Article by Edmond Li

A Chinese-American’s Dream

Edmond Li

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n a summer morning of 1950s, in a quiet library at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, there was only one single EnglishChinese Dictionary on the bookshelf available to the readers. Breathing heavily, a young student rushed into the library in order to be the first one there to secure this coveted reference book.

He was not going home for vacation as many others were, so he made use of the summer break to read an English book, “An Automatic Factory that Produces Auto Pistons,” and later another book, “The Postage Stamps of the People’s

Republic of China.” Through the self-taught English study, his English proficiency had improved, although his technical Russian was also not bad. He later had translated a few technical articles of his field from Russian into Chinese for a reputable magazine.

Today, in America, the young student is an 81-year-old man named George. He lives in Mountain View, California, with his loving family, and he has achieved the American Dream.

There are many immigrants coming from China to America today, and George’s story of courage and hard work shows that the immigrant’s

experience can be a positive one.

From 1937 to today, the Chinese people have seen three different governments - the Japanese invaders with the puppet government, the Kuomintang (KMT), and the Communists. George was born a few days before the Japanese occupied Shanghai, while his dad, a surgeon, was in a rescue team for the injured AntiJapanese soldiers. Because of the labor, his parents could not but stay in Shanghai when it was occupied. When George was a 3rd grader, a Japanese teacher was sent to his school to teach Japanese to high grade

students. After the Japanese surrendered and the WWII ended, the KMT resumed power and the second language in the schools switched from Japanese to English, as the KMT has a good relationship with the Western countries.

At home, George was greatly influenced by his father, who spoke English fluently among his coworkers, writing only English in patients’ charts.

George studied in school in Shanghai up to the 5th grade, where he had his first English class. During his 6th grade of elementary school, George’s father had fallen ill, so the whole family moved to his hometown in Fujian, where he soon passed away. George lived in Fujian from his middle school years to his high school years.

In 1949, the People’s Republic was founded.

Following the policy of the government, many schools switched to Russian as the second language. The school he attended was originally a Christian missionaryrun school with a strong background in English, while Russian teachers had become quite scarce. Therefore, George was fortunate enough to have English as a second language through to the end of high school education, while most of his classmates at Tsinghua University started their Russian at the beginning of high school, or even at the

beginning of middle school.

As a result, many of them do not know English. The reason is that the Communist chased after the KMT from the North to the South China in the Liberation War and Fujian is in the South East China. So the Northern schools switched to Russian earlier than the Southern schools. In summary, the politics and regimes really affected the foreign language selection in schools.

Following Mao’s death in 1976 and the downfall of the “Gang of Four,” the chaotic Culture Revolution in China came to an end. The new leader became Deng Xiaoping whose slogan is “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

At this time, it was found that China needed lots of professionals that knew the latest science and technology, so the government planned to send a lot of qualified people to have a short term study in the advanced Western countries,

such as the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, with the U.S. being the main destination. The scientists and engineers each had a time slot of two years maximum with no degree sought, while the currently enrolled graduate students could go as a regular student and stay until a degree was achieved. To this end, it was soon found that language shortage was a huge problem.

With Russian as the only allowed second language taught in middle schools and colleges, many scientists and engineers in China at that time knew very little English, or no English at all.

In 1977, a nationwide English exam for screening qualified personnel to study abroad was held. The young student who was teaching himself English during the summer break at Tsinghua University’s library, now a 40 year-old lecturer at a university, easily scored 93 out

George and his wife Louisa

of 100 points, which was the second highest among all the other applicants throughout the country, as a head of Foreign Language Teachers at his university later told him. It was also heard that 40 points was the minimum requirement for passing this exam; therefore, George was more than qualified as far as English was concerned.

A very strict screening was attached to the selection so that the children of high ranking officials were easily qualified; meanwhile, many candidates with relations living in the capitalist countries, or Hong Kong and Taiwan, were denied.

Therefore, George first was not so optimistic until his department head notified him that he was chosen to be sent abroad for a two-year study.

