by Ming Wang
When the train pulled into the station and the compartment doors opened, the long black dragon undulated forward. A lot fewer passengers seemed to be disembarking than those who eagerly waited to board. The doors were crammed with people wedging themselves into any space they could find to push themselves onto the train.
I was pressed against masses of people, and I felt as if my ribs were about to crack.
“I can’t get on the train!” I cried out to my parents, barely able to breathe.
“Ming-xu, this way!” Seeing that there was no chance for us to get onto the train through any of the cramped doors, my dad knocked on a window a few cars down and convinced a passenger inside to lift up the window to help him get me on board. My father lifted me up to the edge of the window so the man could pull me inside the train.
The stranger’s helpful attitude turned sour as soon as he saw the luggage coming in through the window behind me.
“We don’t have room for all of this!” he growled.
The benches of the train were full of strangers packed tightly together, and every inch of standing space was taken as well. Some passengers were even dangerously perched on the overhead luggage rack. There was barely enough space to expand my lungs and take in air.
I looked at the guy pleadingly. “But this is my luggage! I have to have it. I’m going to college.”
He muttered something under his breath, and then reluctantly helped me pull my luggage through the window into the crowded train.
The siren sounded. I thrusted a hand out the window I had crawled through. Its glass was thick with steam from so much body heat. I waved to my parents and little brother, to Tian-ma and Hui Liu, and to all the other friends and relatives who had accompanied me to the train station.
I had promised my parents that I would make them and my teachers proud. “I will honor the Wang family name,” I had said. In China, the family name is always written before one’s given name, since it is considered more important. In China, I was “Wang Ming-xu,” a member of the Wang clan, before I was an individual named “Ming-xu.” If I did well in my life, I would bring honor to everyone who shared this family name. I felt the tremendous weight of that responsibility.
As I waved goodbye, I saw tears streaming down my parents’ faces. Hui later told me that he had asked my father why he was upset, since it was such a wonderful occasion to send a child to college, the ultimate sign of success for every Chinese parent.
“Because we realize he’s grown up now,” my dad had responded. “He’s gone from home forever.”
My heart clenched, seeing their faces downcast and damp with tears. I would miss them terribly. I didn’t have a chance to tell them how deeply grateful I was for their unwavering support and affection throughout my life. They had always believed in me and had been there for me. Without their tireless efforts, I would never have made it that far.
The train started its slow departure over the tracks and began snaking its way toward the north. As I listened to the click-clack of the wheels on the rails, a melody formed in my mind. The song was light and upbeat. As soon as I wiggled free enough to have some elbow room, I pulled out a pencil and started scribbling on a scrap of paper. The song I composed while standing on the train was called “Little Bird.” I imagined a sparrow, once trapped in a cage, now free to fly into the open sky.
* * *
I entered collegiate life through the imposing north gate of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). I stood at the gate and asked a friend to take a picture, and I sent copies to my parents and all my relatives. After years of struggle with so little hope, I never believed that I would actually be able to go to college, so the moment felt surreal. After having my education cut off abruptly and facing the terror of impending deportation for so many years, I couldn’t believe I was really standing in front of one of the finest universities in China! I felt so deeply grateful; I was finally embracing my destiny.
Before I arrived on campus, I found out that USTC was originally in Beijing. But during the Cultural Revolution, officials forced its move to Hefei in the Anhui Province, more than six hundred miles south of the capital city. Many professors who had refused to move had been prosecuted and jailed. The school suffered greatly during those harsh years.
I was now a member of the freshman class of 1977 that was entering school in the spring of 1978, consisting of top students from provinces across the country, students who would help revive the institution. I had been assigned to study analytical chemistry, which is the study of what elements are present in matter, and their function. But I was more inclined to pursue physics, which seemed more logical and made more sense to me. In analytical chemistry, you could mix a flask of red solution with a flask of green solution and get yellow results, based on the property of matter. From my perspective, there was little logic to it. I soon changed my major to chemical physics, a branch more involved with the laws and concepts of physics. Rather than flasks, Bunsen burners, and chemical solutions, I could use tools like computers, electrical circuitry, and lasers to evaluate the properties of a molecule or the structure of an atom.
Lasers had captured my imagination more than anything else. These focused beams of unified, monochromatic light weren’t found in nature. When I was a boy, my dad told me that natural light was actually a blend of all the colors in the spectrum. To prove it, he showed me a prism and demonstrated how light passing through it was refracted into an array of different colors. As a kid, I discovered that diffused sunlight could be focused using a magnifying lens, setting paper on fire and sending tiny ants scurrying for shelter. As a college student, I learned that this fascinating technology extracts and directs singular colors of light by stimulating the release of energy from atoms, or rather, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (LASER).
