Chinn poses with a duplicate of ‘The Gray Bird Sings’ behind her work desk | Submitted by Betty Chinn
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Most folks in Humboldt know of native philanthropist Betty Chinn, who has spent the final 4 many years working tirelessly to assist serve our homeless neighborhood, and plenty of would possibly even be conversant in her harrowing life story, which has been written about by many local and national news sites.
Now a extra detailed account of the life and work of Chinn is available for many who want to study extra about our native hero, in a brand new e-book written by Karen M. Price, The Gray Bird Sings: The Extraordinary Life of Betty Kwan Chinn, which was simply launched earlier this week.
“It goes much deeper,” Chinn informed the Outpost of the e-book throughout a cellphone interview on Friday afternoon. “There’s much [more] information about what happened to me.”
The writer, Price, and Chinn have had a relationship for a lot of years, which Price stated was sparked by her husband, a retired Presbyterian minister, who did plenty of work to assist Chinn’s efforts to assist the homeless. Price, a retired psychologist, had heard a lot of Chinn’s tales all through the years and stated she started writing them down about 15 years in the past, pondering that she would sometime publish them in a e-book.
Price retired in 2018, and when COVID hit she felt that she lastly had the time to put in writing the total e-book, and about two years in the past she began working intently with Chinn to finish the biography. Price understands that Chinn is a well-covered native determine and that a few of the data within the e-book won’t be new to many readers.
“Some of it will be stories they’ve already heard, and some of the stories they will never have heard, because some of them [Betty] hasn’t publicly told,” Price informed the Outpost in a cellphone interview. “But it’s also placing it in her family context and historical context in China with probably a little more thoroughgoing way than has been able to be done before. And then tying it in with her sense of mission and purpose and where that was born. It was born in her suffering.”
The e-book particulars Chinn’s formative years in China’s Guangdong province throughout Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, and her spending years residing on the streets after she was expelled from her home, her mom was jailed and her siblings had been despatched to labor camps.
The title, The Gray Bird Sings alludes to a pivotal reminiscence of Chinn’s, a narrative that she has talked about in previous interviews, when she had a second of hope whereas residing in a childhood nightmare. The Red Guard had certain Chinn’s arms and toes and tied her to a tree close to a rubbish dump. Suffering bodily torture and humiliation, Chinn was prepared to just accept loss of life, till slightly grey chicken landed on her.
An excerpt from the e-book’s introduction:
The chicken stayed quietly on her shoulder, and by some means from tiny creature to tortured lady, eye to eye, a connection was made… As tiny as the grey chicken was, the kid was shocked to seek out that she might see it flying into the horizon for fairly a while. The little lady sat up. In a wholly uncommon prevalence, the guards had failed to come back. If that grey chicken might fly away, possibly she too might discover a option to fly out of her scenario. Maybe there was hope.
She selected to stay one other day.
Price stated that she selected this story for the e-book’s title as a result of it captures “fundamental events that happened to her during her years of torture, that gave her the hope to survive,” including that she hopes the e-book “will inspire other people that have coped in the midst of great hardship.”
Of course, the e-book doesn’t solely cowl the hardships of Chinn’s previous, but in addition follows her journey via transferring to the United States, marriage, two youngsters, her work with the homeless, opening the Betty Kwan Chinn Day Center and the worldwide recognition she’s acquired.
Chinn does probably not love accepting recognition and at all times desires to convey the main focus again to her work and the folks she helps. So it isn’t stunning that she informed the Outpost, “This isn’t really about me. [It’s] about encouragement for other people who suffer.”
But she did add that telling her tales for this e-book has helped her work via some still-emerging reminiscences and take extra time to work via the trauma she skilled. “I’m more and more coming out to myself,” she stated. “I never see the puzzle of my life. I’m still searching for my life.”
The Gray Bird Sings, printed by The Press at Cal Poly Humboldt, may be downloaded for free via Cal Poly Humboldt, and the paperback is available for buy on Amazon. Price and Chinn are taking no income from the e-book and 100% of the gross sales go to funding the Betty Kwan Chinn Homeless Foundation.
“I would like to say, and I will say this to anyone who asks, that writing this book was the greatest privilege of my life,” Price stated. “I’m so grateful that she was willing to share her story with me.”
