Bend, Not Break

by Ping Fu

  All at once, Li, my Red Guard best friend whose mother had given me my first rainflower stone, appeared by my side. I hadn’t even seen her coming. She greeted me with a smile and warm embrace typical of her ebullient personality. “Hey, everyone, Ping is here!” she shouted with a rollicking laugh that made the others turn their heads toward me. As she guided me to my chair, she told me that she was working as an accountant at a chemical company.

  Thanks to Li’s warm embrace, memories of those middle school years suddenly flooded back into my mind, and I found that I could put a name to almost every face at the table. I was excited to see that Fong had made it to the reunion, as well as the sympathetic teacher, Lu, who had rescued me from my tormentors. She told me that I had made a strong impression on her back then because I was so courageous and resilient.

  I was shocked when a man named Huang, who I didn’t think even remembered me, recited almost word for word an essay I had written when I was thirteen. He told me that he had always tried to imitate my clever reports.

  “I know I beat you, and I’m sorry for that,” a Red Guard with a red face said, raising his glass for a toast. He demanded that I drink to his apology. I wanted to decline: Chinese hard liquor deceives with its innocent clear color; it is 120 proof. But denying the toast would have been considered rude. Ever my quiet savior, Fong unobtrusively found his way to my side and switched glasses with me like a magician without anyone noticing so that I could discreetly drink water instead.

  I was halfway through the sixteen-course feast before I realized that I was the star of this reunion. I had been dirt beneath my classmates’ feet, and now I was their hero. I was the CEO of a successful high-tech company. In their eyes, I lived a glamorous American life of big houses, multiple cars, and other possessions they coveted. As the drinking went on and they started taunting Fong and me for the relationship we never had, I came to see that they didn’t know me at all—not thirty years ago, and not now. I had not changed. What had changed was their perception of me. Prejudice, I realized, exists only in people’s minds.

  The highlight of the experience was getting to talk to Fong semiprivately for a moment in the corner of the banquet room, once everyone was standing up to leave and bidding their farewells. I grabbed his arm with my hand. “I never got to say thank you,” I said, my eyes growing misty. “I brought so much shame to your name, and all you did in return was shower me with kindness. I can never repay you for your generosity.”

  Fong gave me his signature soft, shy smile. “I always wanted to protect you, Ping. I only wish that I could have done more,” he said simply, dipping his head toward the earth. I wondered if life had been kind to him since the Cultural Revolution. I wished fervently that it had.

  —

  During the reunion trip, I was struck by two realizations. First, and most moving, was the change in my mind-set from nobody to somebody. Back then, I had feared even being friendly with Li, since my black blood would taint her and surely cause trouble for her. Now everyone, including those who had shunned me, wanted to associate with me because they thought I had an amazing life. They seemed genuinely happy for my success in America. Their acceptance and admiration healed some of my enduring wounds. I found the last clinging bits of bitterness fall away from my childhood armor, leaving me even more compassionate and vulnerable than I’d been before.

  Second, I was struck by how much more American I felt than Chinese when I was with them. Naturally, in America I often feel the power of my Chinese roots. I still speak with a slight accent, dress with a Chinese flair, and cook Chinese food at home, and, most important, have a Chinese way of thinking about shared responsibility, humility, and the common good. But at the reunion, surrounded almost exclusively by people who had never left China, I felt dramatically American by comparison. I noticed that my former classmates talked with their mouths full and reached for food from the common plates with their chopsticks rather than using a serving spoon. They ordered the waitress around without a hint of politeness, which is typical in China—but given my many years of waitressing in the United States, I felt resentful of their rude behavior. I also noticed that they were uninhibited in discussing their private affairs, whereas I was more reserved. From time to time, I couldn’t even find the right Chinese words to express myself; it was easier for me to describe many experiences and revelations in English.

  In the twenty-five years that I had lived in the United States, I truly had become American in my attitude toward personal freedom and the power of individual expression. I had enjoyed incredible opportunities, been given the choice to study where and when I wanted, and stubbornly pursued my own path in education, marriage, family, and entrepreneurship. My Chinese counterparts had never been given such opportunities or had such rich experiences. I saw how difficult it was for them to imagine how many options we have in America. Even our ability to freely move from one city to another was not a concept they could comprehend.

  When the 2008 mortgage crisis and stock market crash pulled the U.S. economy into a downward spiral, I contemplated what else—other than running a successful midsized technology company that hired locally and brought manufacturing back to the United States—I could do for my country. As with many blessings in my life, good fortune meant being ready to take action when opportunity came my way. In 2009, President Obama created the very first presidential National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and I was invited to be one of its inaugural members. I accepted the invitation because entrepreneurship and innovation are two topics dear to my heart and because it would provide a welcome opportunity for me to learn about policy making at the highest level. This was my chance to help guide America proudly forward through an era of uncertainty and change.

