A daughter raised to two Chinese athletes who competed at Olympic levels is very complicated.
Firstly, straight away, it's almost like everyone expects you to succeed in everything. Strict training sessions, long hours of study. But, it does grant something. Stability, education and support.
Being raised to enjoy gymnastics, as well as being trained to excel in it, Kitty did just that. She was used to the routines, the schedules and the heavy training load and stress that was placed on her each day. She was a hard worker and fought to achieve success each and every day, despite having nearly every aspect of her life monitored and scheduled by trainers and doctors.
Her parents, thankfully thinking ahead about where their daughter might travel to in the future, hired an English tutor over the years to bring her up to a level where she can easily converse with a native English speaker. However there most likely will be a bit of confusion when it comes to slang. It was also this point, where she decided on taking the English name of Kitty Mao was a good idea, as it allowed people to remember her better, and additionally so they didn't mess up the spelling of Mao Qiaolian.
At the age of 12, after competing and finishing first in her age group, at an international competition, Kitty was thrust into the limelight of the local media. She was unfortunate enough to have won on a slow news day, and things seemed to snowball from there. Especially with her father trying, and even succeeding in getting her a small roll on a Chinese educational television series.
This went on for two years, before doctors advised her father that the stress was impacting on her training and athletic abilities, and teachers told him that her school grades were below average.
A family friend, who was also working in the media felt like it was a good chance to make some big money. So, after writing a slanderous article about China's Olympic team, and its coaches, he had it published in a western tabloid. This caused a lot of shock waves, especially towards Kitty's father, who was working as one of coaches at the Shenyang University, helping train other future Chinese champions.
The university pulled apart every aspect of their lives, as did the government. None of the allegations were proven true, and by the time that this was proven, Ling had long left China.
Life went back to normal for the family. However, unknown to Kitty, her brother, or even their mother, that her father was planning something, and had given into his greed. During another international event, he approached an American coach, and from there, his plans for wealth grew once more.
In exchange for a job training one of the teams, and an American Green Card, he would give Chinese training secrets to the American teams. So, telling his family that they were going on holidays, he lied to them all. In fact, he had carefully organized everything, but didn't take into consideration the chance of something untoward happening, like missing his flight due to his bicycle breaking its chain on the way from the university, while his children and wife boarded.
Everything was going to plan as well, until Ling was somehow tipped off by someone who knew, who then broke the story to the Chinese government via the media. Kitty's father's dream fell apart while he waited for the next available flight, and he was taken into custody, where he revealed everything.
The first Kitty, her mother and her brother knew, was when they arrived at the hotel and found their funds frozen, and had a message waiting. It was after contacting the authorities back home, that they found out what happened. While none of them were involved, their funds would remain frozen until every transaction had been scrutinized and the court case completed. Whenever that might be.
So with green cards, enough money to cover bond and rent, and no real support while being stranded for an unknown period of time, they were really out of their league, and because of their pride, wouldn't approach anyone in China for help. Thankfully Kitty's mother, Tiffany, used some commonsense and headed away from the bigger city areas, kept the Chinese government up to date with what she was doing, and found work as an independent translator and Mandarin tutor.
Kitty and her bother Tony were both enrolled in Seaside High School. It was upside-down world for Kitty, as she was no longer center of attention. She wasn't with the rich group, and she was essentially an outcast, and she could do things she never thought possible. It was a nice change for once.
Of course, with school coming to a close in a few days, she's seriously considering finding a job at the North Beach Resort, working as a dishwasher. If she can't be a member, she might as well do the next best thing and make a bit of spending money for herself, while waiting for next semester for the track try outs.
uninterested