During my first year at USTC, I learned that the physics behind lasers dated back to Albert Einstein in 1905, and that the first working laser was built in 1960. By 1978, the year I started college, the application of this unique light source had begun to emerge in integrated circuit electronics, aerospace, construction, and even entertainment. I was enthralled by the lasers I later saw in the movie Star Wars, one of the first American movies we were allowed to see. I was fascinated by the Jedi, their magical lightsabers, and the spaceships fighting interstellar battles with such advanced laser weaponry.
Three years into my time at USTC, I had my first real-life encounter with lasers in the research lab of a professor named Xin-xiao Ma. Professor Ma was using lasers to study the chemical reaction of gas molecules. By changing the colors of the laser and monitoring the light emitted by the molecules, he determined the structure and density of his target molecule. As I stood in his lab, beams of green and yellow light shot across the room, bouncing off mirrors at sharp angles in various directions. I had never seen anything like it. As Professor Ma spoke, his face and lab coat reflected the hues of his laser. I was filled with a sense of magic and possibility. I believed science and technology could be a source of wondrous transformation, and the science of lasers quickly became my passion.
Toward the end of my first semester, I received some unfortunate and troubling news. My father came to campus to tell me that he was being sent to Mali, on the African continent. He didn’t have much choice. He explained that China had been strengthening ties with the African nations and was providing social and economic help, including much-needed medical care. In the end, my dad would be gone for three years without any leave. When my mother was deported to the countryside nearly a decade earlier, my dad, brother, and I had each other, but now two of us were missing from the household, so I was worried about Mom and Ming-yu.
One advantage brought by my dad’s new post was that he was allowed to buy a number of valuable items that were hard to come by in China. He sent me a calculator and a small cassette radio that could record sound. So I was one of the few students on campus to have such high-tech gadgets. That little radio
ended up playing a crucial role in my study of English, and later in my preparation for a future in America.
At USTC, I befriended a fellow student named Le-ping Li, who was five years older than I was. During the Cultural Revolution, he studied American English using smuggled textbooks, and now he spoke better English than most students on campus. Le-ping wanted to pair up with someone who would be willing to study and practice American English with him, as our English curriculum was limited to mostly reading and writing—with little conversational practice—and was mainly British English.
I was drawn to Le-ping and his intense pursuit of American English because I too was fascinated by America. My earliest exposure to the United States was back in elementary school, where we were taught that America was a “paper tiger”—seemingly menacing and imposing—but if you poked it with a pencil, it would tear straight through like paper. We were shown gritty black-and-white pictures of impoverished cities where the people looked unhappy and oppressed, including some African Americans who had been beaten or lynched.
“This is what all of America looks like. The water is deep, the fire is hot, and people live in poverty and eternal unhappiness,” the teachers would tell us. “This is what it’s like to live in a country where the wealthy exploit the poor. But here in China, the working class is the master. We are much better off here.”
The official tone changed some years later. In February of 1972, President Richard Nixon visited China to meet with Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai for a week of talks aimed at normalizing relations with Beijing. After decades of estrangement and hostility between the two nations, President Nixon called his visit “the week that changed the world.” Several months prior to Nixon’s visit, my young classmates and I underwent a rigorous educational program intended to teach us about America. Officials were quickly preparing the people for the U.S. president’s arrival. We were told that this president, who had previously been outspoken against communism, wanted to open Red China to the U.S., which would help his own re-election. We were instructed that if we met the President or one of his entourage, we should not speak or even smile, but simply be polite and formal.
I certainly didn’t imagine that I would actually encounter President Nixon or his entourage in person. But when my school’s song-and-dance troupe was recruited to receive President Nixon on the bank of West Lake in Hangzhou, I was among hundreds of youngsters who lined the streets that afternoon. We wore uniforms with blue pants, white shirts, and red neckties—clutching a Chinese flag in one hand and an American flag in the other—as President Nixon’s motorcade slowly coasted by. Standing side by side in a black convertible with its top down, President Nixon and Premier Zhou smiled and waved to the crowd. I couldn’t believe I had gotten the chance to be that close to an American president!
When the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, China gradually allowed more books and movies from the West into the country. As a student at USTC, the first American movie I ever watched was Futureworld, a science-fiction film about robots in a fantasy theme park for adults. After being indoctrinated with negative propaganda about America since childhood, I was utterly shocked to see how modern America actually was. Nowhere in this film were the city streets filled with dirt and garbage, the people skinny like beggars, or the children dressed in rags. I began to question what I had been taught for so many years. Maybe I did not know the truth about America.
Like Le-ping and many other young people, I was hungry to know more about the West, especially this paper tiger, the United States of America. Le-ping introduced me to “Voice of America,” a radio broadcast that came on every evening at eight o’clock. Thanks to my dad, I was one of the few on campus who had a radio, so just minutes before the program would begin, I’d walk outside to avoid disturbing students who were still studying. Streams of other students eventually poured out of classrooms and study halls onto the dark sidewalks, and all across campus small groups circled around those of us with radios as the voice of the broadcaster said, “This is the Voice of America.”
