 4th, Ajie and his classmates stepped forward one by one and said goodbye to Xiaodan's family in the cold wind. Ajie remembered that Xiaodan's father bowed to them and finally said, "Thank you for accompanying Xiaodan."
Beijing News reporter Xu Qiaoli Cong Zhixiang
Editor Liu Qian Proofreading Liu Jun