  In February 2012, I was honored with an Outstanding Americans by Choice award. It is given each year to immigrants who have naturalized as American citizens and who have demonstrated outstanding service to the nation. I didn’t choose to come to America; I had to leave China. But I did choose to become American. I have embraced this country as my adopted home, and I am fiercely loyal to it. I am humbly grateful every day that my life is an embodiment of the American dream, and I do everything in my power to offer others the same opportunities that I was blessed to have found here. After all, most Americans are immigrants, separated by only a few generations.

  —

  Life is full of surprises, and dreams come true in the most unexpected ways. As a little girl, I wanted to take flight and join the fairy-tale woman who lived on the moon. Later, sliding down airplane wings at NUAA, where my father had once taught aeronautical engineering, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. I never did study engineering or soar into outer space. But in August 2005, I watched from the ground as Geomagic technology was used as part of the main mission for the space shuttle Discovery, commanded for the first time ever by a woman, Eileen Collins. Our software helped to detect and repair insulation tiles damaged in space, assuring the safe return of the astronauts. Nanjing Father watched the shuttle landing on CNN from his faculty apartment at NUAA. In one of the last conversations I had with him before his stroke, he said that I had made him happy and proud.

  Around the same time, Geomagic software was employed by the U.S. Park Service to re-create a digital model and engineering drawings from 3D scan data of the Statue of Liberty. Three-dimensional digital documentation is a new application of Geomagic software, allowing us to help preserve our collective memories and national treasures. If the monument is ever destroyed or damaged, it can be reproduced as it stood at the time of the scan—with its original shape and artistry, right down to the details of wear and tear from time and weather. The Wall Street Journal called it “Digital Lady Liberty” in a front-page story. I felt amazed that I could play a role in preserving the symbol of freedom to which I had paid homage as a new American immigrant nearly two decades earlier.

  Today, Geomagic continues to flourish
. While I was writing this book, we completed a major acquisition that will advance 3D technology to the next level, incorporating the sense of touch into the digital environment. I have found great peace in my personal life as well. Nanjing Mother has continued to live with me since 2008. Slowly yet steadily over the years, like ice cream melting off a cone, my birth mother is softening. I am glad that we have had a chance to share a life together, and I know that I will not regret taking care of her. Hong not only helped me start Geomagic but also thrives as an entrepreneur, owning and running two successful specialty retail stores, Bischoff’s Shades of the West and Bischoff at the Park, in Scottsdale. I am immensely proud of her. Xixi started college in the fall of 2012. She continues to impress me as an independent and thoughtful Renaissance woman, gifted in art and science and a maker in her own right.

  I contemplated whether or not to write this book for several years. Initially, I was enticed by a well-known literary agent to share my life story. But it didn’t feel right because I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to read about me. In addition, Xixi was young, and I wasn’t sure whether she could face the brutality of her mother’s youth. Finally, I am an introvert. I find sharing my life with people I don’t know to be intimidating and uncomfortable.

  Eventually, I became reconciled to the idea that others might find inspiration in my story. I write today not because of what I have become but because of the nobody I once was. I write because I wrote many pages long ago, more than these, in secret and at night, and they were burned in front of my eyes. I write because I am fortunate enough to have lived a life that I never could have imagined possible, and sharing the tale of how I got here seems to be the generous thing to do.

  This book is not intended as a blueprint. I believe that all people should value their own pursuits, and even more so treasure their own life journeys. I do not wish for anyone to live the life I did. Millions of people in China experienced similar atrocities, and they passed away or have continued to struggle in the decades that followed. I do not think myself better than any of them. I was handed few advantages in life, and I possess no extraordinary talents. I simply was born with the curiosity to learn, the tenacity to make a better life, the desire to help others, and a great deal of resilience.

  Perhaps I gained that resilience because of my particular life circumstances. I was raised by two different mothers, one nurturing and the other analytical; embraced two opposing ideologies, one socialist and the other capitalist; and lived an extensive life in two countries, China and America. I also journeyed through the most extreme valleys and have reached some remarkable peaks. I can relate to wild success, utter poverty, and everything in between. Bridging these gaps, I have developed flexibility and compassion for those experiencing the struggles we all face.

  Life has been messy for me, as it has for most everyone. I have come to the realization that challenging experiences break us all at some point—our bodies and minds, our hearts and egos. When we put ourselves back together, we find that we are no longer perfectly straight, but rather bent and cracked. Yet it is through these cracks that our authenticity shines. It is by revealing these cracks that we can learn to see and be seen deeply.

  True to my profession, I see my life in three dimensions, similar to the shapes that Geomagic software creates. There are three types of holes in topology. A tunnel has two openings that connect to the outside. A pocket has only one opening. And a void, an enclosed space like the inside of a ball, has no connection to the outside world.

