by Weijian Shan
Even then, China was changing. The college entrance examination system was the first step toward providing equal opportunities to all who aspired.
I finally figured out why the Asia Foundation officials were reluctant to give me their blessing for my degree program: They were concerned about creating a problem between the foundation and BIFT. Otherwise, they were supportive of my new plans. Andy was prepared to write a letter to the authorities at BIFT to plead on my behalf. I gave Andy some advice. I suggested that he not ask for BIFT to give its consent, but to simply inform them of the good news that I had performed well and had received financial support to complete a degree program. I explained that if the foundation asked BIFT for its consent, it gave it a choice of saying yes or no. What if they said no? I suggested to Andy: “Why don’t you write to simply congratulate them for the achievement I have made?” That way, I reasoned, it would be hard for them to say no.
Andy took my advice and carefully composed a letter to Beijing. He showed me the letter in which he heaped much praise on me but was careful to reserve most of the flattery for BIFT. Two weeks later, I went back to the Asia Foundation. It had a warehouse of donated books that were free for me to pick through. As I was selecting books, a call was patched through from Andy’s office. He said he received a cable from BIFT in response to the letter he had sent. “What does it say?” I asked anxiously. He paused for a moment. I could hardly bear the suspense. Then he said, “It only says ‘Thank you very much.’” I was elated. That was exactly what I had expected them to say. Who could say no to a congratulatory cable?
The second semester was a lot easier for me than the first, even though I was taking more courses. I had begun to get the hang of it. I settled into a daily routine of going to classes and reading class materials. I spent practically every day moving between classrooms, the library, and my dorm.
On March 30, 1981, as I was reading in the library, my friend from Taiwan, Xu Wen, walked in. When she saw me, she walked over and whispered to me, “President Reagan was shot!” What? I was shocked by the news. I rushed out of the library to find a TV and see what had happened. The news report confirmed it: There had been an assassination attempt. President Reagan and three other people, including his press secretary, James Brady, had been wounded. It was not clear at that moment if the president would survive. I thought this was a great crisis for the United States. But when I looked around, it seemed everyone was rather calm. People were going about doing what they were doing. There was no sense of crisis. I went to the law school to find Mrs. Cassou. She was just about to go to the church on campus to pray for President Reagan. I went with her. It was the first time I had stepped into this church. There were a few people gathered, apparently also praying for the president.
Fortunately, Reagan’s wound was not fatal. It was reported that he was alert enough to joke to his wife, Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” Eventually the president made a full recovery. Later it was reported that the assassin did this to impress an actress he had a crush on. This was so bizarre I figured it had to be made up.
One day in April 1981, Mrs. Cassou informed me that the anonymous donor who provided the funding for my MBA wanted to have dinner with me. I was so grateful to this mysterious benefactor, but I was also nervous to finally meet him. At about 6:30 p.m. on April 15, I went to the parish house where the priests who taught at USF lived. I met up with Bob Glavin and Father Callahan, both faculty members. They were to take me to the restaurant and represent the university at the dinner. We were dining at the Blue Fox, one of the finest restaurants in town, I was told. It was located in an alley off Montgomery Street.
The décor of the restaurant was impressive, with gold-leaf walls, chandeliers, and red carpeting. I was the only guest there without a suit and tie, which was apparently required by the restaurant, but I was wearing my Mao suit because Mrs. Cassou had earlier advised me that my “national costume” would do. I brought with me a Chinese landscape painting as a gift for my benefactor. I sat down with Bob and Father Callahan, nervously awaiting the arrival of this mysterious person.
Just then a waiter came over to announce that guests of ours had arrived. Bob hurried out to meet them. I tensed up in anticipation. Then I saw a lady walk in, followed by a gentleman: April and Phil Cassou. I felt a huge sense of relief. It would be nice to have some friendly faces with me when I finally met my benefactor.
Then it dawned on me: the Cassous were my benefactors. I was taken aback, completely at a loss for words. Mrs. Cassou wore a dark green evening dress with a shiny sequin border and beautiful shiny jewelry. She was absolutely beautiful and dazzling. She looked at me mischievously, satisfied that her surprise was complete. Her husband, Phil, also looked his best in a tuxedo and a butterfly tie. He also enjoyed seeing my state of shock. I had prepared to give a brief report of my work to the mysterious donor but now those words were not needed. All I could blurt out was: “I . . . I don’t know what to say . . . It had never occurred to me it was you. I am so grateful you would do this for me.”
I was flabbergasted by their overwhelming generosity to a total stranger, who only a few months ago had come from a country on the other side of the planet. Mrs. Cassou explained that she didn’t think it was fair for someone to be denied a formal education just for lack of money, which was the reason they had decided to step in. They had waited so long to reveal their identity probably to make sure I would succeed academically. They really made a bet on me; I was glad I didn’t fail them, and I would not. That evening was the most memorable dinner of my life, although I have no recollection of the food I ate.
