From Darkness to Sight

by Ming Wang

  I didn’t have peace with my faith or with God for a long time after that, but I didn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling. I kept it buried deep inside me. No one asked me how I felt anyway; I was the doctor—the one everyone was coming to with their own concerns and fears—so I couldn’t be the one asking questions. I had not anticipated the stress and emotional burden of supporting everyone else’s hopes while my own were crumbling. People turned to me with questions, but when I turned around, there was no one behind me to answer mine. “How could God allow this to happen to a vulnerable child?” I couldn’t find an answer to this question, and I was haunted by it.

  * * *

  In the fall of 2007, the foundation hosted its third annual EyeBall fundraising gala at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Nashville. The theme that year was “Making Headlines in Black and White.” Wallace Rasmussen was the chairman of the event, but he was too sick to attend. He would have been so tickled to see Kajal, our guest of honor, who was dressed in a billowy black dress with white polka dots and a white sash around her waist. Kajal had certainly been making headlines in Nashville, with her unspeakable tragedy, her courage, and the community’s gallant efforts to help her.

  At every EyeBall, patients who have been helped by the Wang Foundation for Sight Restoration share testimonials. Grace led Kajal onto the stage and thanked everyone for all they had done for Kajal. After that, many of the people who had supported or hosted Kajal went on stage and gathered around her and Grace. One by one, they told the audience how they had cared for Kajal and how she had impacted their lives in return. The parents and children in these host families talked about how much Kajal had meant to them, how she had burst into their comfortable lives here in America, and how she had given them a glimpse of another world where so many children suffer. Kajal had shown them how to be joyous and content even in the midst of blindness and uncertainty, and even after enduring such horrific abuse. One person after another shared that they originally thought they were helping Kajal, but in the end, she helped them so much more. They realized how much they had taken for granted, and all the things they should be grateful for living here in America.

  Until that moment, I had been unable to let go of my anger at God for allowing so many bad things happen to Kajal, and for not allowing her vision to improve much, despite everything we had done. I felt Kajal deserved so much more. I profoundly wished that she had been able to recover much more of her eyesight like other foundation patients such as Francisco, Joel Case and Brad Barnes had. But as I listened to Kajal’s supporters describe their appreciation for the opportunity they had to help her, the emotional connection they had formed with her, the joy she had brought to their lives, and the changes that they had seen in their own children who had now become so much more appreciative of what they have in America today. I looked down at Kajal, who was standing next to me waiting for her turn to speak. It occurred to me that Kajal was no longer the fearful, timid, quiet child that she once was when she arrived in the U.S. many months ago. She once was now an entirely different little girl, full of life and joy, with a bubbly, enthusiastic personality.

  Kajal was happy, and she was happy because she was loved.

  For the first time in the months since Kajal’s first surgery, I felt my anger towards God begin to abate, and gradually I felt my heart reconcile with Him. I had allowed myself to believe that Kajal’s tragic circumstances were unredeemable, but as I considered her dramatic change and how deeply she had impacted the community, I realized the bigger plan in what God had done. Kajal had taught us that when we experience darkness, and it feels as though there is no light to be found anywhere we search for it, the light can come from within us. She radiated a luminescent joy that inspired everyone who encountered her, including Wallace Rasmussen, the host families, our entire surgical care team and office staff, and everyone in the world who had followed her story.

  To be honest, I still didn’t fully understand why God allowed such dreadful suffering, but I had at least accepted that there was a purpose in what Kajal had endured, just as I eventually accepted the suffering I had experienced during my younger years in China.

  Once everyone had finished sharing their stories, I handed the microphone to Kajal and whispered softly into her ear, “Kajal, would you like to say something to everyone here tonight? We all love you so much!”

  She had learned quite a bit of English since her arrival many months ago, so I assumed she would have something to say. But she was quiet for a moment, holding the microphone apprehensively in her hands. Then she broke into a big smile, with a tinge of mischief mixed in. Apparently Kajal had been preparing for this moment … and she had a special surprise up her sleeve. Kajal had a secret.

  I found out later that since Kajal had arrived in America, she had secretly wanted to learn to sing. From her four-year-old perspective, she believed the reason she had been abandoned at the train station in India after she was intentionally blinded was because she couldn’t sing. She wanted to prove that she could indeed sing, and that she was therefore worth keeping. Kajal made friends with several of the host family children here in America … and she learned to sing.

  Kajal brought the microphone up to her lips and began to sing. “Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.”

  I recognized the song Kajal was singing. It was the song on the music box that Wallace had made for Kajal to welcome her to America.

  As Kajal finished her song, the room erupted into a standing ovation fit for a symphony. As most of the faces around us streamed with tears, Kajal’s face beamed with fulfillment. The band then kicked up a Tennessee waltz, and I led Kajal onto the dance floor for the first dance. She smiled as she danced and twirled in her adorable dress. She couldn’t see them very clearly, but more than five hundred sets of eyes were aglow with tears and happiness at the sight of her.

