#ThanksAmerica #ADHD #absentminded\n#flunkedoutofschool #TCM #viciouscycle #toxicdrugs #herbalsupplements\n#herbalmedicine #ThanksUSA #grandchildren #teachers #BigPharma<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my newest books, scattered in appropriate places, I have already thanked my family, my friends from childhood to college, and at work, without whom I would not have become what I am today.\u00a0 Now I want to specifically thank my adopted country, the USA, for welcoming me 57 years ago.\u00a0 \u00a0I was born into an erudite family on both my paternal and maternal sides.\u00a0 As far as I can remember, as a child up to perhaps 8 or 9 years old, I was absentminded and daydreaming a lot.\u00a0\u00a0 I flunked out of elementary school and then later in my sophomore year of high school.\u00a0 My anchor at home was my maternal grandmother, my amah (nanny), and my older sister who was my protector against bullies when I was younger.\u00a0 My father was not around during most of those years and my mother was mostly our disciplinarian.\u00a0 I feel very blessed and lucky I were not born now or a generation or two earlier.\u00a0 Under the premise for children to have better attention to learn, they are given drugs to take so that they could pay attention.\u00a0 With my condition (ADHD?), in any other family, I would probably have been given drugs to take to make me focus and easier for the teachers, and of course heavily promoted by Big Pharma & associates to line their own pockets.\u00a0 I would have been deep in the vicious cycle forever.\u00a0 Please help me break it so that our grandchildren and theirs would not inherit it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nfollowing is the last paragraph of \u201cChapter 1. \nGrowing Up in Asia\u201d of \u201cMy Life & Rollercoaster Career\u2026\u201d published\nlast year in August. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking\nback at my childhood-to-college years in Asia, I feel very lucky under those\ncircumstances. I somehow ended up finishing high school and college and was\ngoing to start a new life in America. First, being admitted to the graduate\nschool of the University of Michigan was not easy with academic records of\nbarely a B-average like mine. And then, being offered a teaching assistantship\nsight unseen was to me like a miracle. I didn\u2019t realize how lucky I was at the\ntime, but I do now. Without the financial support of Uncle Siu and Auntie\nPauline, I would not have gone to college, period, let alone finished it with a\nBachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy. And without the teaching assistantship\nfrom Michigan, I would not have become a pharmacognosist, specializing in\nherbal medicine, writing to you today, trying to tell you and the world about\nwhat is wrong with our drugs and \u2018herbal\u2019 supplements. They can be made much\nbetter if we start doing something about them, especially by resetting our\npriorities towards the less fortunate by forgoing at least part of the\nexcessive profits.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" #ThanksAmerica #ADHD #absentminded #flunkedoutofschool #TCM #viciouscycle #toxicdrugs #herbalsupplements #herbalmedicine #ThanksUSA #grandchildren #teachers #BigPharma In my newest books, scattered in appropriate places, I have already thanked my family, my friends from childhood to college, and at work, without whom I would not have become what I am today.\u00a0 Now I want to specifically thank my adopted … <\/p>\n