A Spark That Never Dies
“This photograph captures me at the 120th anniversary of Xiangya Hospital and the 24th Annual Conference of the Chia Fellowship Health Program, administered by the Yale-China Association and funded by the Chia Family Foundation. On the screen behind me, in quiet letters, is my deepest gratitude: “Thank you, my Chia project mentor, Professor Joanne Iennaco.”
But that moment was not merely a presentation on rural elderly care, nor the sharing of our digital innovations now reaching western Hunan (2024-2025). It was the living evidence of a journey that began more than a decade ago.
In the winter of 2013, I arrived in New Haven as a Chia Fellow, hosted by Yale-China. There, Mr. Chia Peiyuan gathered four of us and shared the founding vision of the Chia Health Program—a vision, born years earlier, of planting seeds of health and hope across China. I still remember the cold outside, and the warmth inside that room.
That seed grew into my first Chia project (2013-2014): systematically adapting behavioral activation for rural elders. Then came a China Medical Board project (2023-2025) on clinical education and community practice. And now, a second Chia project—bringing digital innovation and behavioral activation deep into the mountains of western Hunan.”
“Throughout these years, Professor Joanne Iennaco never stopped guiding me. Her mentorship did not end when my Chia project officially concluded; instead, it has continued across time and oceans—through every challenge, every new direction, every step forward. Along the way, I have moved from a clinical nurse to a doctoral advisor, a Chia program mentor here in western Hunan, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Two of my mentees, Wenling Yang and Yujiao Wu, chose to stay in western Hunan—now serving our rural elderly with their own hands. And my
master’s student, Gang Gan, has stepped into the very role I once held: a new Chia Fellow.
Together, we care for the mental health of older adults in China’s most remote regions. We carry with us not only clinical skills, but the memory of that winter in New Haven, and the bridges Yale-China has built across the Pacific—bridges of education, medicine, and public health.
So I offer this picture as a small flame. Not for myself, but for what it represents: a spark that was lit in 2013 and has never gone out. May it ignite others. May it travel across mountains and seas, from generation to generation. For I choose to be a spark of Yale-China—here on Chinese soil, burning on, and on.”
Professor Joanne Iennaco and her former Chia Fellow Xie Jianfei, stand together in the Century‑old History Museum of Xiangya School of Nursing — a shared moment within red walls, where our continued fellowship speaks across time
A blessing from two Chia hearts in Xiangya’s hundred-year-old hall,
Where nursing first heard her call,
This photo keeps our quiet trace—Your gentle steps, my warm embrace.
Dear Joanne, we stood in red-walled light,
A mentor's heart, a fellow’s might.
And in Yale’s library, time stands still—Two red-brick worlds, one shared will.
From Yuelu’s pines to East Rock’s height,
From Xiangjiang’s waves to Atlantic’s night,
One river learns the ocean’s name— Not waters changed, but love the same.
Medicine climbed the mountain road,
Public health shouldered a heavy load.
Education lit the darkest chart,
And nursing held the healing heart.
Red roofs still stand, no more apart,
They lean toward a modern start.
Step by step, through breeze and year,
We’ve come to heal, to hold, to cheer.
So light one more candle, steady and wise—One hundred and twenty-five autumns rise.
From Xiangjiang to ocean, from hill to hill,
Yale-China, we love you. Always will.
XIE Jianfei, Chia Health Fellow (Yale 2013-'14)