When the elevator doors opened and I saw her standing there, I stood a little taller and tried to look relaxed. She and another resident were laughing as they walked in. I had seen her only a few times before, usually from a distance. She was striking and tall, with thick golden brown hair and big green eyes. Besides her beauty, I was also impressed by her lively demeanor, as she was smiling and joking every time I saw her.
Who was this dazzling young woman? I just had to find out.
I had moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in July of 1992 for a fellowship in ocular genetics research with Wills Eye Hospital, the first eye care facility in the United States. After the yearlong fellowship, I would complete my three year residency in ophthalmology at the same facility. My goal was to combine my training in lasers with a top-quality training in ophthalmology. I was fortunate to be recruited as a resident at Wills Eye, one of the top eye institutions in the world.
In a laboratory on the fourth floor of the six-story building, I worked under Dr. Larry Donoso, the director of clinical research and a professor of ophthalmology. Our work focused on pinpointing the DNA mutation that caused ocular melanoma and retinoblastoma. Dr. Donoso was in his early fifties, a very kind and charming man from Utah who served as a mentor to many young doctors in training. One day I asked Dr. Donoso if he knew who the young woman was.
“Her name is Gwen,” he said. “She’s a third-year resident. She worked in my lab several years ago when she was a student at Jefferson Medical College next door.”
“What’s she like?” I asked.
“She’s smart and capable,” he responded. “She finished experiments very efficiently and was always eager to do more.”
Naturally Dr. Donoso talked about her work but I wanted to know more about her personality.
“Is she always so happy?” I asked.
“Yes, she is,” he said. “Why do you want to know?”
I shrugged. “Just curious.”
Dr. Donoso grinned at me. “She is always smiling and joyful,” he continued. “She treats everyone with kindness. Her good nature sometimes seems too good to be true.”
But it was all true. When I looked into those large green eyes, they seemed like a lake of clear water, so pure and honest. I had a few opportunities to chat with her—in the cafeteria, along hospital corridors and outside lecture halls after presentations. She was a ray of sunshine, and I was mesmerized by her. By the time I finished my fellowship and joined the ranks of the other residents, she had finished her residency herself and had left for Tampa, Florida for a fellowship in cornea.
A year later, I was going about my life as usual when one day I received a letter in my hospital mailbox. There, on top of the return address, was Gwen’s name.
“I’ve just returned from a mission trip to China,” she wrote, “and I have pictures I want to share with you.”
We hadn’t interacted much while she was at Wills, but I was excited to hear from her, this girl I had so admired. We met up for a meal in Chinatown in the center of Philadelphia, and she shared that she completed her fellowship in Tampa, traveled overseas and was now back home in Philadelphia looking for a job. She showed me photos she had taken during the two months she spent in China’s Hunan Province, where she had worked alongside other Christians providing assistance in local hospitals.
“I loved the food!” she said. “I want to eat Chinese cuisine all the time now, and I really want to learn to speak Chinese. It’s such a beautiful language.”
“I would be happy to teach you Chinese,” I replied enthusiastically. We both smiled.
Even though I wasn’t sure that Gwen had contacted me out of any romantic inclination, my curiosity about her was nonetheless piqued. I had been single for more than a year by then, so despite my hectic schedule as a resident, I found the time to meet with her quite frequently at different restaurants in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. Over the next few months, we became very good friends. I wanted to find out why she was so joyful and upbeat all the time, and I soon realized that her Christian faith had a lot to do with it. She came from a devoted Christian family and knew the Scriptures very well. She had graduated from Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical school, and was smart and well read, so although she wanted me to teach her about the Chinese language and culture, there was much I could learn from her about the Christian faith.
It had been a few years since Dr. Hand had introduced me to Christianity, and I was still seeking so many answers to questions about life and spirituality. I studied the Bible by myself, and I had started attending the First Presbyterian Church on Walnut Street, a gothic building that had stood in Philadelphia’s Center City for more than two hundred years. I hadn’t become a Christian yet, but I was curious and open to the faith. I wanted to know more about God and to explore this sense of calling in my life. At the same time, I hoped that embracing the faith would help me grow closer to my newly adopted country with its strong Christian heritage.
One Sunday at the church on Walnut Street, the pastor gave a sermon about suffering and its hidden blessings. Suffering was something I had known all too well and intimately. From my place in the wooden pews, I looked up at the streams of light pouring through the stained-glass windows in shades of blue and green. The colors that streaked above me were a vibrant contrast to the bleak shades of gray that had hung over us in China during the Cultural Revolution. As I reflected on the years I was immersed in terror and darkness back then, I wondered why I had endured so much suffering. Why was I forced to bear so many unending nightmares? Was there a reason for it all?