  Chapter 19

  Dolly

  “Dolly Parton is here,” announced one of the staff at Wang Vision Institute.

  The queen of country music was waiting in my lobby! I smiled and went out to greet her. Other well-known members of Nashville’s artist community have graced our exam rooms, including Nicole Kidman, Naomi Judd, Julianne Hough, Kenny Chesney, Jo Dee Messina, Charlie Daniels, and Ashley Judd to name just a few. I’m always honored when such luminaries seek us out for eye care or vision correction surgery. It is humbling to be entrusted with something as valuable as a person’s vision—famous or not.

  Dolly was petite, sprightly, and remarkably quick-witted. During her first visit, it became clear to me that she knew exactly what she needed, and she returned soon after for her LASIK procedure. A few months later she was back for what I assumed was a post-op visit.

  “I’m actually not here for my eyes today,” she said. “I’m here to play music with you, Dr. Wang.”

  “You’re here to play music with me?” I asked, assuming she was joking.

  “Oh, yes. I hear you play the Chinese violin, the erhu. I’m making a new album and I think it would be neat to experiment with your erhu on a country song.”

  I was surprised and delighted that this country music legend would want to play music with me, an amateur.

  “You mean it?” I said. “Okay, let’s do it!”

  Dolly was working on an album called Those Were the Days, and she wanted me to play on the song “The Cruel War,” an old folk tune dating back to the Civil War about a young girl who wants to accompany her sweetheart, Johnny, to the front lines of battle.

  It was a hot and humid afternoon in July of 2005, I drove to Dolly’s recording studio with my son, Dennis, who was spending his summer break with me in Nashville, and my friend and videographer, J.R. Davis. I was excited, but unsure of what to expect.

  “Dad, do you think I could get an autograph from Dolly?” Dennis asked.

  I laughed. “Sure! We’ll ask her.”

  We got out of the car in front of Ocean Way Nashville, a beautiful
studio housed in a century-old church in Nashville’s Edgehill neighborhood. Dolly greeted us warmly and led us inside to Studio A, the main recording room. I was in awe of all the equipment, and I had never experienced anything like the thousands of little buttons and knobs I saw on the mixing console. It was worlds away from the laser lab I knew back in Maryland, with its own complex array of gadgets. Through a large rectangle of glass, I could see inside to the sanctuary-turned-studio, with its gleaming oak floors and soaring stained glass windows. Ocean Way Recording Studios embodied the essence of Music City, where sacred and secular worlds merge into a transcendent expression of human experience.

  Dolly and I sat down at a long conference table with Tom Howard—who was arranging strings for the album—and we listened to a stripped-down demo of the song. Dennis and J.R. shot photos and videos as we worked. I had brought an artisan crafted erhu that I had purchased on a trip to Hong Kong nearly a decade earlier, as I anticipated it was going to be a special evening. Dolly and I were about to attempt something new and very unique—playing a melody on an ancient Chinese instrument to complement an American country song.

  After listening to the demo, I said to Dolly, “That’s lovely. Do you have my part of the score?”

  “I have no score for your part,” she replied.

  “Okay, can I see the score for your part?”

  “I don’t have a score either.”

  So we had no score for my instrument. Dolly knew the song so well, she simply sang it from memory.

  I realized I wasn’t here just to play, but to compose as well. The last song I ever wrote was “Little Bird,” which I did on the train ride to the University of Science and Technology in China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Prior to that, I had mainly just composed music as a teenager with Tian-ma to try to avoid deportation and a lifetime of poverty and hard labor. Thinking back to those days, I realized we were actually lucky we weren’t arrested because some of our songs—like “The Prisoner’s Song”—described our longing for freedom from communist oppression, so we could have gotten into deep trouble if the government had ever found out about them.

  Nearly three decades later, I was now composing once again but this time, the mood, purpose, audience, and location could not have been more different. The only similarity was the longing expressed in both songs, a desire for freedom and love that endures.

  The erhu was the perfect instrument to express longing. Tom, Dolly, and I started playing around with the melody, trying to figure out a sound combining East and West that hadn’t yet been heard. We wanted to create something very special that would bring harmony to two very divergent styles of music that operate on entirely different scales. Chinese music uses mostly the five-note scale (the black keys on the piano), whereas Western music uses a seven-note scale (both black and white keys). We listened to the demo of “The Cruel War” over and over, breaking it into many different segments, and experimenting with notes on the erhu’s two strings.

  For several hours we strung a variety of notes together until we finally had a workable score for the erhu. While we were waiting for the engineers to set up for recording, I felt like celebrating. I was elated by how the East and the West had come together and had produced such a lovely harmony with each other.

  “I’ll play a song if you’ll sing with me,” I said to Dolly, as we waited in the sanctuary.

  “Let’s see, what Chinese song do I remember?” Dolly said to herself with a mischievous laugh.

  “Oh, this one you will know for sure,” I replied.

