Is the Soul Always There? My Five Year's Memories in My Tummy

Our neighbor across the street had a new baby. I bought Jonathan and Richard over for a short visit. That night when Jonathan went to bed and I slept across from him in another bed; we started a conversation about babies. Usually his mind was very active before he fell to sleep; he became very talkative around this time. He would tell me what happened in his kindergarten class even though he told me nothing new about school on the way home.
     “Where did you come from, Jonathan? Do you remember?” I asked. “From your tummy,” he said.
“Do you remember what you were doing inside of Mommy?,” I asked. “Yes, I was exercising in your tummy and I played with you backbones. Remember, Mommy when you put your hand over your tummy, I was touching your hands.”
     I became very interested in his story. “Where were you before you came to Mommy?” I asked. “I was living in the clouds, going around and around until I landed on you.” “What are you made from then?,” I asked. “By fire.” “Fire?, it wasn’t hot? You did not get burned?,” I asked. “No, this fire was not hot,” he said. “I was a mouth so I eat and eat; I used the fire to make my head, eyes, nose, ears, tummy, arms and legs, hands and feet, but nails last, mom.” I was so surprised what my five-year-old was telling me. “No, mom, it was not hot and I could make everything with fire, even toys,” he continued.
     “Where did you sleep?,” I asked. “I slept in your brain, I just climbed up. When it was morning I came down, splashed into the water,” he said. “How did you know it was morning?” “I saw through your eyes. When you opened your eyes, I could see it was light, when you closed your eyes, I could not see anything,” he said.
     “How did you eat inside mommy?,” I asked. “When I saw food come down, I started to grab it,” he answered. “Did you like whatever mom ate,” I asked. “Yes, Mommy; no spices Mommy,” he added. Maybe that was why when I was carrying him, it seemed that I was fighting over food between my mouth and tummy. I loved certain spicy Chinese foods and I enjoyed eating them. Only a little later, I threw up or my tummy didn’t feel good. If I ate heavy American food with cheese, which I had the hardest time to swallow, the food stayed and I felt better afterward. Now I know why.
     “How did you know it was the time to come out?,” I asked. He said, “I just knew it was time to push and get out; I pushed and I pushed.” “Was it hurting when you pushed?,” I asked. “No, it was not hurting,” he said. I could not help telling him that I was hurting; it really hurt. He said, “oh.” He did not know it hurt me. “What did you see when you came out?,” I asked. It was amusing that he saw my legs, then the doctor, then his dad.
    “Where are you going then?,” I asked. He only knew that he was a little boy now. He didn’t know where he was going. I told him that he was going to grow up and someday have his own kids just like Mommy and Daddy, then he would get old like Nana and die someday. He became so quiet and I thought that I scared him. I went over to check him and he was sound asleep.
    Later on, I asked him the same questions over and over again. He told similar stories that he was in the clouds before he came to me. It was like he was a real entity all along and had a mind of his own, yet still connect with me and depended upon me. While inside of me, he seemed to have learned something from me. When he saw my father for the first time, he told me that he met him before, but not my brother or sister even though they were all in the pictures that I showed to him.
     He described the apartment building that was in my dreams often. He told me it was a red brick building. He was never there because we moved before I came to the US to a new apartment building that in my dream I was never able to find. I have always dreamed about the red brick building where I spent my teenage life
      I tried to ask my two other sons the same questions when they were five years old.  I did not get much from Richard because he did not remember, Joe was able to tell me that he was a soldier.  He described the battlefield like an old movie. I had some strange violent dreams when I was pregnant with Jonathan, it was an ancient bloody war. All the men were fighting with swords. Somehow I saw my grandmother was killed. The doctor said it is common for pregnant woman to have war dreams.

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Richard Was Born

I delivered Richard after Easter. It was a smooth delivery and I came home the next day. I could tell my mom was so excited. She waited so long to help me after the delivery just like the way her mom did for her. I desperately wanted her here when I delivered my first son Jonathan. We were still graduate students at the time so it was impossible for me to invite her at the time; we simply did not have money or enough room.
     I should have known that my mom could not cook or do much of any housework. She cooked me a chicken with traditional Chinese herb roots. Different from her mom, she made more, much more for me. So she put in a whole pound, instead of one or two roots. Now, you can imagine how strong the flavor was, it really was like eating medicine. She brought me a bowl even before I woke up in the morning and asked me to eat it while it was still hot, followed by eggs and so on. She didn’t want me to come downstairs. Traditionally, mothers stayed in bed for 40 days after delivering a baby, and were not supposed to do anything. Otherwise, something might happen and the illness would stay with you for life. It might have been true in the old days when everything was not so clean.
     It was okay for a day, but 40 days? I could not even think about it after I tried one day. I was so bored and I could not sleep all day and all night, and I didn’t want to eat that much. No wonder my mom looked so full in her face in pictures after she delivered my sister and brother, and that was the only time she was not too thin.
     I had experience from Jonathan though I did make plenty of mistakes. I hoped that I could correct my mistakes this time around for Richard or do things a little differently. My mom came to try her best Chinese ways of doing things first time. She was so upset when she saw me come downstairs and do things my way. She felt she couldn’t help me the way it supposed to be and she felt unwanted. It was a big adjustment after I managed my own house these many years without anyone around though I hoped my mom was around. Now she was here and I felt that I was trying to do better following the best and most recent findings on what was good for my baby. She told me that was not the way my grandma did it and so on.
     My mother’s homesickness started to worsen when she felt like she was not helping as much as she originally thought. Although she said she and my father were an old couple and they were not like us inseparable. They hardly did anything together and they even slept in separate rooms now that they had extra rooms since my father snored so loudly. In fact, she still cared so much about my father and when my father’s letters came, they would lighten her face all day. She loved my father and my father loved her. I guessed it’s the companionship and she knew my father was around and nearby.
     She started to worry about my brother’s girlfriend who she introduced to him two years before in my parents’ city Chengdu. My brother was working on a little island on the South China Sea. He came back to my parents’ home every few months for about a week. My parents were very fond of this girl and she came to our home every weekend and holidays since her parents were not nearby. She even knitted two sweaters for Jonathan, which my mom brought here. She graduated from medical school and worked in a pharmacy. Only my brother didn’t make any move. It seemed to him that she was my parents’ friend. My parents asked him many times and he did not have any comment. Now that my mom was not home, my father didn’t know what to do. He told this girl that my brother had to be the one to make a decision about this although they had tried very hard to push him. Maybe the best thing for her was to look for someone else since she waited for two years and she was close to 30 years old, and everyone knew in China, it was very difficult for a man to be interested in a woman over 30 years old. She cried and left my parents’ home and didn’t return. “Now, your father doesn’t know how to handle this delicate matter. I am not there, and she has not come back. Oh no, we are going to lose such a nice girl. It’s very hard to find girls like her, pretty, professional, and knows how to do all the things around house. Look at these sweaters she knitted; you and I can’t knit this good and it only took her two weeks in the evening hours, and I watched her knitting.” My mother couldn’t stop talking about losing her and praising her; it almost made me jealous.
     Then she started to worry about my sister getting married since she was 26 already and she was not even looking for a nice man for herself. I tried to tell her that maybe they had not yet met the one who would stir their hearts. They would meet someone when the time came. Then she started to worry those mice or insects might eat her dry goods at home without anyone taking care of them.
     One weekend in June, Richard was baptized at our Church. Anthony’s brothers and their wives, his parents and our friends all came at the same time. Like Easter, this was another completely overwhelming experience for my mom. Not only did she feel that she could not help me cook. She could not talk to any of her in-laws. I was busy cooking and watching my newborn at the same time between people’s arms. My mom was alone in the corner of our house and seemed completely forgotten.
     The next day, my mom told me she might have caught a cold and she had a running nose and watery eyes all night. I was a little disappointed. Once again, she wanted me to massage her with that buffalo bone to ease her body pain. I tried but she didn’t think I tried hard enough. She wanted me to rub a few spots on her body till the skin turned blue then she would be better. I refused and tried to give her some medicine we had. Then I felt my nose was a little itchy when I was watching TV in the living room after the busy weekend. That huge basket of flowers someone gave us caught my eyes. That was the source for my mom’s runny nose and watery eyes, and my itchy nose. I had the same symptoms when I worked in the library where there were fresh bundles of flowers. I got up right away and moved all the flowers outside. Sure enough, my mom’s cold recovered right after, so did mine (obviously an allergy).
     It was hard to convince my mom that she was allergic to flowers because she insisted that she had a cold. She started to worry about getting sick in the US or even dying here. She told me that her friend came to see their daughter and grandchildren in the US and was fine until one evening right after dinner. She suddenly had a stroke and died here in the US. She thought that it must have been awful for her friend to be stuck in the strange world of “Yin” and not understand anything. She wanted to go home.
     I tried to ask her stay for six months so that my children would know their grandma better. I needed her too. Recognizing that my mom was not happy here, her unhappiness also affected me emotionally. I felt like she was rejecting the world I found for myself and she was going to abandon me here like the old Chinese who say that a married daughter is someone else’s. That was probably why my father refused to come. I once wrote him a letter asking him to give up smoking for his grandchildren’s sake, especially since my brother and sister were not even married yet. He never replied until my mother came and told me that my letter made him very upset and he blamed me for giving him a bad omen by saying that.
     I booked my mom’s return ticket and took her to one of the fanciest Chinese restaurants. She was impressed by the style of the building and decorations inside, but as usual, not impressed by the food. There was nothing tasted good here, but only looked good. When I just came to the US, I felt the same way. Everything here in the supermarket was already preprocessed and from big industrial farms where the seeds were bred to meet standards such as looking good and easy shipping. They used so many human-made chemicals to either increase the growth of the plants or prevent diseases, or keep the produce fresh. I still had a hard time seeing artificial coloring, especially beef, the colored bright red water dripping. I would rather see its true colors. It was very different from where my mother purchased her food from the farmer’s market every day from small family farmers’ fresh daily pick.
     My mom had the impression that in the US, everything was big and strongly made. The land was big, the roads wide, house large, and people big too. She tried to change my pants’ elastic one day. It took her all day just to take it apart because it was machine-sewn back and forth in so many rounds because it was intended not to be taken apart again.
     She also enjoyed the Annual Flower Show, the Museum of Science, and beaches and parks around. We also took her up north to see New Hampshire and Maine. She was impressed by how much empty space there was everywhere because in China, every possible inch had been used for something or the other.
     We all went to the airport to say goodbye to my mother. I was fine until my mom’s airplane took off. My tears couldn’t stop running down my face although I had Richard in my arms, with Jonathan and Anthony by my side. I tried to tell myself that my family was around me. But to my mom, I was always a child. Her departure made me feel abandoned by her. I felt very sad that my better life, bigger house, and her grandchildren couldn’t keep her here longer.
     It took me awhile to adjust to everything around without her, just like I had to adjust myself when she was trying to take over my kitchen and my way of life. I did quietly accept much of my mom’s way of doing things even though I was fighting hard with her. It was the modern and old-fashioned way. I had to accept that a lot of old fashioned ways just used common sense, the most effective simple ways to do things.