For half an hour every evening, we listened to programs that had been specially designed so foreigners could learn American English. There was one called “Voice … of … America … Special … English … Program,” which was deliberately spoken slowly. Another was called “English 900” and followed a textbook of colloquial American English. I soaked up these lessons week after week, and recorded the Special English programs so I could spend days listening to, transcribing, and memorizing them. Learning American English felt as essential as eating, and I was consumed by it.
But Le-ping had even more tricks up his sleeve.
“Ming-xu, the best way to learn is to listen to movies in English,” he said.
“Where in the world can we get these movies?” I countered.
Le-ping told me the films were locked away in a storage room in the Department of English Language, but school rules restricted our access.
“We can get into the building after hours,” he explained. “No one will ever know.”
His plan was bold and could get us into trouble. I was wary, but my desire to learn English was stronger than my fear of getting caught.
One night after the eleven o ’ clock curfew, as lights went out and students went to sleep, Le-ping and I snuck out of our locked dorm and made our way toward the English department. The campus was pitch-black. My heart was pounding as I imagined getting caught and being forced to scrub the cafeteria floors on our hands and knees while other students laughed at us.
We climbed over a wall into the courtyard and snuck into the English department through a window. Le-ping had been inside the building during the daytime, and had left the window cracked just slightly so that we could pry it open that night from the outside. We pushed and pulled each other through the window, just as a fellow passenger had done to help me onto the train at the crowded station on my first trip to college.
The storage room was huge and filled with large, round steel disks. We had no access to the actual movies, only to the audio disks. The audio track for one movie would take four or five disks. We pulled out Death on the Nile, an Agatha Christie story, and loaded the first audio reel onto a machine the size of a suitcase. As we listened to the movie in a dark room in the middle of the night, my fears of getting caught for our illicit activity were compounded by the lethal actions unfolding in this unnerving murder mystery.
Many nights each week, for months on end, we risked getting caught and punished for the adventure of listening to the same movie over and over. We would pause the movie in different places each time, and re-enact the dialogue, trying to master the way the actors spoke. After every session, we would sneak back to the dorms at around two or three o ’ clock in the morning. Classes started at half past seven, so I usually ended up attending class half-asleep, but my English skills improved dramatically.
Movies weren’t the only import I consumed with fervor. As China opened more to the West in the post-Cultural Revolution era, we were allowed to read more world literature. I discovered the wondrous works of Stendhal and Alexandre Dumas, nineteenth-century French writers whose novels drew me into my first encounters with religion, spirituality, and the concept of God. I marveled at how the Christian faith had influenced the great nations of the West. The demands of school kept me from delving more fully into these ideas, but they made an impact on me. The more I looked toward the West and America, the more it glistened like higher ground, a place of freedom to which I could run, a place where the black dots and ghosts might never find me.
In the fall of 1981, toward the end of my fourth year at USTC, the University made an announcement that created quite a buzz on campus. The school was going to send a small number of graduates to America. I couldn’t believe the news. Maybe my chance of going to the U.S. had finally arrived!
Diplomatic ties with the U.S. had been formally established in 1979, and universities had been exchanging professional scholars for a few years. Not many Chin
ese students had yet gone overseas, but USTC told us they would be granting permission to a small number of handpicked students to study abroad, though those who were chosen would still have to secure acceptance and financial assistance on their own.
Each department was asked to nominate its top candidates, and I was one of many selected by the chemistry department. A highly competitive selection process—based on grades and a personal interview—would then narrow the applicants down to just the top five. While I couldn’t have anticipated that the opportunity to go to the U.S. would ever arise, fortunately I had been diligently and passionately studying American English throughout the past four years. I was determined to convince my interviewers that I deserved one of the five spots from our department of over one hundred students. I explained that I wanted to more fully explore and master the sciences, especially laser physics. I pointed out that the U.S. had produced more Nobel laureates than any other country in the world, and I promised to represent our school and our country well if I was chosen to study in the U.S..
Shortly afterward, I learned that I had been selected to meet Professor James McNesby, a chemistry professor from the University of Maryland at College Park, who was coming to the USTC campus. This meeting would help the school decide on the final roster of five students who would be sent to the U.S. Apart from my brief and distant encounter with President Nixon, this would be my first up-close contact with an American. The night before Professor McNesby’s lecture, I studied an English textbook so I could ask him a question after his presentation. I had to find a way to impress him so that perhaps he could not only help me get USTC’s approval to study abroad, but also help me secure a teaching assistantship at his University. This might be my only chance to go to America and support myself there. I was so excited that I barely slept that night.