  Since my first days in America, my favorite song to play on the erhu was the Irish tune, “Danny Boy.” Sitting in that vast room, the memories of a century of singers hovering overhead, I began to draw my bow across the strings.

  Dolly jumped right in and started singing. She had such immense talent and so many years of experience that she needed no preparation. As I played the main notes of the famous melody, she sang in harmony, complementing the erhu’s plaintive sound. As the song came to an end, I played toward the high end of the scale and Dolly followed right along.

  “I didn’t know where you were going, but I was heading there anyway!” she said with a laugh.

  My whole being radiated with happiness. I had just played an Irish hymn on an ancient Chinese instrument with an American country music icon. There was magic in the way the music transcended the cultural differences. We were about to begin recording my first erhu composition in decades, after following a fascinating creative process. I was thrilled to experience the transformation and redemption of my erhu playing from a fear-driven task when I was young to a celebration of life and love thirty years later.

  After we completed the recording, Dolly walked us out, and I told her how much I appreciated the evening, and how much I enjoyed the songs on her new album. “Those sure were the days,” I said, alluding to the album’s title track.

  “Yes,” she said with a smile, “those were the days.”

  She waved goodbye and we pulled out of the parking lot. I smiled at Dennis, who had thoroughly enjoyed observing our East-meets-West collaboration. As for his request for an autograph, Dolly didn’t take it lightly. She found the sheet paper on which we had written our original composition, and she signed it in large, swirling cursive. I would remember that afternoon with Dolly some years later when I found myself an advocate for artists in the middle of a battle for their rights.

  Chapter 20

  Giving Back

  The room was filled with tension and I could barely sit still. I was surrounded by songwriters, music-industry executives and congressional leaders, all gathered to discuss how to combat music piracy in China. At first I wasn’t sure why I was even in the room, since I was just an eye doctor and not a music professional. But as I listened to the arguments being presented, something began to stir inside of me. I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  I have lived in the United States since 1982, so my entire adult life has been shaped and formed here in America. I am immensely grateful to America for all the opportunities it has given me. From the moment I landed in Washington, D.C., I have fallen in love with America, and I have been blessed to be able to live the American dream.

  My childhood was filled with the traditions of the East. I grew up with loving parents and grandparents who taught me the family value, to work hard and believe in myself. But America has taught me how to look to the future, dream big, and lead. My success in medicine and my ability to impact lives has been uniquely fashioned at the intersection of my Eastern roots and Western education. The combination of these experiences has given me the insight and ability to lead in my medical profession, and to help resolve issues of conflict in our society. I have always been interested in political dialogue and cultural exchange between the East and West. From my experience as a child meeting President Nixon during his visit to China, to my social activism during the Tiananmen Square tragedy, to meeting with President Reagan and Vice President Bush at the White House, I have interacted with some of the great political leaders of our time. I have learned a great deal from those experiences, which has fostered my interest in engaging in societal and political issues, and giving back to America.

  The hearing about music piracy in China took place in a large auditorium inside the BMI building on Music Row. The primary topic of discussion was how to protect American songwriters from the piracy of songs running rampant in China.

  One of the congressmen proposed enacting sanctions against China. “Tell the Chinese we won’t take this anymore! We will enforce our laws using any measure necessary, including economic sanctions.”

  I winced as I listened to him speak. Strong-arming China on this issue was not a good idea and wouldn’t be effective in supporting American songwriters. This was my moment to give back and to contribute. I stood up and offered a different approach.

  “Consider the state of music and movie piracy in Hong Kong thirty years ago,” I said. “Back then, fifty percent of mus
ic sold there was pirated. But now that number is down to less than a few percent, which is the Western standard. That’s what we would like to see happen in mainland China. Do you know why the change has occurred in Hong Kong over the last thirty years? It wasn’t because the U.S. threatened economic sanctions. It was because Hong Kong’s own artists—international stars like Jackie Chan—realized it was in their own best interest to stand up and protect artists’ intellectual property. So in my opinion the key here is to work together and communicate with the artists and the government in China in order to help them realize that reducing music piracy benefits not only America, but China itself as well.”

  There was a silence in the room after I spoke. I sensed that the audience was reflecting on and considering what I had just said. Then the executive director of the Nashville Songwriters Association, Bart Herbison, said, “I completely agree with Dr. Wang. We should strive to follow his suggestion.”

  A wave of excitement rushed through me. I realized I was making an impact on protecting the intellectual property of American songwriters while maintaining sensitivity and respect for different cultures and people. I knew in that moment that I wanted to help even more, so I joined the Nashville Songwriters Association as an advisory board member and became active in helping with the dialogue and interactions between musicians in China and the United States.

  Beyond bolstering Nashville’s music and creative community, I felt increasingly drawn to improve cultural understanding between my American compatriots and the Chinese, especially by helping local Tennessee companies to sell their products overseas. I was troubled by the fact that America buys so much from China, so I wanted to encourage trade traffic in the opposite direction—exports from Tennessee to China—while also encouraging Chinese manufacturing firms to relocate to Tennessee to create jobs here.