We went to see the Monkey King (my childhood favorite) performance at the Children’s Museum.

My Mother’s Visit

My mom came to help us about two months before I delivered Richard. She had not seen me for ten years. She said that I changed a lot, mostly the way I spent money. In her memory, I had a “big hand.” I thought that I was always good about saving. I never worried about money when I worked in China, every time I went out for business trip. Except for business expenses, I did buy a lot of local specialty goods wherever I went. I thought I did my mom a favor because I carried them home. Then my mom gave me money to bail me out. With my trips all the time, I guess that really put them on a very tight budget. I never heard my mom complain. I stayed home with my parents and ate at home most of the time without paying my parents and they never asked me to pay for anything. I usually bought fruit, vegetables, or whatever I saw that looked good on the way home to share with everyone. I rarely bought clothes or anything else for myself except books. My monthly salary, plus government bonds in four years was in savings before I left China. I gave everything back to my parents.
     The first time I started to get worried about money was here in the US, right after I paid my first month rent and security deposit with my $400 per month stipend. I knew that my mom’s money could not help me anymore.
     Now, the first few weeks after her arrival, we had so much to talk about especially now that I was married with children of my own. I felt that we had so much more in common. Things I never knew or I did not understand before, I understood now. I felt more respect for my mom, since she worked full time, watching and caring for the three of us plus our sick grandma at the same time in a very small two-bedroom apartment. She did not know how to ride a bicycle so she had to carry everything while walking. I understood why she forgot some of my requests, overlooked my sensitive needs and her high expectations. I knew that I could not do the same.
     Jonathan did not take my mother’s visit very well at first. He could not understand what we talked about. He often came between us and said, “no Chinese please! English please!” I was too close to my mom, which made him insecure. He was the center of my life. He rejected my mother’s help with everything. “Mommy do it, Mommy do it” became his routine. If I didn’t do it, he would insist on doing it himself. It was so funny to watch him and my mom fight over putting laundry on the clotheslines in the backyard in the morning and taking them down in the afternoon. He would bring a chair under the clotheslines and try to put on and take off the clothes while standing on the chair. He got upset if my mom tried to help. “I will do it, I will do it,” looked like he could do a better job. My mom’s only English, “No, No, Jonathan…” while she tried to correct him. Jonathan would then run to me and cry, ask me to hold him and give him a bottle of milk, rocking him in our wooden rocking chair and singing “Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top….” at same time. Every now and then, my mom came by and said in Chinese, “Oh, still mommy’s little baby! Someone needs to know that another baby is coming and he needs to grow up to be a big brother.” My mom at the same time felt rejected too. I tried to explain that they were both going through culture shock.
     I don’t know when they started to like each other and they seemed to know how to communicate with each other. He let my mom help him take a bath, use the bathroom, dress up in the morning, etc. My mom seemed to return to her childhood in the playground. With Jonathan, she tried out everything that she never had a chance to try herself when she was a child. She went up and down the slide with Jonathan, encouraging him to take big steps on the challenging ones. I was pretty nervous since she was over 60 and she seemed to often forget that.
  On Easter weekend, Anthony’s parents came and we took Jonathan to the playground again. There my mother hurt her wrist when she fell pushing the swing. She felt so bad especially in front of my in-laws, which started her worst turn. She put on her Chinese medicine she brought with her when she came, but it smelled so strong that she went outside in the backyard. She was also using her buffalo bone to massage her wrist. Hoping for a quick recovery, she followed the book she had brought along with other stuff from Taiwan. I tried to give her ice to prevent her wrist from swelling but she refused.
     The next day, her wrist was swollen so badly and her hand was blue. I was really worried and asked her to stop whatever she was doing. The buffalo bone massage might be good for something, but not for everything like the book claimed. We would have to send her to the hospital if the swelling didn’t go away. We asked her to try to use ice for the swelling and warm water to increase her blood circulation. She tried and her hand was much better the next day.

Not Feeling Alone in Our House

One night not long after we moved into our house, Anthony woke up and heard music downstairs. He woke me up and asked me whether I could hear it. Yes, I heard Jonathan’s music book the one you press the button, and it plays silly songs like “Down by the station, early in the morning…” and so on. The funny thing was it kept playing again and again several times. The next day, we joked that maybe Lucille was down there playing. The next night before I went to bed, I said into the air, “Lucile, if it’s you, we don’t mind. But don’t scare us at night. Please help us and protect us.” Then we never heard anything more. I was curious to check if the book had ran out of batteries; it had not. After that, the book did not play by itself anymore.
     I always felt sorry that we did not have the chance to pay respects at her grave where she was buried in her hometown. A few days before her death, her older brother and nephews drove six hours from New Hampshire to say goodbye to her and asked her what her wishes were after her death. Then they drove back to NH on the same day. I was hoping they could stay at her house and go to the hospital every day until she died since it was her last days and she never married and had no other family members around. They told us that they already made arrangements to transfer her body back home after she died.
     Marjorie and Lucille were housemates for most of their lives. Marjorie could not drive or cook; Lucille loved to drive and cook. They shared a two-bedroom house and half of their expenses. I thought that was very good compared to living alone.
     Not long after that music incident. I dreamed that we were walking around this flower garden. Then we turned a corner and went into this tiny door and tiny space that looked like a fireplace. Lucille’s bed was half out and half into the fireplace. She was lying in her bed and I could only see her upper body and she seemed very crowded in that bed and she couldn’t even turn over. We too hardly had any space to stand by her. I felt a draft come in from the door behind me so I tried to close the door and push my body inside. Then Lucille said that there was room next door with a double bed for us to stay. Yes, indeed. I saw this sizable double bed when we walked into the next room. I woke up. When she was alive, she told me that Marjorie’s family’s cemetery plots only had room for one person. She and her single daughter would have to fight over that one plot. If there was more room she didn’t mind joining her in her family plot. 
    Marjorie was married to an Afro-American singer in the 1930s in New York City. Both sides of their family disowned them afterward. Soon after she had her daughter, her husband died in a flu epidemic. She had a very hard life bringing up her daughter in New York City. Unfortunately, her older sister had a genetic disease and died young. Finally, she inherited their family farm, which she had no interest in. She called her cousin somewhere in the Midwest. She told her cousin that he could have the farm for free if he was willing to take her family name. Her ancestor took Mayflower to this new land and she was hoping her cousin would take the land. But he said, “this soil is not fertile and no thank you.” Then he flew back home. Every time Marjorie talked about this, she had tears in her eyes. Her nearby cousin would only admit they were friends in public and not related today.
     I tried to comfort her by saying see how many friends she has now. They are all your family. Yes indeed, she spent her whole life building friendships around the world. She even had some government agent visit her doorstep once when she tried to sell friendship yarns from Russia back in the 1970s. She was working for UNICEF as a social worker all her life. Lucille was a director of a daycare. They traveled around world. They had a good home and nice orderly life.

