Oregon's Warm Welcome

Statistician and activist Nancy Lo was born in southwestern China, but escaped to Taiwan at age six. (see post one.) For most of her early days in Taiwan, she was sheltered with other Air Force families, only meeting the local children when she went to Middle/High School. (see post two.) 

Upon graduation, this very intelligent woman was accepted into her first choice university: National Taiwan University in Taipei. By this point, she had discovered she was interested in math and science.

Very few girls went into math in the 60's

“But at that time, very few girls would go to that field. So I kind of changed my mind.”

Instead of pure math, she studied economics, then accounting. When she graduated in 1964, and there was a push—and an examination--to send students abroad for further study, Nancy gladly took the challenge. She passed the exam, and decided to attend Oregon State University--as she was offered a tuition waiver, and the cost of living in Oregon was low. Also, as the least expensive transport was Flying Tiger Cargo airlines (what started as military transport), she took that.

“That flight—inside it was not so fancy like a regular airplane. They had seats along the wall-- not like regular seats in commercial airplane.”

"It was not so fancy...they had seats along the wall."

Nancy landed in San Francisco and took a Greyhound to Corvallis, Oregon, enjoying the sightseeing along the way. She was met by a representative from the international affairs office, quickly found a furnished room to live in next to the campus for $30/month, and was heartened by the warm reception she received.
“Corvallis is not that big city. It’s a college town. I just think people are very friendly. On campus people say, ‘hello’ to you even if you don’t know those people. I thought that was really nice.”

(To be continued. Next: Pioneer in Cross-Cultural Relationships.)