Retired UCSF Professor Labeled "Bad" Teen

Last month I attended a meeting of the 1990 Institute, an organization aimed at fostering understanding between the U.S. and China.  As soon as I walked into the room, a woman approached, smiling. “Don’t I know you?” 

Nancy Ma, a retired UCSF Pharmacology Professor, had short salt-and-pepper hair and the face of a kind aunty. While I didn’t really remember our initial meeting, I was glad to see her again.

A week later, I sat down to talk with Nancy and her equally-enthusiastic-but-more reserved husband Peter Lee. Both of them are originally from Shanghai. Both of them were pushed out of China under totally opposite circumstances. Both of them –although they swore that they would never go back—have developed a foundation (Wuwei Harmony) to help educate the young in some of China’s poorest provinces.

Nancy Ma and Peter Yee (far left in white coat/grey jacket)
with some of students they've helped in Yilong Province.

Nancy was born in 1940, right in the middle of  WWII. Her father worked as Asia’s General Manager for Palmolive/Colgate, a wonderful position to be in….well, until the war ended and the Communists began their takeover.

“We were considered to be a bad background, including me,” Nancy said. ”A teenager! We have less chance to continue education. Even if you grow up, you have less chance to get a job. You already have a label on you.  So we wanted to leave.”

In 1949, Nancy’s father fled first to the then-British territory of Hong Kong, assuming his family would follow.
“We never got exit visas. The Communists—they just wouldn’t let anyone leave.”

(To be continued.  Next: You're Not Even a Person in Communist China.)