  My life has been composed of tunnels, pockets, and voids: a tunnel from Shanghai to Nanjing, and another from China to America; a pocket when I first arrived at NUAA, and another when I landed in the United States with no hope of returning home, both times knowing that I had to find my way to the opening of a better life. The voids still ache in my heart: the abuse I endured; my lack, for many years, of the parental love that most children take for granted; the nightmares that refuse to go away; and the loneliness that I felt for so long.

  Yet as life comes to a full circle, I appreciate how all those spaces forced me to shape myself around them: I bent, but did not break. In spite of the challenges, I have created a reality that forms a whole. Even in the void, I made a womb where I nurtured my creativity and incubated ideas. Eventually, I gave birth to both a company and a child. It is in tunnels that we start our journey; in pockets that our imagination blossoms toward the opening; and in voids that we must face our naked, agonizing vulnerability.

  My family’s home in Shanghai was a grand three-story villa. I have many wonderful memories from my time in this house.

  My family has always been invested in education. When Shanghai Mama and Papa got married (here, on their wedding day), in lieu of gifts, they asked guests to donate money toward rebuilding neighborhood schools destroyed during the Sino-Japanese war.

  My Shanghai family was loving and nurturing. I enjoyed being the youngest of six children, with older brothers, seen here, who always tried to protect me.

  Shanghai Mama (right) was a welcoming and caring woman, while her sister, Nanjing Mother (left), was more serious and focused on her work.

  Although I did not know that Nanjing Mother and Father were my biological parents until the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, I did visit them and my sister Hong (bottom left) many times as a young child.

  My grandfather, Shanghai Papa’s father (right), sold all his valuable possessions for mere pennies in order to feed his family.

  Hong (right) and I (left) lived together in Room 202 at the NUAA dormitories. This picture was taken by my third brother during his brief visit to Nanjing in 1972.

  When I lived in the dormitories, I spent much of my time with students my age. During our mandatory study sessions, we recited slogans from Mao’s Little Red Book. I am first on the right in the front row.

  My first best friend, Li (center) was more than just a friend; she was also my protector. Here we are standing outside of Li’s house. I’m on the right and Li’s older sister is on the left.

  Nanjing Mother (left) came to stay with me (right) and Hong in Room 202 when she returned to Nanjing. I had just turned thirteen.

  After Mao’s death, the government reopened universities. Competition for admission was intense, but I was accepted to Suzhou University to study literature.

  At Suzhou University, my friends and I founded a club called the Red Maple Society. We published a literary magazine composed of poems, essays, and articles about campus news. We were accused of being an illegal underground society that published anticommunist propaganda, and the club was shut down.

  The night before my departure from China, our family gathered for a banquet. I’m in the middle; to the right is Nanjing Father, and to the left is Nanjing Mother. The woman on the far left is Shanghai Mama.

  Hong (left) joined me (right) in New Mexico eighteen months after I arrived in 1984. She adapted quickly to the American way of life and grew to love the United States.

  To pay for my tuition at the University of New Mexico, I waited tables at a Chinese restaurant in Santa Fe.

  The day my daughter, Xixi, was born my life changed for the better forever. I loved playing on the playground with her. She made me feel like a kid again.

  In 2010 I had the great honor of meeting the president and his wife at the White House and sitting in the first lady’s box at the State of the Union address.

  Here, I’m doing fieldwork with the Long Now foundation. We scanned the 10,000 Year Clock site in West Texas and used Geomagic software to process data and visualize the geological information.

  In September 2010 I visited Jay Leno at his “Big Dog Garage” in Southern California. We fixed his Duesenberg 1920 vintage car using Faro Scanner, Geomagic software, and Autodesk software.

  Designed by Janne Kyttanen of 3D Systems, these shoes incorporate a pocket that holds an iPhone. Just one ex
ample of the wonders of 3D modeling and printing.

  Geomagic software was used by Scott Summit of Bespoke Innovation to create this custom prosthetic leg. Not only is the leg functional, but it looks and feels real, which inspired the soccer player to play as if he had his own leg back.

  The Geomagic technology lab in North Carolina is where we test-drive the latest technologies. It’s also a place for community service and education outreach.

  The Geomagic team at our campus in North Carolina.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TO MY COAUTHOR, MeiMei Fox, whom I met at Burning Man in 2010. Working with her is a joy.

  To our editor, Niki Papadopoulos. Her dedication, insight, and drive for excellence were instrumental in writing this book.

  To our agents, Laura Yorke and Carol Mann. Their support and love of authors are unconditional.

  To our publisher, Adrian Zackheim, for his integrity, intelligence, trust, and unwavering support of his authors.

  To my assistant, Cecilia Gonzales. Without her, my life would be a total mess and I would not be able to write.