During my teenage years in high school at the English Section of St. Louis, I taught myself Spanish with the British “Teach Yourself…” series at around 13 or 14 years old. That was after overhearing my family talking about sending me to Havana, Cuba, to learn my grandfather’s business and take it over. But the pending Cuban revolution killed that idea. Regardless, I taught myself to read and write Spanish in less than a year. The only person with whom I could say a few words was Father Ma (Machuy from Mexico) whenever he visited our school. He later became the principal of the Salesian School in Shau Kee Wan on the East side of Hong Kong island, an hour’s streetcar ride from St. Louis School. Then, I flunked out of St. Louis (failing over 3 subjects) during my third year because of family financial problems. Since I was good in the major subjects, I skipped a year and passed the entrance exams to a newly accredited school. Which means its senior students can take the unified School Certificate Exams with supervisors from the Education Department present. With that certificate one was officially a high school graduate and could get a government job or attend college. I barely passed the minimum of 5 required subjects, but with 4 credits (honors). Father Ma hired me to teach seniors chemistry at Salesian right away. Besides Spanish, I taught myself French and German as well, but only to read. Because in those days, PhDs required 2 foreign languages. That saved me from attending language classes for at least a semester each. The following episode is the last one which wraps up this chapter, including the areas appropriate to this post.
TO GRADUATE SCHOOL IN AMERICA!
For my graduate studies, I only applied to two universities, the University of Washington and the University of Michigan. Michigan offered me a teaching assistantship sight unseen, probably based on my English test (at that time administered by the University of Michigan). I got a 97% in the test that included writing an essay on some topic assigned on the spot, conversation (for maybe 3-5 minutes), and also some reading comprehension tests, but I am not sure.
I was plain lucky to be able to go to college and then graduate school. The University of Hong Kong was very expensive and there was no chance I would go there. Since my chances of going to Cuba to learn my grandfather’s business were also nil because the Cuban revolution was brewing, the only choice for my higher education was to go to Taiwan. That was at the insistence of my father, even though we really had no steady income from Cuba anymore. That was when Uncle Siu stepped in to help out. He supported my five college years in Taiwan by sending me 10 USD per month which was sufficient for all college fees (education, housing, and books, among others) with extra for weekend entertainments (e.g., coffee house, movies, concerts, eating out, & snacking). [see Chapter 3: Uncle Siu & Aunt Pauline …]…
…Looking back at my childhood-to-college years in Asia, I feel very lucky under those circumstances. I somehow ended up finishing high school and college and was going to start a new life in America. First, being admitted to the graduate school of the University of Michigan was not easy with academic records of barely a B-average like mine. And then, being offered a teaching assistantship sight unseen was to me like a miracle. I didn’t realize how lucky I was at the time, but I do now. Without the financial support of Uncle Siu and Auntie Pauline, I would not have gone to college, period, let alone finished it with a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy. And without the teaching assistantship from Michigan, I would not have become a pharmacognosist, specializing in herbal medicine, writing to you today, trying to tell you and the world about what is wrong with our drugs and ‘herbal’ supplements. They can be made much better if we start doing something about them, especially by resetting our priorities towards the less fortunate by forgoing at least part of the excessive profits.