“Suffering serves to draw us closer to God,” the pastor said. “Through the painful seasons of life, our hearts are softened toward others, and we grow in compassion.”
I realized that although God had allowed me to suffer, He had also sustained me. The hardship I had endured instilled in me a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunities that had followed. What I had overcome had not depleted me. On the contrary, my cup was now overflowing and I wanted to give to others from that abundance.
Gwen and I didn’t attend the same church, but she often took me to Christian medical society meetings where physicians of faith came together for Bible studies, lectures, and fellowship. These doctors from various specialties were exceptionally loving, kind, and happy, just like Gwen was, and they led such upstanding lives. I found in this group of medical professionals a remarkable balance between their respect for science and their profound faith in Jesus Christ. The environment allowed me to ask complex questions and receive insights from people I admired and trusted.
Not long after Gwen and I had reconnected, we attended a Saturday seminar with the Christian medical society on the University of Pennsylvania campus. A pastor named Dr. Simms spoke with eloquence to an audience of about a hundred doctors who had gathered for the daylong event. Dr. Simms related raw and honest emotion, including the intense anger and frustration he felt when his wife endured a debilitating stroke that left her helpless and entirely dependent on his care. Like the sermon on suffering I had heard from my pastor at church, I felt reassured and encouraged by such humanity and honesty from another person of faith.
“Jesus was a man who faced many sorrows, and was acquainted with grief,” Dr. Simms said. “In Him we see God, who takes on flesh and suffers alongside us and for us, and by His wounds we are healed.”
In the person of Jesus Christ, God had a name, a face, a personality, and a purpose for humanity. The God of the Christian faith was real and accessible. After the day was over, I felt a deep sense of calling and was ready to commit my life to Him.
“How do I become a Christian?” I asked Gwen.
“Once you’ve received Christ, you get baptized,” she said.
“Do you think we could ask Reverend Simms to baptize me now?”
It was getting late, and the last of the other attendees had filed out, so we were finally alone with Dr. Simms. When Gwen relayed to him my wish to be baptized, he went straight for a cup of water.
The three of us huddled together in the lecture hall. I lowered my chin as Dr. Simms poured a small amount of water over the crown of my head. I could feel a trickle flow over my ears and down my neck. Though the water was room temperature, I felt a chill pass through me. How appropriate that a university lecture hall—the focal point of so many of my struggles to excel—would be the place where God’s spirit united with my own.
Dr. Simms placed his hand on my head and prayed.
Like becoming an American, becoming a Christian had been for me an extensive process of internal transformation over many years, culminating in a ceremony that took only a few minutes. I felt a deep peace. While the baptism did not take place in a traditional church, there was still a profound sacredness to the moment. I knew that God was with me, that He had been guiding me through all the hardships and struggles in China and America, and that He would continue to do so … but I had so much more still to learn.
* * *
Gwen and I spent more and more time together. We had so much in common—we were both ophthalmologists and were both interested in corneal diseases and treatments—so when we would get together, we constantly discussed the cornea. She had already completed her corneal fellowship, so she had a lot to teach me. She also loved the Chinese culture and language, so I enjoyed being her dedicated Chinese teacher. I loved the adorable, mischievous smile that appeared on her face when she would make a mistake in the pronunciation of a word. We both loved fine art and classical music as well. We often dined at a small, artsy restaurant on South Street in the southern part of the town, called Victor’s Café, at which all the waiters were opera singers. In the middle of dinner, one of the waiters would stop serving, climb up a set of stairs and break into a beautiful aria. Both Gwen and I loved it! Gwen was also excited about learning ballroom dancing, so I took her to dance studios every weekend, and we thoroughly enjoyed dancing together. Despite the fact that we had grown up in vastly different cultures that were also the farthest apart geographically, Gwen and I found to our delight that we were so much alike, shared so many common interests, had the same values regarding family and work, and we both love reading the Bible and we both had a deep appreciation of life itself. When we were together, time flew by quickly, and we would look forward to the next time we could meet, even before we parted.
A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Gwen invited me to dinner at her parents’ house. Both Gwen and her younger sister still lived at home. Her mother introduced me to her father as “Gwen’s Chinese friend.” Her parents were retired physicians, both specialists in obstetrics and gynecology. Gwen’s mother was polite, if not overly warm, but her father was a science buff so he took a liking to me right away. He was curious and high-spirited, and asked me all kinds of questions about the eye.
“What drew you to ophthalmology?” he asked as he passed me a heavy bowl of potatoes.
“I studied lasers back in Maryland, and I believe they can work wonders in improving eyesight,” I said.
