Her family encouraged her to pursue a career such as teaching or being a doctor, a career that would serve the civil society of the new Republic. Even in pursuing these new careers Chao would encounter gendered expectations, yet she pursued her own aspirations and thrived despite them. For example, when Chao was appointed principal of the Ch’ungshih school, she remembers overhearing a crowd waiting outside her office, questioning her competence and claiming she would ruin the school (Chao, 1947, 112). Yet when it was time for her to leave, she remembers the students and their representatives begging her not to leave (Chao, 1947, 127). In addition, when she was in medical school in Japan, Chao remembers being disturbed by a Chinese government decree declaring that women students should specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, stating that she did not want to be so limited (Chao, 1947, 146-147). She sticks to her own interest in internal medicine, which served her well when she opened her own hospital in Peiping, as her expertise was desperately needed (Chao, 1947, 158-159). Even more impressive, Chao held both positions, as a principal and a doctor, as an unmarried woman. She took control of her own life, breaking the engagement with her cousin because she did not want to be married, though her use of self-deprecation in her letter illustrated that she did not simply completely disregard ideas about gender (Chao, 1947,
Her family encouraged her to pursue a career such as teaching or being a doctor, a career that would serve the civil society of the new Republic. Even in pursuing these new careers Chao would encounter gendered expectations, yet she pursued her own aspirations and thrived despite them. For example, when Chao was appointed principal of the Ch’ungshih school, she remembers overhearing a crowd waiting outside her office, questioning her competence and claiming she would ruin the school (Chao, 1947, 112). Yet when it was time for her to leave, she remembers the students and their representatives begging her not to leave (Chao, 1947, 127). In addition, when she was in medical school in Japan, Chao remembers being disturbed by a Chinese government decree declaring that women students should specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, stating that she did not want to be so limited (Chao, 1947, 146-147). She sticks to her own interest in internal medicine, which served her well when she opened her own hospital in Peiping, as her expertise was desperately needed (Chao, 1947, 158-159). Even more impressive, Chao held both positions, as a principal and a doctor, as an unmarried woman. She took control of her own life, breaking the engagement with her cousin because she did not want to be married, though her use of self-deprecation in her letter illustrated that she did not simply completely disregard ideas about gender (Chao, 1947,