Lucille holding Jonathan’s hands and Rebecca’s son Joshua in front of Marjorie.  I was baby-sitting and keeping the elders company.

     Our house had all carpets on the first floor, the former owner had pets.  Although it looked clean, I could still see the stains and smells after professional carpet cleaning.  I bought a carpet steamer myself and cleaned a few more times.  One afternoon, I was watching the soap "General Hospital" while Jonathan was taking a nap.  It was 90 degrees outside and I felt that all I smelled was a mix of cat's urine and carpet shampoo.  I could not stand this smell any longer.  I got up and looked at the carpet at the end of the wall next to the TV, and I gently pulled it up and it was easy.  Only the edge had a strip of wood with small nails attached to the carpet.  I could see the hardwood floor underneath.  Oh, this carpet was not glued to the floor.  I could easily put the whole thing out. The hardwood floor looked perfect. I was so sick and tired of this smelly carpet and why I did not find out this when we moved in.  After hundreds of dollars spent, I should have pulled this dirty carpet out before I moved in. So I started pulling and moving the sofa and furniture around. Very soon, I rolled up the carpet in the living room and dining room. Only I was surprised that the dining room did not have a nice hardwood floor underneath, but old green and white tiles, but still better than the dirty carpet.  I was trying to pull the rolled up rugs outside of the house, the living room to the front door and the dining room to the back door.  The rug stuck in the little turn at both doors, and no matter how I pulled it, the rugs would not move.  It was over 90 degrees; I was very tired and had to give up.  Anthony came home; he saw a half-pulled rug stuck in both the middle of the front and back doors.  "What did you do, Ying?"  I replied, " I am sick and tired of these smelling rugs and I had it; I want you throw them all out".  He was upset -- "why didn't you tell me so I could do it in on a cooler day. You have to do this today...we ended up spending more money on putting a new hardwood floor in dinning room.
       Our house was over 100 years old, a colonial, and it needed a lot of repairs.  We spent a lot just to fix the plumbing. We had planned to buy a bigger car and some new furniture such as a dining room set.  Our front porch was leaking somewhere since we could see water stains on the ceiling.  One day, I opened the window in the upstairs bedroom, and looking out, I could see a few small holes on the roof tiles. Oh, that must cause the leak. The only thing I had in the house was silicone caulking for the bathroom tiles.  That would do it for now, so I climbed out of the window with my bare feet for a better grip.  I started filling those holes with the caulking. A voice was calling on the street -- one of my neighbors drove by and stopped in the middle of the road.  "Ying, Ying, are you OK? can I help you with anything?..." She was very concerned about me since I was three months pregnant with Richard.  She was afraid that I would jump down from there. It took me a few minutes to figure out her concern since she did not want to move on.  I assured her that I was OK.  Anthony came home upset again asking me what I was doing up there on the roof...

Say Goodbye to Our College Town

Anthony was trying to finish up his work for his professor and other graduate students. I started to check apartment listings. David kindly sent us a Boston Sunday Globe with some recommendations on where to avoid, what was the going price, etc. After dozens of phone calls, we finally found an apartment in Malden, north of Boston for a lease of 3 months. That would give us more time for house hunting.
     We had Mayflower as our moving company. Three young men came in the morning and packed for us in a few hours. Then in the afternoon, another three young men came for loading up the truck. This time there was a Native American among them and he was in charge. I was surprised to see him carry our full, loaded dresser on his back with a cotton belt loop from the 3rd to the 1st floors since we didn’t have an elevator.
     While he was loading the truck, two other young guys were struggling to get our couch out of the door. They tried for about a half-hour and somehow the couch just didn’t want to go out. I called Anthony at the office and asked him how he got the couch into the apartment in the first place. He said that his father, brother, and he struggled for a long time to get it in, but he did not remember exactly how. Finally, I told them just to chop it up and put it in the trash since it was old anyway. At the same time, the Native American came up and yelled, “what are you guys doing up here?; I finished all the loading and took a break, and you are still up here.” They explained to him about the couch and I told them just forget it and break it up. He smiled and said, “come on guys, pick up the couch and turn around, and…” The two guys followed his directions and within a few seconds, the couch was out. It went so smooth and I said, “wow.” He did not say a word and continued his work. (Mayflower, part of Unigroup ).  I did not know that 10 years later I would end up working for them  too and it became my longest career.
     Jonathan felt a little lost between the trip and now that the apartment was empty. We slept on the floor that night and drove to Boston the next day. We thought we mapped out the trip pretty good. After we got off Route 90, we went by Route 60 where we got lost in the little towns. It was 4 PM in the afternoon. We had to be at the apartment rental office by 5 PM, otherwise, we would have to stay in a motel somewhere overnight. Luckily, we made it to the office at 4:55 PM.

Lucille Passed Away

Marjorie and Lucille’s health had worsened. First Marjorie had to go through a whole series of tests to find out what was causing her pain. She gradually couldn’t walk anymore. The doctor did not find anything and she was in the nursing home temporarily.
     This gave me a chance to see a nursing home for the first time when we went to visit. She had a roommate who lost her mind. From her words while she moaned and groaned, we knew that she had a son, but we never saw him come to visit. Every time we were there, I heard a man’s voice down the hall calling “help, help.” So desperate sounding, so helpless, it made me follow his voice one day. He sat on his chair with one of his hands supporting his head on the table. He was motionless; his lips were so dry and cracked. I was standing in front of him. He did not even acknowledge my presence. So, I bent down to get closer. I said, “can I help you?” He did not show any movement and seemed trapped in his own world still calling for help. Marjorie said he called for help all day and night and that she was so stressed by all those people. Very soon, she had to make a decision with her daughter, whether to stay in that place and give up all their belongings or go home with a helper. Finally, her daughter decided to take care of her at home.
     Lucille had been in and out of the hospital. I took Jonathan to see her every now and then. One day, I was in her room at home. We discussed our uncertain futures and where we were going to be in the future because of the job prospects. She was also concerned about herself. She never married and had no children. I told her that she could go with us if she wanted. I wouldn’t mind to have a “grandma” around. She said that it depended upon where we went because she needed to have a dialysis center nearby for her kidney needs. That was why she could not go back to her hometown in New Hampshire where most of her family lived. She said she would consider my offer. But not long after, she was in the hospital again and one day, Marjorie called me and asked me to go to the hospital right away and say goodbye to Lucille. Lucille was not going to be better and she had only a few days left.
     We rushed to the hospital. She saw us by the door and stopped us from bringing Jonathan in. She didn’t want Jonathan to see her. So, Anthony and I took turns to go in and see her. She had changed a lot. Her eyes were sunken and she looked very weak. She did have a clear mind. It was so hard for me to see her that way. I was trying to tell her that she was going to get better. She told me, “no, I’ve said goodbye to my brothers and most of my friends.” I told her that she would drive home again since I knew that she loved to drive. She said, “I already gave away my car to Rose.” She had a living will; she didn’t want the doctor to do any more.
     I felt desperate because I didn’t know what to say. But I couldn’t accept the fact that she had no hope and she was dying. I sat by her bedside. I took the record board by the foot of the bed. It clearly showed her blood pressure dropping day by day to dangerous levels. She had stopped dialysis and eating but her mind was so active. I just could not accept that she gave up the fight. Rose told me, “No, Ying, not this time, no, dear, she is not going to get better this time. We just hope and try to make her as comfortable as possible.” I knew Rose had been a doctor herself.
     We came back the next day and knew that Lucille was getting worse. She told me that she couldn’t breathe. Very soon, she started to call, “doctor, doctor, please help me, please, please...” I started to worry and went to look for the doctor. The nurse told me that her doctor was on the way but Rose told me that the chance that her doctor would come was small because he could not do any more. I went back and told Lucille that the doctor was on the way. She was going to be okay. She was going to be better.
     We left the hospital at 5:30 PM. After we got home, I felt very bad. I did not want to eat, so I went to bed and lied down there. Lucille’s face was in front of me. I saw her calling for the doctor. I felt so bad, helpless that I was she and I felt that I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t understand why none of the doctors or nurses came. They should have at least come to comfort her or do something because she needed help while dying. About 6:30 PM, Rose called Anthony and told him that Lucille had gone to heaven finally. Anthony tried to comfort me with the assurance that she was no longer suffering. She is with God. I just burst into tears crying. I cried and cried, reliving that I had lost my grandma again.
     A few days later, I dreamed about Lucille, she looked so young and full, not like how she looked when she was dying, thin, with sunken eyes. “Hi, Lucille, you look so good! See, I told you that you were going to be Okay and you are going to be better.” She smiled and said, “You are leaving the city!” “My offer still stands and you could still follow us,” I said. She should not feel much different because we got some of her spare furniture in her attic that her brother did not want to move back to NH. We left her bedroom untouched because Marjorie and her daughter Rachel wanted to rent her room out to students for extra income.
     Then I dreamed that I was in their house again. Lucille was healthy, walking from the kitchen to the dining room holding a small cake like she used to surprise me with for my birthday, only I was trying to guess whose birthday was. I then noticed there was only one candle on the cake. While she was walking towards us, she sang, “Happy birthday to me, Happy birthday to me!” On the other hand, Marjorie who was still alive, looked so pale and sick lying in bed. Marjorie lived a few more years after.