“How so?”
“We can use lasers to reshape the cornea so patients never have to wear glasses or contacts again,” I explained. “Once the devices are approved by the FDA, people’s lives will never be the same again.”
The original approach to laser eye surgery was photorefractive keratectomy, or PRK, which reshaped the outer layer of the cornea to correct vision. A new procedure called laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis, or LASIK, had first been performed in Greece in 1990, and then in the U.S. around the time I started my residency at Wills Eye in 1993. Eye surgeons would first use a blade to create a flap on the surface of the cornea, and then a laser would reshape the tissue underneath to better focus light on the retina to improve sight. LASIK resulted in less discomfort and quicker recovery than PRK.
“We call the new approach ‘flap and zap,’” I joked.
Gwen’s father was fascinated by our science conversation, and as I left that night, he told me, “Come back anytime, Ming. You are always welcome in our home.”
I did return quite frequently, especially given my growing interest in Gwen. While her dad was keen on asking me questions about laser physics and ophthalmology, I wanted to ask him about my newfound Christian faith. Gwen’s family had been devoted Christians their entire lives. And as an obstetrician, her father had delivered a lot of babies, so I was especially curious to know his take on the latest ethical issues facing scientists who engaged in stem cell and fetal tissue research.
Over dinner one evening, I told him about a time during medical-school at Harvard when I was on an ophthalmology rotation in the trauma unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. I had helped treat a man who had been badly burned by a phosphorus explosion in the factory where he worked. His face had been seared, and the front parts of his corneas were completely stripped away. During the months he was in the hospital, I took care of him and watched his eyes heal, but the resulting thick, white scars on his corneas left him completely blind, barely able to perceive light. The scar tissue and blood vessels that grew over his eyes also meant that surgery to restore his sight would be too difficult to perform. I asked the attending physician what could be done to help this man, but he responded that scarring was unfortunately the natural way we all heal. The immune system seems to overdo its job in the adult wound healing process, which results in scars. I was deeply frustrated that modern medicine could do so little, and that this man in our care would leave the hospital completely blind.
Around the time I encountered the injured man, I began reading about fetal regeneration. In the womb, injured fetuses healed with practically no scarring, so why was there so much scarring with adult body healing? I reasoned that since the womb provided a safe and sterile fluid environment, perhaps the unborn child could afford to take a lot more time to heal. The healing process in the womb was less rushed and more orderly, resulting in layer-by-layer regeneration with no scarring. Adult bodies, in contrast, are exposed to a dry and dirty environment, so the wound has to be closed as quickly as possible to reduce bleeding and the risk of infection. The price that we pay as adults for such quick healing is disorganized scarring, called fibrosis.
For years medical researchers had been studying fetal tissue and stem cells—the undifferentiated cells of a newly conceived embryo—in an attempt to bring the healing properties of the womb into clinical treatments for adults. During the early 1990s, scientists hadn’t yet reached the point where they could manipulate the stem cells, but once they did, it would result in significant advances in medical treatments for a wide range of human diseases. On the other hand, it was bound to erupt into tremendous amount of controversy since extracting a stem cell to use for a treatment would destroy the embryo.
I felt torn by both sides of the issue. Fetal tissue and stem cell research held so much promise for treating traumatic injuries and diseases related to aging, like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, glaucoma, and macular degeneration. Nevertheless, I couldn’t justify harming an unborn baby for any reason. But if we didn’t continue such research, what hope could we offer our injured and aging patients? What else would I be able to do to prevent scarring and the resulting blindness for the patients who came to me after eye injuries?
I shared my inner turmoil with Gwen’s dad. “How on earth can we study fetal tissue to benefit adult patients without harming the fetus?”
“I don’t know how to resolve that dilemma right now,” he admitted, “but I’m confident we’ll find ways to pursue research without getting into troublesome moral and ethical areas. Don’t give up on your pursuit, Ming. Keep the faith, and I’m sure in time God will grant you wisdom.”
As a new Christian, I was deeply grateful to have this man as my mentor. Like Gwen, he was upbeat and cheerful and always smiling. Rather than pitting faith against science in hopeless polarity, he had a remarkable way of balancing the two and being patient through the conflict. He nurtured both my growing faith and my scientific curiosity, and he confirmed my conviction that we should be able to embrace and advance scientific breakthroughs while remaining consistent with our Christian values. We should never harm an unborn child for the benefit of sick or injured adults, but perhaps God would show us a way to access the healing power of the womb without the moral quandary. I had been deeply impacted by watching that injured man go blind due to scarring, and I would continue seeking a solution for many years to come.