There were four of the teachers and one graduate student from his university chosen to study abroad. They came to Shanghai Foreign Language Institute for several months to improve their spoken English. Upon their arrival, the Institute set up an English test to re-group them according to their English proficiency. One of the teachers overlooking the English dictation test

whispered to her colleague, “This guy got all correct!”

George ended up going to the advanced class.

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George had started to work on the same topic in China, the programming language he used was Algol, and the media to store the program was paper tapes with small holes punched on it.

You can imagine once there are mistakes in punching, you have to cut off part of the paper tape and connect the remaining parts together with glue. In the U.S. at that time, people used FORTRAN programming language and each sentence of the program was punched on a single IBM card with many holes. The sentence of source code was printed on the top line of the card for convenient recognition. The card deck is read into the computer via the I/O counter in seconds. All of these were new to George, and he was learning every day.

English was still difficult, especially listening comprehension, even with his good foundation in it. One of the reasons was that in China at that time there were very few native American English speakers to help improve his listening and speaking. He was able to overcome this obstacle through hard work.

George’s progress in research made Prof. K. happy.

Grandpa work very hard in his early age and he want to one of the best university in China. After that, he continue to do well, he eventually become a professor in our hometown in Fujian. In all of his career, he worked hard and he won his respect from his colleague and his student.”

- Henry

At the same time, they started to mail letters to foreign universities to seek an opportunity to be a visiting scholar or adjunct professor or graduate student at their college. He was overjoyed when he learned he had been accepted as a visiting scholar for two years at U.C.. Berkeley.

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eorge chose to go to U.C. Berkeley to study under Professor K. in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; he admired Prof. K.’s published papers and wanted to learn the advanced research on the computer simulation of metal forming processes, for which the professor is one of the pioneers, leading to his being elected as member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Although

He took George to present a paper at a conference in Washington, D.C. After George returned to China, another paper was presented in Great Britain at the first NUMIFORM, which is an important international conference in their field. With George’s help, Tsinghua University, George’s alma mata, invited Prof. K. to visit and give lectures, with George being his interpreter. fter being a visiting scholar for two years at Berkeley, George returned to China, and he continued to teach and do research at his old university in Fujian for another ten years. Then he was promoted to full professor. After that, he found his research direction was not quite in line with what the university wanted.

Soon after, his wife’s mom broke her leg in Xiamen, so he requested to transfer to Xiamen. However, the work in Xiamen did not suit his

specialty. George’s only son Henry was a Ph.D. student in the U.S. at that time. After his mother-in-law passed away, George and his wife, Louisa, went to America to pay Henry a visit. At the end of this short stay, George had a chance to visit his former professor at Berkeley. Prof. K. told him

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that one of his Ph.D. students had started a company in Columbus, Ohio, and needed George’s expertise. This offer presented George with a dilemma. If he would go

ahead with the job opening and get hired, his American Dream would not only come true, but also the three of them could get together in the U.S. However, he would lose his job in Xiamen with the pension plan, which the Chinese people referred to as an “iron bowl” because the job was so very permanent.

George decided to take a chance by joining the startup at the age of 54.

He got a plane ticket and flew to Columbus for an interview. He was accepted.

He canceled his returning flight to China, and flew to Columbus with his wife.

During his twenty years with the company, he developed and further improved the software products of the company with his coworkers. He participated in small projects and earned the opportunity to visit customers throughout the world. He felt the job was so interesting and rewarding.

The employer applied green cards for him in the category of “outstanding professors and researchers” together with his wife. Then they became U.S. citizens. He enjoyed working with his colleagues and retired in 2010. Even though he is very proud of his career success, what completes his American Dream is his family. Today, George and Louisa live with my dad, Henry, my brother, Eliot, and me in the Bay Area.

Edmond is a junior at Mountain View High and Freestyle Academy. He enjoys activities like swimming, drawing, and video gaming. He plans to continue pursue creative work at Freestyle and in the future with a positive mindset.