Looking for a Job

I quit the job at the restaurant when I found out I was expecting our first child, Jonathan, because the doctor said that I had a low placenta and I didn’t want to lose him. It had been a nice experience working at the restaurant. It provided me the opportunity to learn more about American life.
     I entered a different world when I became pregnant with our first child. I met my girlfriend Rebecca, a German exchange student who married an American. She had a son four months older than mine. Later on, I babysat her son Joshua; her son and my son Jonathan became good playmates. After Rebecca  went back to Germany, I took Jonathan along to another family babysat three more kids. At the same time, I also helped Marjorie and Lucille cook their dinner three times per week. That helped. I had a little washer to wash our clothes and diapers, and let the sun dry them. I tried to do everything myself. We actually saved a little each month. One day, I was listening to the radio and they were talking about financial management and mutual funds. I requested some information and read the brochures and chose a few. According to my best judgment, I invested most of my savings into them. One year later, those investments showed quite a good return. So I asked Anthony to put his savings in. Those investments made it possible for us later on to buy our first home when Anthony started his first job. By the time Anthony was close to finishing his Ph.D., his professor and he discussed his future prospects. He started looking for a job. After his degree, his professor could provide a couple of month’s support as a postdoctoral associate. That made him very serious about his job search. He applied to whatever he could, including postdoctoral positions. It was very disappointing. No luck again and again.
     He applied to more than 60 jobs. He got mostly rejections, and three telephone interviews, including one from Kentucky wondering whether he could take the hardship and poor conditions. Then he was invited to Ohio for an interview. It took us more than ten hours to drive to Columbus. We camped at a friend’s apartment overnight. Anthony went for the interview the next morning. Jonathan was two years old, and fell from one of the picnic benches when we stopped for lunch and got a big bump on the back of his head, unfortunately. Anthony did not get the job anyway.
     We started to feel anxious. I asked him to bring me all of the job announcements to read also. There was a job that fit me if I was still young and single. It was in Tibet to help establish a national park at the base of Mt. Everest. We did request more information but didn’t apply because it involved a lot of travel. Another job, Anthony thought it wasn’t for either of us, was to edit an English-language series about plants of China. The position needed someone with experience in botany and editing, with an interest in Chinese plants. I read the job description and felt it was the closest match for us. I suggested that he applied for the job and include my resume along with his.
     Anthony had a telephone interview with the director of the personnel office. She asked all the possible questions and was satisfied with Anthony. Then she told Anthony to wait for the site supervisor David to call him from Boston to arrange an interview. The same day, David called and asked when Anthony could come for an interview. "Anytime," Anthony said. David told Anthony that he wished to talk to me also. So we drove for seven hours east to Boston. Like the Ohio interview, Jonathan came along; only this time, I would be "interviewed" too. So we decided to take turns so someone could watch Jonathan. We checked in at a motel nearby. We did not sleep much that night because of excitement and nerves. Somehow though, my gut feeling told me that this job was for Anthony. I went ahead to start checking on available apartments and houses before we left Syracuse for the interview.
     The next morning, we dressed up and drove to the Herbaria. The trip was so smooth that we did not even make any wrong turns, which was unusual for us. We parked our car and we were still a little early, so we decided to walk around. I pushed Jonathan in a stroller while walking with Anthony.  At 9 am, I kissed him "good luck." He went inside, and I looked around and saw two stone rhinos at the door to the biology building. I started to walk that way to show Jonathan. Not far away, I heard Anthony call "Ying." I was surprised to see him. "So soon, you are too early?" I said. "No, he wants us all to go up," Anthony answered. "With Jonathan, a little child?" "Yes," Anthony said. So we all went in. I felt a little embarrassed pushing Jonathan in the stroller by the front desk while the receptionist said, "hi." I felt someone telling me "what is this baby doing here at this prestigious university?” We went upstairs to the office. Jonathan was very good and sat in his stroller. He didn't even make any sound all through the interview.
     The interview went well. David said, "I don't see any reason why you are not qualified. When can you start?" Then he gave us a tour. I insisted on waiting in his office with Jonathan while he took Anthony around. But he said, "come along. No one will mind. We don't see children around that often here." So we met everyone. I pushed the stroller and Jonathan waved to everyone and people said, "gee, I would like to sit like you and let people push me around. That looks comfortable." "Sure, in a nursing home," another said. We all laughed.
     Before we left, David let us into the museum especially for Jonathan since he would be interested. We did not tell David that I had already made an appointment to look at houses so we had to leave right away. It took us awhile to find the way out and where our car was.
     The realtor took us in her car and showed us three houses in Somerville. The first house we saw was by the subway. It had a very small front yard with a backyard with weeds so high that it looked like the lawn had never been cut before. Inside was dark and damp, a single lady sat in the darkest corner of the house. She did not even bother to get up, just said, "feel free to look around" and the realtor seemed to know the house well. Between the dining room and kitchen wall, there was a big hole in the wall. The house needs a lot of work and she wanted 115K. My heart started to sink because I realized how much more expensive the houses were here in Boston. We looked at two more houses; they were better and more or less in move-in condition. They were so old, so small, with no backyards and no driveways, so expensive beyond our dreams. I was kind of disappointed. I took some apartment guides before we drove back to Syracuse.
     Dr. Wang in our college was so excited. She had worked on the same project under Dr. Hu Shiu Ying when she had just graduated from college in the 1950s, but the project failed due to lack of funds. Now, she was close to retirement. Hearing that we were going to continue this project was such good news. She told us to say “hi” to Dr. Hu when we got there.

Dr. Hu Shui Ying (胡秀英) (and Mr. Michael Canoso). Dr. Hu loved my dessert and I enjoyed the edible wild plants she picked. She often told us that she spent over an hour to gather a handful of tender shoots. She used to give me special spices and showed me how to cook wild plants. I went further and started collecting wild mushrooms. I had not touched any mushrooms since my Tibetan Hospital Stay over 10 years before.