* * *
In no time at all, I felt like I was part of Gwen’s family, and I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at their home. After we finished Christmas Eve dinner, Gwen’s father asked, “Ming, why don’t you just stay over?”
“I’d love to!”
In the dozen years I had lived in the States, I had never before experienced a traditional American Christmas. My heart was full of joy knowing I would spend my first one with an American family who loved me.
They made up a bed for me on the living-room sofa. The next morning, the stockings hanging from the mantle were brimming with gifts, and beneath the tree were presents wrapped in brightly colored paper with curled ribbons and bows on top.
Gwen handed me a gift and when I unwrapped it, I found a bright red sweater inside. I pulled it over my head, feeling cherished by this family, as if I were one of their own.
On New Year’s Eve, I accompanied Gwen and her family to Longwood Gardens to see the trees decorated for the holidays. I wore the red sweater the family had given me for Christmas.
“Get together for a photo!” Her father motioned to Gwen and me.
Gwen and I moved toward each other, and I put my arm around her shoulder. As she leaned into me, my heart fluttered. I hadn’t yet seriously considered that we would become more than just friends, but in that moment I felt an unmistakable spark. Maybe I could be more than just her Chinese teacher?
After the photo was taken, we moved apart, looking at each other a bit nervously. She seemed to have felt it too. I glanced at her parents, who suddenly had quizzical expressions on their faces. Did they notice what had just happened between us? I couldn’t quite tell, but if they did, there was no mention of it for the rest of that day.
Not long afterward, there was an unmistakable change in Gwen’s parents’ demeanor toward me. They became more polite and detached. As for me, now that my interest in Gwen had grown, I wanted to see her more often and spend as much time as possible at her family’s house. But her mother, who was never warm toward me to begin with, became absolutely icy and told me that the family was too busy with other things, so I was no longer welcomed. She thought it best that Gwen and I spend less time together, not more. In an instant, in one click of the camera, I had gone from being loved to being rejected.
I was very confused and upset. I kept wondering what had happened to cause them to not like me any longer.
In spite of her mother’s opposition, Gwen and I started dating in the beginning of 1995. She had never had a boyfriend and wanted to be with me constantly, but she was concerned about upsetting her parents.
“My mother says we are just too different and we shouldn’t be together,” Gwen explained. “She told me the Bible says that people who are very different should not be together because we are not to be unequally yoked.”
This was the first time I had heard the word “yoked.”
“What does she mean by saying we’re very different?” I asked. Gwen wouldn’t answer. Perhaps it was because I was such a new Christian? Maybe her mother just needed time to get to know me and see how I lived out the Christian faith. I was hopeful and confident that I could change her mind.
My own parents, on the other hand, had taken an instant liking to Gwen. When she visited them in Boston, they embraced her and took her to their labs at Harvard to show her their research projects, and my father patiently explained his project about Chinese herbal medicine and its beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system. Though Gwen wasn’t Chinese, she was well educated and family-oriented, which are important attributes to Chinese parents. Gwen also loved me deeply and had made a concentrated effort to learn the Chinese language and culture, so my parents were very pleased with her.
I only wish that Gwen’s parents had shown me the same acceptance. I started working diligently to earn their favor. I even went as far as throwing a special Chinese New Year party just for them. I wanted to show them that I loved their daughter and that I was a good, responsible, and caring man. I also wanted to demonstrate my fascination with both America and my birth country. I decorated my high-rise apartment with red lanterns, ribbons and figurines of young boys setting off fireworks, and I planned to perform for them and a few friends on my piano.
After my party began, my friends kept asking me to play the piano as I had promised, but my eyes were glued to the door. I didn’t want to start playing until Gwen and her parents arrived. A full two hours passed with no sign of them, and I was ready to give up. Then I finally heard a knock.
I opened the door to see Gwen dressed in a beautiful jade green chipao, the traditional Chinese evening gown that I had bought for her during a trip to San Francisco. The color matched her eyes. She smiled happily at me, and her father was as friendly and warm to me as he had been when we first met. He apologized for being late, glancing tentatively at Gwen’s mother, who stood there suppressing a scowl. She was clearly in charge.
I was nonetheless overjoyed that they had finally come! I took them around the room, introducing them to my friends, and explaining that 1995 was the Year of the Pig on the Chinese lunar calendar. I shared the meaning behind each of the decorations, and told them I would be serving a traditional Chinese soup right after the piano performance.
As soon as I finished my first piece, Gwen’s mother stood up abruptly, eager to leave. They hadn’t even had a bowl of my special Chinese soup yet! Gwen pleaded with her mother to stay and enjoy the rest of the evening, but she simply flashed a fake smile and headed for the door.
