Fate Really Changes You

Retired UCSF Pharmacology Professor Nancy Ma and Internist Peter Lee retired from their posts and--against all odds-- began the foundation WuWei Harmony . Nancy Ma was born in Shanghai during the 1940s. Her father worked as Asian General Manager for Colgate-Palmolive, a wonderful position...until the Communists took over in 1949.  He fled first to Hong Kong, a British territory back then. The rest of the family , however, could not get exit visas. (See post one.) After seven years of waiting, they finally managed to get to Hong Kong. (See post two.) 
Husband Peter fled from China for different reasons. His parents were part of the Nationalist Army that fought against the Japanese from 1937-45 and then the Communists from 1945-49. (See post three.) While Peter was safe from Communism, he realized upon college graduation that there weren't many job opportunities. Fortunately, he got a scholarship at the University of Texas. (See post four.) Meanwhile, Nancy struggled in Hong Kong. Her mother enrolled her in a Cantonese/English high school, two languages Nancy did not understand. Nancy only lasted three days. (See post five.)

Hong Kong Baptist University,
established in 1953 as Hong Kong College with support of
American Baptists.

Instead Nancy's mother put her in Hong Kong Baptist College. After a year, through Nancy's Baptist preacher grandfather’s connection, she was given a full scholarship to study at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.  Her mother scrounged together enough money to buy her a one-way ticket on a steamship to San Francisco.   Nancy remembered three things--being seasick for nineteen days, seeing a black man for the first time, and not knowing a word of English.  She couldn’t even understand polite inquiries like, “Have you seen the campus?”

“They thought I was a very quiet, reserved girl,” said Nancy.

“Far from it,” Peter interjected.

“Not knowing that I love talking.” She laughed. “But I just couldn’t talk cause I didn’t know the language.”

Nancy had three American roommates. “They taught me English, corrected my pronunciation. And six months later, I was pretty fluent.”

Still, Nancy remembers being very homesick.
“I had no way to get back,” she said. “When I landed here, in my pocket there was $26, and that was all. It was a good thing….otherwise I would have just gone home.”

“In a way, I should thank Mao Tse Tung," she said. "He forced me out. Sometimes fate really changes you.”

(To be continued. Next: Searching for a Job in the Yellow Pages.)