 

A handicapped Student Downstairs

We lived in a third floor apartment. A few students from Taiwan lived downstairs. One of the girls was handicapped. She was pursuing a Ph.D. in landscape architecture at the college. She had her own business back home while she studied here in the U.S. I always admired her strong will and independence.
     She had a roommate. Together they traveled a lot in the summer in the U.S. and Canada by car. Later on, her roommate had a boyfriend and moved out. The handicapped woman went to Japan and Mexico by herself with her crutches. She realized her limitations. She really needed a companion who was able. She told me that she had no luck with Chinese men because they didn’t want to be involved with her. She thought it was not fair for her to find another handicapped person as her boyfriend or future husband because it would be impossible to function as a family especially having kids and raising them. So, she tried meeting a few American students with whom she shared common interests.
     One of them was our third floor neighbor. He moved in with an American girl as a roommate, sharing a two-bedroom apartment and somehow two months later, the girl moved out and left him. Then he and the handicapped friend downstairs started dating. He told her that his parents abused him when he was young. She told him that she was normal like anyone else until she was three years old and a disease left her crippled. She had to get used to prejudice against her back home in Taiwan. Actually, Americans treat the disabled very well compared to back in her home country. There were many conveniences for enabling use of public facilities in the U.S. They shared more friendship than love. Finally, the boy graduated and left her.
     Everything was fine until her research paper caused a big disagreement with her professor. She had so much of a new point of view against traditional or well known architectural points of view that made her professor think that she put too much emotion into her paper since she herself was handicapped. Her professor thought that her paper was filled with anger and was unacceptable. I didn’t know anything about her professor. She told me some of her points that I thought would be good if applicable. She thought that architectural designers did not work hard enough on designs for handicapped accessibility to buildings rather than simply meeting the minimum requirements according to the building guidelines.
     One day, I noticed a letter taped on her door from the city court. Later, I found out that she had left the country to go back to Taiwan two months before. But her lease had not finished yet so her landlord took her to court except she was gone. Later on, maybe a week or two later, I saw that the letter was open and someone apparently had read it and left it opened. It was an official court letter showing how much she owed from the rest of her lease and lawyer fees, etc. I was shocked to see how much she had to pay. A week later, everything returned to normal and some new tenant moved into her apartment.
     Another female student who was from Taiwan was one of my classmates. We had a conversation while waiting for one of our lab results about the difficulties of funding. Her family back in Taiwan supported her for her Masters degree. We didn’t keep close in touch but I heard that she went back to Taiwan without her Masters. A friend told me that she had finished her draft dissertation and prepared for her defense. Then she had bad news from home that her mother died. She flew back to Taiwan for two weeks and when she returned, she told her professor that she needed to finish her defense as soon as possible and return to her home country. Her professor said that her dissertation was not ready to defend yet because she was gone for two weeks. She needed to do more revisions. She said that because everyone had to do more revisions after the defense anyway. She would keep the original defense date and revise afterward because she bought the round trip ticket following the original defense dates. So, she went ahead with her defense and her professor failed her. If one professor failed you at your defense, you failed. She was so upset and she left the country without her degree after three years of effort and studying. I felt sorry for all those people who failed right before the finish line. I understood them well because I was there myself. I wished that they had put forth their last efforts to the finish. But statistics showed that about 30% of the students did not complete their degrees.

