Yung Wing was born in Zhuhai in 1828 and educated by Christian missionaries. He traveled across the Pacific as a teenager and enrolled at Yale College, which later became Yale University. He is believed to be the first Chinese student to earn a degree from a North American university.
After graduating from Yale, Yung was instrumental in establishing a first-of-its-kind program to have students from his country study in the United States in the late 1800s. Today, schools in Zhuhai and surrounding areas take part in a number of international exchange programs, including a cooperative venture between this Chinese city and the Connecticut education department.
Yung Wing's statue sits outside the Zhuhai Yung Wing School, one of the most elite schools in the city. A similar statue can be found on Yale's campus, in New Haven, Conn. It was unveiled three years ago, during the 150th anniversary of Yung Wing's graduation from the American institution in 1854.
Zhuhai, used to be a quite fishing village on the South China Sea, has changed in 1980, when China's reformist leader Deng Xiaoping designated the city as one of the country's special economic zones. Foreign investment quickly flooded Zhuhai, which grew steadily and continues to surge economically to this day.
Yung, who died in 1912, was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, in Hartford, Conn. (Source: Sean Cavanagh, Education Week, Apr 10, 2007).