Defying social etiquette, I left my other guests in the apartment all by themselves while I accompanied Gwen and her parents on the twenty-six-floor elevator ride down to the lobby. I glanced at Gwen and was reminded of one of the first times I had seen her, in an elevator not too different from this one. She was still so beautiful, vivacious, and cheerful. However, regardless of how close Gwen and I had become since the beginning, her parents’ behavior toward me made Gwen seem still so distant and inaccessible. I felt so frustrated since I still did not know why I went from being loved to being rejected. We talked on the descent—Gwen ebullient over the party, her father happy and interested—as her mother remained cold and silent.
The next time Gwen saw me, she apologized for what had happened. With tears in her eyes, she reluctantly explained the truth behind her mother’s complete rejection of me. The problem wasn’t that I was a new Christian; it was that I was Chinese, not Anglo-Saxon. That was all that mattered to her mother.
I realized what a big mistake my Chinese New Year party had actually been, as it had only worsened the situation! Despite my good intentions, the party only emphasized my cultural and ethnic origin … and our cultural differences.
I was stunned. They had loved me when Gwen and I were just friends, so why was my ethnicity an issue now that we were dating? Christianity seemed to be a faith that embraces people no matter what their race or national origin is, so how could these Christians not accept me into their family solely because I wasn’t white?
By that time, I had been in the United States for twelve years. I had embraced this country, had become a citizen, and although China was my country of origin, I was now an American and had worked diligently to serve my adopted country. In the early years after arriving in the U.S., I had faced discrimination and prejudice from people like Drs. Miller and Anderson, men who never took the time to know me beyond my ethnicity. In contrast, Gwen’s family did take that time, and they grew to like and care for me as well. But somehow I had crossed a line; I was acceptable as their daughter’s friend, but not as a potential son-in-law, and there was nothing that I could do about it! The blow was devastating. I came to the realization that racial discrimination tends to exist on the deepest and most personal level. Even though one can accept another person as a friend, or sometimes even as a very good friend, one still may not actually be willing to accept another person wholeheartedly into one’s own family through marriage.
Gwen’s mother did everything she could to talk Gwen out of seeing me. “Can you imagine having a mixed-race child?” her mother asked her. “I don’t think you would be happy.”
“You know I don’t agree with her,” Gwen said to me. “I love you, and I love everything about the fact that you are a Chinese-American. I don’t think your ethnicity is a problem at all.”
The problem, if not my ethnicity, was how devoted Gwen was to obeying her parents’ wishes. She was thirty-one years old but her parents still ruled over all aspects of her life, from what time she came home at night to where she worked. Since I was still completing my residency in Philadelphia, her mother’s strategy was to push her to take a job as far away from the city as she could.
“It’s crazy for you to leave Philadelphia,” I said. “Your family, your schooling, your residency, your physician contacts, and your patients are all here … and I’m here! You have every reason to stay.”
“She doesn’t want me working in Philadelphia, or in Pennsylvania, or in any neighboring state for that matter. This is what we’re up against, Ming.”
We were sitting in one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. I contemplated for a moment how the green of her eyes rivaled the jade dragon that hung on the wall behind her. The carved dragon was pursuing a jewel just out of its reach. I felt trapped in the same perpetual pursuit, with no assurance I could hang onto this gem that was only an arm’s length away. How could this family who had embraced me so endearingly, who had encouraged my Christian journey, now turn and say that I was not good enough to be part of their family just because of my ethnicity?
Three months later, Gwen made the announcement I had both expected and dreaded.
“I’m taking a job in Ohio. I’m leaving in two months.”
“At least Ohio is a neighboring state,” I said, trying to be lighthearted. But I looked at her with incredible sadness. “You know you hate the cold. You’re going to freeze there. It’s even colder there than it is here in Philadelphia!”
Gwen loved warmth. She would practically freeze whenever the weather dipped below fifty degrees. She had been so much happier in sunny Florida during her fellowship. We both knew she would be miserable. She couldn’t respond, so we sat in silence for several minutes until Gwen sighed deeply.
“Dad misses his time with you,” she finally mumbled awkwardly.
“I miss him too.”
Gwen left for Ohio in August of 1995. I went to see her as often as I could, but during my visits, I could sense her mother’s control all the way from Philadelphia. Gwen never allowed me into her apartment, not even the lobby of the building.
The following summer, after I had completed my residency at Wills Eye, I left for a corneal fellowship of my own at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami. Gwen was envious of my retreat to warmer weather, and I hoped that my living in perpetual sunshine might finally draw her to me. We continued our long-distance relationship, enduring her mother’s standoff while holding onto the belief that as long as we love each other the geographic and cultural distances would eventually be bridged.