Working in a German Restaurant

I went to work as a waitress at a nearby German restaurant. The owner of the restaurant asked if I really wanted to work as a waitress since I had a master’s degree. I told her that I needed to stay around and wait for my fiancé to finish his Ph.D. and I couldn’t find a job in my field nearby. I wanted to work there like everyone else. I never worked in a big restaurant before, just a small Chinese restaurant. This German restaurant was really a busy place. I started from scratch. I didn’t even know how to pronounce most of the items on the menu. I didn’t have any idea about kinds of drinks. It didn’t take me long to pick up the names of common drinks. I asked Anthony to help with the pronunciations of the menu items with an audiocassette tape so I could practice right away. The owner especially liked my fast pace and observations for details. A few of my customers actually made a special trip to the owner to praise my work. Every now and then, I did meet a difficult customer.
     It was quite an experience working in the restaurant. I got to know girls who didn’t even know whether a master’s degree or a Ph.D. was higher. They had been waitresses for their entire careers. I was surprised at how fast the turnover rate was in that place. People came and went so easily. It was a hard, stressful job, especially when the restaurant was busy.
     One Saturday afternoon, people came in from nowhere. One of our waitresses already had worked from lunch. She was very tired. She got a few difficult customers plus the manager was after her. Suddenly, she left without a trace. She left her customer waiting at an empty table. A few months later, she came back as a customer with her boyfriend and looked like her life had changed for the better.
     Some of the others did need this job desperately. There was a young girl named Terry. She loved to work in this restaurant. She was doing fine until one day she came in with heavy makeup and told us that her boyfriend had beaten her up and raped her. She had some bruises and she was going to press charges against him. A few days later while she was working, the police came by to ask her a few questions and also the boy’s parents came to eat. They intentionally gave her a $20 tip for some simple sandwiches and again begged her to drop the charges. I don’t know what her decision was because she was fired for dropping a big pan or dish. I felt sorry for her because she told me that she really needed this job to pay her rent and car payments, and her mom was an alcoholic and she had been on her own since she was 15. I dreamed about her later on and she was fine in my dream.
     Terry was doing okay, at least she had a dependable car that allowed her to work anytime, anywhere. We had another waitress who took taxis to and from work and she was married. From my impression, she liked to talk and talk and pray for good business so she could earn money. She said that she was so much in need of money. But when it was busy, she sometimes couldn’t keep up with her customers and often cried from the stress. She loved wine so much, and she would save customer’s leftover wine and drink them later. I often warned her that she might catch something. She simply replied, “no, germs cannot survive in wine.” She was fired because she ate something in the kitchen without paying.
     Then there were two male waiters. They were handsome young men with athletic figures. The two of them often fought over who had the best table or side chores. One day, they asked me for a quarter so they could decide who was going to get the tables both wanted. I gave them a quarter and forgot about it. Later on, a waitress asked me whether they returned my quarter. I said, “no.” She said, “they always ask for quarters and never give them back. They are tricky.” One of the boys got fired for not doing his share of the side work. He called back a few times to beg the manager to give him his job back.
     There were some good ones though. One of them, I was impressed with was Beth. She was really pregnant and had another two children. She worked until the day she delivered her baby. We tried to tell her to quit earlier. She always said that she needed the extra money to pay her bills. Another older lady Lisa had worked in the same restaurant for 15 years. She was a tough and fair lady. Diane was 55. I think she was the oldest. She had her own house and grown up kids. She just couldn’t stay at home. Margie worked there for eight years. Joanne was a substitute teacher and also worked there a long time.
     In the kitchen, except for one girl who stayed, the rest keep coming and going. She was used to being a dishwasher. She got the chance to cook later on and had been there since. One day, we got a new chef. He was a very experienced chef and worked hard. The manager somehow didn’t like him. I didn’t have anything against him except that he liked to joke with me now and then when I came to the kitchen to get the customers’ food. He said, “Ying, when will we get married?” I always said, “I am taken. Find someone else.” He did. He was dating the waitress Cindy. Cindy was jealous of me because of that. But one day, she came in with her shoulder hurting after playing volleyball. She could not lift her tray. So, she couldn’t work. A week later, her shoulder still hurt and the doctor said that she needed a few weeks to let her muscles recover. She was really angry. So, I asked her whether she wanted to try a Chinese Tiger Bone Patch (Originally named for containing tiger bone (banned now), an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine dating back 1,500 years to treat pain and inflammation). She said that she would try anything. I gave her two patches and told her to put them on after a warm bath. It usually worked for me. The next day, she came in and said, “what was in that thing that you gave to me? It was really good. Could you tell me where I could get them in town?” I told her about the oriental goods store. She was really nice to me after that because she went back to work that day.
     Most of the waitresses spent their money quickly. Sometimes, they didn’t even wait to go to the bank to cash their checks. They cashed them right there in the restaurant. Most of them smoked a lot, and drank a lot of coffee to keep awake. I felt bad that they didn’t save any of their money or have health insurance either. They just said that they didn’t have money to save and they couldn’t afford to buy health insurance. To be broke was common. I couldn’t imagine being broke or even being a waitress all of my life.
     The owner told us about a girl who worked there and went to work for a local bank and she felt that her self-esteem was higher even though she earned less because she was not working in a service job anymore. Our owner laughed and said every job we have here in the world is a service to one another, directly or indirectly, you just cannot escape that. The more you try, the crazier you make yourself. Her husband was an artist who liked to paint, but when he couldn’t sell his paintings to make a living, he didn’t know what else to do. She worked hard as a waitress and struggled to raise money for her young son. Finally, she saved enough to buy this restaurant when the owner retired. She divorced her husband when she thought that she could not bring him down to reality.
     She improved the restaurant by moving to a larger location and made the restaurant well known. She started with nothing. Fifteen years later, she owned the business and her luxurious home. She came in now and then to oversee and manage the work. She was tough and fair.
     One day, a waitress came in on crutches crying. She just had her calluses removed in the hospital and couldn’t walk. I guessed that she did not schedule the whole thing ahead of time. She just decided to go in the day before when she felt she couldn’t stand to think of the calluses on her heel. This morning she called the owner to tell her she couldn’t walk. The owner did not buy her story and said that she had enough calling in last minute sick and she couldn’t run her business that way. Either she should show up for work now or never. The head of the waitresses saw the situation and called the owner. The owner did change her mind.
After working in the restaurant for several months full-time, I realized it was very different than I had known previously, especially compared to working in a small Chinese restaurant inside the kitchen at my own pace. Here, I had to work with all the chefs in the kitchen by giving them the orders and the bartender my customers’ drink orders. Outside, I had these four tables of people waiting for their drinks and their meals along with a whole restaurant of people. I had to work with the other waitresses busily coming in and out of the same door along the same route. I had to be careful not to mix up orders from different tables with other waitresses’ orders. All the time, I carried a heavy tray on my shoulders and rushed in and out without crashing into anyone. All this happened in a few, short rush hours. Every waitress was already stressed out enough to the boiling point without even any trouble from anyone.
     Every now and then, a wrong order, a chef’s mistake, or a difficult customer would drive the employees to the breaking point. In the kitchen, everyone was saying the worse phrases you could find. Outside, things were as usual, you couldn’t tell the difference. Only the troubled or unhappy customer got the most attention because we wanted him or her out of the restaurant as soon as possible no matter what it took. We hoped that they didn’t come back.
     I met one man who came and ordered a corned beef sandwich. He ate two-thirds of it and told me it was too tough. Then he ordered a cup of soup and he complained it was too salty. The owner came out to give him a free dessert on top of everything he had for free. He did leave me a one-dollar tip.
     It was different at the Chinese restaurant where I used to work one night per week. The owner told me that when they first opened the restaurant they did not know that there could be such people. One day, a man came in and ordered a hot seafood dish worth over $15. The owner told him that it was a hot dish but if he wanted, the chef could skip the hot sauce. He said that he knew that it was hot and loved hot food, the hotter, the better. When the dish came, he was happy. He ate 90% of this dinner then he called the waitress and said that the food was too hot and he was not going to pay for his dinner because he couldn’t finish the last few pieces on his plate. The owner was upset. “You could take it home with you but you will have to pay because I told you it was hot and you already finished your dinner. I would have let you go if you just started your dinner and said that it was too hot.” They started to argue. Finally, the owner said, “I am going to call the police because this is no different than shoplifting.” The police came and told the owner that the customer shouldn’t pay for the dinner if he was not happy with it. The owner was devastated. Later on she did learn.
     It was that kind of intense stress and fear about who was going to be your next customer. Is she or he going to order an expensive meal or just half of a sandwich and sit at your table all night drinking coffee and talking, then leave you a dollar tip? The longing for a customer who was a big spender and left big tips also brought stress because it looked like you were a beggar waiting for people to give you change. Every now and then, a group of young men came in for lunch in their work clothes. You could tell they had been working outside for minimum pay. Because of their peers, they practically emptied their pockets for the tip and they didn’t even count how much was there. It made me feel bad that they were the ones going broke the next day.
     After awhile, you felt the same things happen over and over. You went to the restaurant, prepared for the rush that sometimes didn’t come, then came home exhausted both emotionally and physically. I didn’t know how many times I came home at midnight and couldn’t sleep thinking about quitting the job the next day. But when the next day came, I was ready to work again. Personally, I didn’t like the tipping system at all. It did make the waitresses and waiters look bad, looked down upon too. I would prefer that the restaurant charge for service as part of the price for the meal then pay their employees a total. People think that wait persons work for tips and care how much you give to them. Yes, they do but not at the same moment when they serve you and others. They don’t have time to count, simply put the money in their pocket or sometimes they even forget to pick-up their tips. The quality of service is not dependent upon how much you tip. It depended upon how busy the restaurant was.
     People came to the restaurant not just to eat. They wanted more than that. They wanted to sit near others since they couldn’t do that very often, with strangers, friends or lovers, or family. They wanted to show others their joy of celebration, happiness, success, sadness, loneliness, and so on. I guessed it was part of human nature. There was this overweight woman who came in every Wednesday by herself. All the waitresses knew her because she ordered buffalo wings and a glass of water. Then she sat slowly chewing the hot chicken wings. Once she told me that it was part of her therapy. She had a failed marriage and loads of personal problems. Another time, she brought me a paper cutout of birds together, which she made at home. I told her that it was an excellent job and maybe she could have her own business someday. She was really pleased to hear that. I kept that little bird.
     The reality of running a business was very cruel and impersonal. Before I started to work there, one of the waitresses was sick with hepatitis. Her illness was reported on the radio, TV, and newspaper. That almost brought the business to a close. Suddenly, no customers came in. It took six months for them to regain their customers, but still not at the level it used to be.
     The owner tried to reconstruct the restaurant. The head of the waitresses had worked with the owner since she herself was a waitress years ago. She was well trusted and the key person to the owner’s success. She was over 60 now, slowing down a lot but she had the privilege of keeping all the upper level-smoking customers with more than ten tables. Usually each waitress had four tables. She didn’t want to give up any of her smoking tables since she also smoked. You could tell that she smoked so much and drank so much coffee to keep up with her customers. The owner knew it was time to let her go and implied so many times that her grandchildren needed her. She seemed to love working as a waitress.
     One day, the owner came in and told all of us that she had hired a new manager who would take care over management. She was going to stay around for two more weeks to let the new manager get comfortable with the restaurant, then she was going to South America for three months vacation. Not only did the new manager have experience in restaurant management, but had a psychology degree too.
     It turned out that this was a big mistake because no one liked this new manager. She followed everyone around trying to teach them to do their job. The head of waitresses was especially upset because she thought that this management job was lawfully hers when the owner was away on business or vacation. She had always been there for the owner’s personal and business trips for the last 20 years. The new manager seemed to have a reason here. The reason was it drove the head of waitresses crazy so she had to quit and you could tell that her stress was building up day after day, week after week. I never heard her say anything bad to the owner although I heard enough from other young waitresses. Now she started to complain, more and more, how she saved this restaurant every time it was in trouble, how she helped the owner every time she was in trouble, and how she treated her like her own sister. Now she was going to kick her out, out from the only possible good income she depended upon. She was over 60 and it was impossible to start over in a new restaurant from ground zero. She did not quit, but a few days before the three months ended, a few days before the owner came back, she ended up in a bad accident on the way to work which totaled her car and broke a few of her vertebrae. That ended her waitressing career.
     When the owner came back, every employee in the restaurant threatened to quit unless she let the new manager go. The business was not really that good under the new manager. She was driving everyone crazy. I think the owner realized what she had done and felt very badly about the head of waitresses. She did give her some financial help. Very soon, the owner hired a new elderly woman, who had retired from other restaurant work, inside of the kitchen to oversee everything. I could tell that she could not compare with the head of waitresses. She was typically two-faced. When the owner was around; she tried all the time to please her. When the owner was not around, she didn’t care about anything; the walk-in cooler door was always open, especially on a hot summer’s day. I even caught her a few times before closing. She and the chef cooked themselves a whole fish or something to take home with them. She even asked me once whether I wanted one to take home; I said, “no.”