Many years later I had the opportunity to reciprocate some of that generosity, but in a way the Cassous would approve. In the 1990s April and Phil Cassou and I established the Cassou-Shan Scholarship to provide financial assistance for students at USF. For my contribution, USF presented me with a souvenir. It was a thick red brick, at least a third thicker than the bricks I used to make in the Gobi, but it was quite pale, almost whitish; I assumed the maker mixed clay with a high proportion of white sand. Embossed in the center of the brick was a cross. The plaque on the stand read:
Foundation Brick
Old St. Ignatius College
Hayes and Van Ness 1880–1906
In appreciation for your generosity to the University of San Francisco
It was explained to me that St. Ignatius College was the predecessor of the university. In the 1880s, when a new school building was constructed at the corner of Hayes Street and Van Ness Avenue, the contract was first awarded to Chinese workers. But this was a time of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. Shortly after the workers broke ground, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which remains the only law ever passed that prohibited a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States. White workers held protests against St. Ignatius, and eventually the contract was split in two, with one part given to whites and the other to the Chinese laborers. To distinguish themselves from Chinese workers, the white workers carved a cross on each brick they made. My brick had a cross on it.
The college was destroyed in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, but a few of the foundation bricks from the ruins were kept, and ultimately were given out to benefactors of the university as a token of the school’s appreciation. The irony of this brick was not lost on me. In the 1880s it was designed as an explicit symbol of discrimination against the Chinese. A century later, in the 1980s, the university, its faculty, and its alumni had generously helped me, a Chinese student. Now this brick was given to this Chinese for my modest contribution to the university. History sometimes makes ironic turns.
* * *
To complete my MBA before the end of 1981, I decided to take classes during the summer as well. For my summer semester midterm exams, I received full marks in the finance course Professor Murray was teaching, whereas the class average was 64. I wrote four essays for the class. On three of them, he marked “Excellent,” and on
the fourth one, he gave me a full mark and remarked: “You are now a certified capitalistic scholar.”
After one of the classes, Professor Murray took me aside and asked me if I would like to get into a PhD program. The idea had never occurred to me. “You know how difficult it was for me to get the funding for my MBA,” I said. “Where will I get the money to pursue a PhD program? Besides, I have a wife at home in Beijing whom I haven’t seen for a year. How do I support her, even if I can bring her here?”
He replied, “Money shouldn’t be a problem,” without explaining any further.
I was skeptical, but I was also intrigued by the idea and decided to give it a try. Again, my philosophy in life is always: no harm in trying. Following the advice of Professor Murray, I began to prepare to take the usual standardized tests. I gave no thought to which schools I would apply to because I knew I could count on Professor Murray to point me in the right direction.
After the summer term concluded, the Asia Foundation bought me an air ticket to travel to the East Coast for a 12-day visit. This was part of the visiting scholar program. The idea was to provide me with a more complete exposure to American society. I was going to New York City and Washington, DC.
The Cassous had moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, over the summer, after IBM transferred Phil to the East Coast. I would be staying with them for a couple of days, and Mrs. Cassou offered to take me to New York City.
The Cassous’ house was modest by Greenwich standards, but it was quite handsome and comfortable. The rest of the houses in their neighborhood were some of the largest and most stunning homes I had ever laid my eyes on. Each house looked unique, but all had big lawns and tall trees. Obviously, there was a lot of wealth concentrated in this town. After I arrived, Mrs. Cassou took me for a walk around the neighborhood to look at the big houses. At one point, my shoelace came loose. I saw a low rock on the lawn in front of a big house, just a couple of steps off the sidewalk. I walked over and sat down on the rock to tie my shoes. “Shan, get back on the sidewalk!” Mrs. Cassou said. The lawn was private property, she explained, and I was trespassing.
I was impressed by her sense of respect for private property. This stood in sharp contrast with China, where there was practically no private property in big cities at that time, although tall walls surrounded every residential compound and every work unit to prevent unrelated people from getting in. There were walls in Beijing everywhere, and the biggest and the tallest were the walls surrounding Zhongnanhai, where the central government was located. Here in the United States, there were few walls, and there were open lawns in front of private homes. Yet people were accustomed to respecting private property. I thought it was ironic that walls were necessary in Beijing, where there was practically no private property, but not necessary in Greenwich, where every property was private.
Mrs. Cassou and I took the Metro-North train to Grand Central Terminal. “New York City can be dangerous,” she warned me. “Try to avoid eye contact with people.” We first went to visit the United Nations headquarters and joined a tour to see the various function halls, including the Security Council Chamber and the domed General Assembly Hall. This was the place where I would have worked if I had chosen to join the UN interpreter program. In fact, the program’s director, professor Zhang Zailiang, was still writing me to urge me to join the program after I finished my studies in the United States. I was touched by his persistence and grateful that he took me seriously, but I also knew it was unlikely I would join his program. The next class of UN translators would start in September, and so many people had already moved heaven and earth to help me get a degree that I couldn’t just quit and go back to Beijing now. Besides, I was going to get my MBA. My life seemed to be heading down a different path, even toward a PhD. Looking back now, I am glad I didn’t get into the first UN program. My life would have been completely different.