30 reasons your waiter totally deserves a bigger tip

Trying to be Professional

I was working on the project for the last year without pay and my savings were running out. I could not really do anything without money. I needed a job or some kind of assistantship. There were no jobs in my field to which I could apply, not to mention competing with others. Since Anthony was not finished yet, I really wanted to stay to help him finish his Ph.D. because I knew how stressful it could be close to finishing.
     I applied for a number of jobs not directly related to my field. I was not surprised when I did not get them. In the meanwhile, my pathology professor tried to convince me to work for him in the summer as a student while considering pursuing a Ph.D. The work he wanted me to do was sectioning tree roots in the lab to prepare the tissues for electron microscopy. He had a contract from somewhere in the Midwest. I saw that his sectioning machine was so old that even the one that I used in China was better. In fact, he could not even section a sample thin enough by using that machine. “This is like cooking, you know. You will do a better job sectioning them since Chinese are good with a knife,” he said. “I could only pay you $5 per hour due to funding limitations. I understand that you have your Masters degree now. When our new proposal is submitted for funding, I will have money to pay you more.” I told him that if I had not found anything by the summer then I would do this job for him, but if I found another job then he would have to find someone else. He said that he understood.
     Then, I saw this ad in the paper for a job at the medical school. They wanted a full-time histologist. Basically, it was the same thing that I was going to do for my professor in the summer. The difference was this one dealt with animal tissues and the other with plant tissues. One used wax to embed the tissues while the other used ice. The tissues were mounted on a slide for further observations by microscope or electron microscope. One of my officemates could not find a job anywhere after completing his master’s; then, he did find a job with full benefits including vacation time in the medical school. So I applied and I was one of two interviewed. My interview went very well and the professor showed me his lab and introduced me to others as if I had already been hired. He gave me his own office number and asked me call him anytime if I had a question. He was interested that my pathology professor was working with plants so I gave him my professor’s number and asked him to call him. I did not know that was going to be the biggest mistake.
     The next day before I even started to tell my professor about the interview, he said, “Hi, Ying, you really know more people than I do. This professor at the medical school called yesterday afternoon. Another pathology professor I didn’t know. He was so weird and asked me all those weird questions like do I know the difference between plant and animal tissues. How the … do I know the difference? I am a plant pathologist. I only study plant disease. Actually plant viruses.” I started getting nervous and said, “Of course you know the basic difference is that animal cells don’t have cell walls or chlorophyll for photosynthesis—that’s biology 101.” “Oh, yeah, yeah. He asked me about your experience with sectioning and wax embedding. I told him that I don’t use wax and I don’t know what you did in China. But he sounded like he was going to hire you. He sure liked you. Oh, who is going to do the ice sectioning for me? I cannot do it and all the students are gone for the summer.” “I don’t think he is going to hire me after he talked with you,” I said with a chilly feeling at the bottom of my heart. “Oh, I bet they have a lot of fancy things there,” he said. “Yes, he showed me around his lab. He has one full-time technician there already. Everything is so new and you could tell they have funding. He has four paraffin sectioning machines and also an ice-sectioning machine that they are not using right now. They should let you have it. It is a much newer model.” “Oh, maybe, I could use his better ice sectioning machine for you on the weekend,” I continued. “That would be nice.” He laughed.
     A month passed and still I had not heard anything from the professor at the medical school. So, I called him since he gave me his office phone number before I left. He told me more than once to call him directly if I had any questions, anytime. He answered the phone. I asked him how was the progress on the position for which I had applied. He answered me very impatiently and coldly, “Oh, I don’t know, you have to call the personnel office.” Then I called the personnel office. They told me that they had hired someone else. It was all so clear to me that I had to go back to work for my professor at $5 per hour instead. Now I understood more why Mark had to leave without his degree, after three years of study and research with him.
     I was losing my options. One thing was for sure that I would not pursue my Ph.D. under him. For my ash wood samples, I had collected more than 1000 tree cores from a total of 500 trees from five states in the Northeast. It was such a waste of the samples just to measure them and go to all that trouble for nothing else. I had wood science for my undergraduate study and I knew the wood. I wondered whether the department of wood science could do anything with my wood samples, since the wood is for baseball bat. Maybe I could do something before Anthony finished since I didn’t have to go out to collect cores, saving a lot of time. Maybe the professor there would be interested in doing a study with my wood samples. I could finish another MS degree there in two or three years since I wouldn’t have to start another long, tiring field project.
     I made an appointment with a professor in the wood science department, also the director of a wood research institute. I also brought along my thesis and a sample of wood. I told him my thoughts and asked him what the possibilities were. I also told him the reason I wanted to do this in two or three years. He seemed delighted and said that he could help me initiate a little project depending upon my abilities. I could get a Masters or Ph.D. in wood science. I was delighted too. I told him that I wanted to know the possibilities before I discussed it with my former professor to permit me to use my wood samples for another project. He agreed to call my professor and to discuss possible collaboration.
     Obviously, he reached my professor before I could. When I talked to my professor the next day, he said, “What is going on? A professor from wood science and engineering called me about your possibly pursuing another degree. I told him that he must have mixed you up with someone else since you didn’t want to pursue another degree. You wanted to find a real job. You were going to work for me this summer and our project was not yet done. What are you doing meeting with a wood science professor in our college? I didn’t even know him in person except for speaking with him on the phone.” I just said, “I thought that I could find a project to finish another degree without more field work that took most of my time and energy. I had boxes and boxes of wood cores. I thought we could do something together.” He said, “Oh, I know how hard it was in the field for you especially drilling those cores. You know how to be a pathologist. Just like cooking in your kitchen. Look around my lab. You don’t need that much field work,” So much for an idea. The next thing you know when I went for my appointment with the other professor, he said that he cancelled it because we didn’t have anything to talk about.
     I did keep my promise, working for him part-time at $5/hr, only I would do it whenever I was free. I did not want to see him again. Then, I started working in a German restaurant for an average $10/hr.

Not Done Yet, Ready to Pursue Ph.D

Finally, I had finished my Masters. I was so tired, and I needed a long break. I told my professor and he said, “yes, you do.” “Take a break and wait until your paper is published. We could write another research proposal and get more research funding. You could use that for your Ph.D.” I said, “Oh, I don’t want to go through all that again. I am too old. I used to tell myself that I would stop studying as a student when I reached 30 years old. Suppose my paper was published, then we wrote a research proposal. We wouldn’t know for sure that it would be accepted and that the money would come. I will look for a job and wait for Anthony to finish his Ph.D. We will start a family because he will be finished soon. I will let you and the younger ones fight.” “Don’t say that, Ying, let’s talk about it after your break. It will not be as difficult as before plus you don’t need to go out to collect samples anymore. I will hire lab technicians and undergraduates to do all the difficult manual work for you. You and I will have a very good relationship.”
     My paper was published in “Plant Disease” in less than three months after my defense. Porter’s paper was also published in the same issue of the journal as “site descriptions” as my pathology professor put it. He implied that they would never publish it alone without my paper. He tried to publish in some other journal a year before but his paper was rejected. I joked with my professor that he had to wait for me after all. However, my former professor said that he would count how many people asked for which reprints, Porter’s paper or mine. I told them that I was finished, that I didn’t care. The last I heard, my paper out competed Porter’s in reprint requests.
     I did feel the rewards of my work from the high remarks from other professors in other universities. My professor told me one of them from Cornell even suggested highlighting my paper as the feature article of that issue. A couple of years later, they did receive funding for further research and Porter became a postdoctoral associate on the project. New graduate students told me that their professors asked them to read my paper and thesis first because it was the cornerstone of the project. My work was an important step for later research in that area.

Preparing for My Defense

Finally, my professor helped set up a date for me to defend my thesis for sometime in December 1989. I had been focused on writing and editing my thesis in the fall, using my own savings since I had to pay one credit to be a student, the project funding ran out in the summer.
     A week before my defense, my professor said that I needed to do more work to get more results. I was shocked. I was preparing to defend my Masters. He said that we could postpone the defense until the following year. I said, “I know that there are always more results if we study more. There is no end to research. But I want to finish my master’s degree first. Then, I could do more work if you want. I think that I have done enough for my master’s degree.” He said, “I decide how much is enough for your master’s degree.” I said, “Yes, you and my committee.” He said, “But I decide when we are ready to show your thesis to the committee.” I said, “when do you expect me to be ready? I am working all the time on this thesis including weekends and holidays plus there is no more money. I cannot work for free forever. I have been working on the project for three and a half years and you paid me $7500 for not even a full year. Why did you let Porter graduate in two years so he could continue for his Ph.D.? It is not fair.”
     Desperately, I asked my co-professor for his advice concerning my options. He said, “It’s probably best for you two to calm down. Let me help you complete your last stage of preparation for this degree since I have been involved in the project since the beginning with you. Plus, your professor is too young and has too many students. It is hard for him to give everyone advice. You could get all my attention. I will talk with the chairman and dean first. Then I will talk to your professor and do all the necessary paperwork for a smooth transfer. Meanwhile, why don’t you try to work on your professor’s suggestion? He is still going to be on your committee even though not as your major professor. If he votes “no” at your defense then you fail. You only need one person to vote “no” and you fail. I know that both of you are emotional.” Finally, I said, “I am not sure it is a good idea to change my major professor at this stage, not to mention he could still vote no, and not to mention my focus would change too since you are a pathologist.”
     The next day, my professor stormed into my office. He said, “Ying could you please take all your files off of my computer and return your key as soon as possible. I need the space on the computer for my students.” I was shocked that my co-professor had already went ahead without a yes from me. “You mean you don’t want all the original data and results. That’s your copy. All my data were stored on my own disks. But if you don’t want them, I will delete them all.” He said, “Yes, do it.” I was upset. I went to his office and deleted all of my files in just one second. Three years of my work were gone from his computer. I felt very good because I felt like I deleted all of the unpleasant past. Later on, I told my co-professor, who was now my major professor, what had happened. I was worried that he didn’t make the transition smooth and he would not allow me to pass my defense. He said, “I don’t believe it. What he asked you to do! And you did it. What if I need to use some of your data later on after you graduate?” “Well, you just have to go back to the mainframe and transfer them again,” I said. He shook his head, cursed, and said, “I do not know how to transfer data. I cannot believe he is so childish. He was fine when I talked with him yesterday. He agreed that he had too many students anyway.” I suddenly realized that I was in more trouble than before.
     Since my original professor was an ecologist and my co-professor was a pathologist, they always ended up arguing with each other. Now my professor was the pathologist and he wanted me to shape my work from a pathology point of view to make up for Mark who left. One thing that I learned was that he wanted me to do as much as my former professor did, just with a different approach. He was older and wiser and I actually felt sorry about my former professor. I ended up doing, if not more, the same amount of additional work, which meant wrapping up the whole project from everyone’s perspective. There was no project money so I had to pay for one more credit tuition to keep my student status. Moreover, since I was an international student I had to pay more and find a excuse to explain why I could not finish a master’s degree in three years while most other Chinese in other fields only needed one or two years to finish. I moved into Anthony’s apartment so I could save my little money. I finally set my defense date for February 1990, fourth years after I started.
     A few days before my defense I had a horrible dream that my former professor asked me all very tough questions and failed me in a most humiliating way. But for my real defense, I was ready to fight. I was prepared and I was very calm. At 9 AM sharp, I first gave a seminar to everyone who was interested in listening, the other professors and graduate students. It was a large crowd even though there was a snowstorm the night before. At the last minute, switching a professor was not a common thing to do in college even for an American student and I was a poor little Chinese girl. Thirty percent of the graduate students could not complete their degrees for various reasons. For my defense seminar, every seat was taken.
     After the seminar, I defended my thesis before my committee. It went very well and I was surprised that my former professor did not ask me any tough questions at all. He did ask one very interesting question: How did I feel after working in both ecology and pathology fields (two professors)? I stated my true observations. Overall, ecology was more of a big picture approach; relationships, the attention was on finding a way to sample to represent a whole population or several populations. We were looking for relationships, successions at the broad scale. Therefore, statistics, modeling, and simulations were very important. Ecology was a tool for almost every problem. Pathology was mostly at a small or micro-scale. Pathologists were looking for disease. For example, my professor was looking for an unknown virus mycoplasma-like organism (or MLO). He, like the professor in his field often drove around looking for diseased trees. Then, they took samples back to the lab determined to find the cause of disease, the pathogen. They were very much focused upon individuals and details.
     The good thing about this project was that ecology and pathology worked together. We designed the best sampling technique for the northern hardwood forest. The factors included both natural and abandoned agricultural land used by early settlers, the age of populations through forest succession, climatic factors, roadside winter salt effects, other artificial effects, etc. I had the opportunity to incorporate Mark’s pathological lab results and Porter’s detailed site descriptions and my yearly tree ring growth to find out that our trees were dying mostly between the ages of 30–40 years in their pure forests. But in older forests (50–80 years old), this tree was as healthy and strong as could be; however, it only made up three to four percent of the species. Others tree species like maple, oak, etc. together made up the healthy Northern Hardwood Forest. The MLO virus was one of many factors pushing the forest to change its composition and reach the stage of a healthy mature forest. From my forestry management experience, we could selectively cut those suppressed or sick trees to open room for other species. This would accelerate the process of thinning without spreading more MLO in the forest.
     After that, I went out in the hallway to wait for the results. Anthony was there all the time to support me. About 15 minutes or so later, I was invited into the room again. The chairman proudly announced that I passed the defense and everyone shook my hand to congratulate me. My former professor too, came over and shook my hand, “Ying, well done. Congratulations.” I said, “do you want to know what I dreamed last night. I dreamed that you failed me.” He said, “Me! No, how could I fail you. I knew your good work all along,” he said.
     One last surprise was in store for the cover page of my thesis, which listed a number of people including the chairman of the department. I asked Porter for a copy of his cover page so that I could copy his format since he had finished thesis writing and defending almost two years ago. I was surprised when our chairman returned my thesis without his signature. He said that he refused to sign because I typed “chairperson” instead of “chairman.” He was not just a person. He was specifically a “man.” I didn’t even pay any attention when I copied Porter’s format. So I asked Porter, why he used “chairperson” and still obtained his signature. He said that the chairman was on sabbatical leave at the time and another professor was acting chairman. I changed the word and sent it back. This time, I got the chairman’s signature. Chairman translated in Chinese is Zhuxi (主席) which means “head seat.” The word is neutral. It could be used for a man or a woman. The same was true with any other positions in China, neutral terms, although most of the time, men held those positions. Mister translated in Chinese is Xiansen (先生) which means “student head,” sometimes, we used the same word for a woman. My department chair was a woman in college. People called her Mister just like a man in the same position. The word "policeman" in Chinese is Jin Cha (警察), a neutral term, while the word Jin (警)means alert.  So for the word Jin, two Chinese words are combined, "respect" on top of "speech." Finally, Cha (察) means to observe. If I was the Chairman, I would not ask my student to change the word just because I was a man. Its meaning of leadership is far more important than the name.

Engagement

Anthony and I went to nearby Clark Reservation for a walk almost every weekend. Every now and then, other graduate students would join us. My major Professor asked me once whether I was going out with Anthony. I told him, yes, we going out for a walk on the weekend. We were good friends since he came in 1987, not dating friends.
     We went to a conference hosted by the Rochester Academy of Sciences. Most graduate students decided to drive there and back each day since it was about a two-hour drive and it was a two-day meeting. Anthony offered that three Chinese students could stay in his parents’ house overnight and also would give us a ride to and from the meetings, since we didn’t have a car or money to stay in a hotel.
     We had a very nice meeting. I dressed up in my traditional Chinese silk dress that was a bit too much because it stood out and I attracted too much attention. It was the first time for me to attend this kind of professional meeting. The next time, I would dress like everyone else. Anthony’s mom cooked a very nice dinner for us even though Anthony had already guessed the menu on the way home. Yuli and I shared one of the bedrooms at their house during our stay.
     I had strangest dream that night. I dreamed that somehow I had dinner with Anthony’s family in the kitchen, which we never did. We actually had dinner in the dining room the previous evening. I saw a baby nearby our table crying so I picked up the baby so he would stop crying. It was a strange feeling because I did not know whose baby this was. I told Yuli about my dream. She told me that it might be my destiny. I laughed. We were just friends. We did not have anything beyond that. But my dream did awaken me to consider Anthony seriously. 
      I returned Anthony’s help by inviting him for dinner at Kathryn’s house. It was an eye opener for him since I cooked so many kinds of food he did not know and had never tried before, especially a number of vegetables. He tried everything and said "interesting." He was very nice to Kathryn, not like when Porter and Mark came to pick me up for our field trips. They made a "not so nice" remark. Kathryn and my friends Marjorie and Lucille were fond of Anthony too. It is important to see how good a person is by watching how he treats others especially those who are not so important in our society, or when there are no returns for being nice to someone. That was the Chinese teaching with which I grew up.
     He is two years younger than me, just like my dad two years younger than my mom.  I was born in 1961 and he was born 1963.  My mom just happened to be two years older than my dad.  She was born in 1931 and my dad was born 1933.  Even more interesting later I delivered my first child in 1991 last one 1998.  My mom delivered me 1961 and my youngest sister 1968.
          Just before Thanksgiving in 1989, we became engaged to be married. I was still a virgin. He later told me that he was a virgin too. Anthony took me to the store and let me choose my diamond ring. We showed my ring to Anthony’s parents at Thanksgiving. It was not "love at first sight" or a "dream romance." It was every day studying and working together. I guess that I finally learned that I needed someone to care about me more and share everyday living. I have also grown to appreciate gardens instead of cut flowers. I told Anthony not to buy me fresh flowers if he could not give me a garden. We have visited many gardens since he could not afford to give me one and he never brought me flowers.
     He  did write to my parents first, asking for their permission to marry me. My parents did ask me "why him"? and was there any Chinese boy I could consider first? They worried about me one day ending up alone since all they knew about Americans was from the movies. Love like lighting strikes comes and goes so fast. Marriage was not taken seriously in the US. I told them I tried Chinese boys and that did not work. My parents did respect my choice but only worried that they could not communicate with their son-in-law and grandchildren.