I sent my wife a postcard from the UN post office in the building. It was a photograph of UN headquarters as seen from the East River. It looked pretty. But I wrote, “New York City is very dirty, chaotic and noisy, the difference between heaven and earth from San Francisco.” I also wrote, “The fall is coming. I will be able to go home by the end of the year!”
We took a cruise on the Hudson River around Manhattan. As we looked down from the upper deck, we saw a group of foreign tourists on the lower deck eating lunch and throwing their food wrappers into the river. I could hear someone standing near me say in a low voice, “Go back to your own country!” I also felt outraged by these tourists littering the beautiful river.
The cruise took two or three hours and covered about 30 miles. I was impressed to learn from the guide that there were 20 bridges on the river, and we were also told there were 16 tunnels under the river. Parts of Manhattan looked modern and nice, and other parts were dilapidated and run-down, with broken windows and dirty walls. It reminded me of the run-down factory buildings I often saw in China. I also noticed the trees in New York City were similar to those in Beijing, probably because the climate in both cities is similar. For example, there are willow trees in both New York and Beijing, but not in San Francisco.
We returned to New York City the next day and took the subway to Wall Street. New York’s subways were horrible, with graffiti covering the inside and outside of every car of the train. I’ve seen pictures of gorgeously colored murals on the sides of New York subway cars, but the ones I saw in real life were not even artful. As we stood on the train holding onto the overhead bar, a panhandler in dirty clothes walked through the car with an open box in his hand, begging for money. His eyes seemed closed but he was walking without bumping into anything or anyone. I asked Mrs. Cassou in a whisper if he was blind. Ever a lawyer, she said, “Allegedly blind.”
We visited the New York Stock Exchange. From the visitors’ gallery, I could watch the frenzied activity below through a thick glass wall. It seemed that the brokers were running around like mad, and they frequently tossed pieces of paper into the air and let them drop to the floor. The floor was covered in scrap paper. I couldn’t hear their voices; the sound was just a low humming noise through the thick glass. But from the frenzied waves of their hands and the shapes of their mouths, I could tell many were shouting. It felt like looking into a zoo full of hyperactive animals. This was supposed to be the center and pinnacle of American finance. I was studying finance, but I couldn’t imagine I would want to work in such a place.
Later we visited Liberty Island and took pictures at the Statue of Liberty. We also visited the famed Fifth Avenue, although we did not go into any of the shops. My lasting impression of New York back in 1981 was of the sharp contrast everywhere, between modern and old, between rich and poor, and between order and chaos. I was struck by how dirty some places were, with trash everywhere, and how polluted the air was. New York City in general was dirty and noisy—old, dilapidated, and run-down in some places and yet beautiful, luxurious, and modern on streets like Fifth Avenue.
During my trip I was also able to spend some time with my old English teacher, Tom O’Neill, and his French wife, Monique, who had taught us at BIFT. Tom and Monique had returned to the United States and lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey, about 45 minutes’ drive from Greenwich. Tom went on to get a PhD from McGill University in Canada. He would later become a successful retail executive, serving as CEO of Harry Winston jewelers and later as president of the clothing companies Burberry and Clarks.
While staying with Tom and Monique in Fort Lee, I called on an older gentleman by the name of Ralph Henry. He was one of the tourists I guided when I worked as an intern at the Beijing Travel Service in 1979. He’d given me his phone number, but I don’t think he ever expected me to call him. He was mightily surprised to hear from me. After dinner, Tom and Monique drove me to Ralph’s place. He gave us a slide show of the pictures he had taken on his China tour back in 1979.
Tom and Monique took me back to Manhattan, where we visited the New York Public Library. I was impressed by its si
ze and fast service. We also went to a bookstore, the largest I had ever seen. I bought a Chinese atlas there for $5.38 even though the list price was $75. We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It had a vast collection, and the museum’s layout was excellent and well organized. There were numerous treasures from all over the world: antiquities, sculpture, paintings, clothing, furniture, architecture of different styles, artifacts from Egypt, China, Europe, America, ancient Rome, ancient Greece, Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Everything.
After saying goodbye to my friends in New York, I took a train to Washington, DC. A young man named Ken Bowman, from the National Council for U.S.-China Trade, met me at the train station. After visiting with some of the council members, I went to take a tour of FBI headquarters, where I was fascinated by the firearms demonstration. Washington was neat, clean, and grand, just as a capital should be, with all its monuments—a real contrast to New York City. I was impressed by all the museums, libraries, and government buildings in Washington, and by the fact that the admission to all of them was free, and there were free guided tours as well.
The council people took me to visit the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the National Cathedral, the Chinese Embassy, and the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, designed by I. M. Pei. There was a special exhibition of Rodin sculptures. I also visited Capitol Hill.
The next day, I visited the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum, where I watched the movie Fly on a giant 100-by-100-foot screen. I also visited the Middle Wing of the National Gallery of Art, had lunch with the director of the Southeast Asia collection of the Smithsonian, and toured the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court.