Bend, Not Break Read online

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  First published in 2012 by Portfolio / Penguin,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Ping Fu, 2012

  All rights reserved

  Photograph credits

  Insert 17: White House photograph

  18: Gregory K. George, Jr., Geomagic Inc.

  19: Shaan Hurley of Autodesk

  21: Photo by Eva Kolenko, design by Scott Summit

  22: Jonathan Fredin

  23: Tom Simon, Geomagic Inc.

  Other photographs courtesy of Ping Fu

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Fu, Ping, date.

  Bend, not break : a life in two worlds / Ping Fu with MeiMei Fox.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-60819-7

  1. Fu, Ping, 1958– 2. Chinese American women—Biography. 3. Women computer scientists—United States—Biography. 4. Businesswomen—United States—Biography. 5. Geomagic (Firm) 6. Entrepreneurship—United States—Biography. 7. Resilience (Personality trait) 8. Political refugees—United States—Biography. 9. Young women—China—Biography. 10. Nanjing hang kong hang tian da xue—Biography. 11. China—History—Cultural Revolution, 1966–1976—Personal narratives. I. Fox, Meimei. II. Title.

  E184.C5.F84 2013

  004.092—dc23

  [B] 2012035389

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

  I dedicate this book to

  Xixi Edelsbrunner and Liyun Tang, my daughter and mother,

  and to the memory of my father and Shanghai Mama and Papa.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  { ONE }

  Three Friends of Winter

  { TWO }

  Behind Every Closed Door Is an Open Space

  { THREE }

  I Am Precious

  { FOUR }

  Blood Is Thicker Than Water

  { FIVE }

  Everybody Is Somebody

  { SIX }

  Who Can Say What Is Good or Bad?

  { SEVEN }

  The Number One Strategy Is Retreat

  { EIGHT }

  Life Is a Mountain Range

  { EPILOGUE }

  The World Isn’t Flat; It’s 3D

  Photographs

  Acknowledgments

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I HAVE TRIED my best to remember and describe the events and people in my life. Mostly, I have used real names, although some names have been altered to protect privacy. For simplicity, I have sometimes used spellings in English that correspond to the Chinese pinyin system. Many details happened more than forty years ago and I’ve tried as much as possible to verify the facts.

  { ONE }

  Three Friends of Winter

  FRESH OFF THE PLANE: 1984

  WHEN I WAS twenty-five years old, the Chinese government quietly expelled me. I was terrified to leave my homeland. But the alternative was exile to a remote place in China—or worse.

  On January 14, 1984, my parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and siblings gathered at the Shanghai International Airport to send me off for my flight to San Francisco. I’ll never forget that cold, wet afternoon.

  As the embarking process began, my family stood in a tight circle outside the passport checkpoint, shuffling our feet and avoiding eye contact. We made small talk about the weather, the clothes we wore, and the farewell banquet they had hosted the night before—anything to distract us from our imminent parting.

  Hesitating for a moment before she spoke, my Shanghai Mama, the woman who raised me, broached the subject on everyone’s mind. “Ping-Ping,” she said, her tongue tripping as she called me by my family nickname, “I made you a dish so you won’t get hungry on the long flight.” Her whole body trembled as she reached into her bag and passed me a round tin pan tightly covered in foil, still warm. I lifted a corner of the foil and inhaled. The sharp, sweet scent of duck with soy sauce wafted up to my nostrils, a poignant reminder of my happy childhood years in Shanghai. I reached my hand out to clasp hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  I glanced around; nearly everyone in our group was crying. My younger sister, Hong, grabbed at my shirt to mop the tears from her face, the way she had done as a little girl. I couldn’t bring myself to utter any words of comfort for fear that I, too, would break down sobbing.

  Only Nanjing Mother and Father, my birth parents, kept their gaze steady. “You will be fine, Ping-Ping,” Nanjing Mother said, clearing her throat. “I know you will be able to handle whatever comes your way.”

  I waited until the last possible minute to go. “It’s time,” I said, making an effort to keep my voice from catching. My family members began to cry the way people do at funerals, as if I would disappear from their lives forever. They knew that since I was in trouble with the authorities, we might never see one another again or even be allowed to communicate. Resolutely, I kept my eyes dry as I walked down the ramp and away from everything that I had ever known.

  As I settled into my seat aboard the aircraft, the vent blasted warm air at my forehead. It occurred to me that this was my first experience of temperature-controlled air. I had never flown in an airplane, though I had spent most of my childhood sliding down aircraft wings at an abandoned airfield and dreaming of becoming an astronaut. I had never traveled anywhere outside of China. But that was not why I felt apprehensive about the journey that lay ahead. Because of my writing and other activities while studying at Suzhou University, I was no longer welcome in my homeland, yet I knew little about America. I had no home, no friends, and no sense of what awaited me there.

  When we were airborne, the flight attendant came by, wheeling a cart. She was an American with blond hair, blue eyes, and a warm smile. In English, she asked me if I wanted something to eat or drink. I didn’t understand her since I knew how to say only a few words, such as “Hello,” “Thank you,” and “Help,” but I guessed at her intention. I presumed that the refreshments would cost money, so I waved my hand in a gesture
that said no, hugging Shanghai Mama’s tin pan even tighter on my lap. Then I pointed toward the cocktail napkins piled high at the edge of the cart, and the stewardess wordlessly handed me a large stack.

  For hours, I scribbled Chinese characters onto the thin squares of paper, placing one after another at the corner of my tray like miniature flags of surrender. I did not intend to share these notes; journaling had proved comforting to me since I was a child. The act of recording my thoughts gave the illusion of having a conversation with a trusted friend, when in truth I now had none.

  —

  I landed in San Francisco fourteen hours later, jet-lagged and emotionally drained. The airport amazed me. It glittered like a jewel with its multiple-story-tall windows and sparkling cleanliness.

  As soon as I had cleared immigration, I sought out the ticket counter. I was en route to Albuquerque, where I was registered to study English as a second language at the University of New Mexico. Although I had exactly eighty dollars in traveler’s checks to pay for the connecting flight, the airline staff refused to issue me a ticket. I couldn’t understand why; that had been the price when I had checked in Shanghai.

  Bless San Francisco—there was a Mandarin-speaking agent behind the counter who understood my problem. In China, the government sets prices, so ticket prices rarely changed. But here in America, prices changed frequently, she explained. “The ticket price has increased since you left Shanghai. You are five dollars short.”

  I didn’t have five dollars, a credit card. As I stood there silently, an American man waiting behind me in line asked us what the problem was. When the desk agent explained my predicament, he took a five-dollar bill out of his wallet.

  “Here you go,” he said, flashing an easy smile. The ticket agent translated.

  “Thank you,” I replied in English, surprised that a stranger would help me. The gesture may not have meant much to him, but it meant the world to me. My first impression of Americans—and one that endures to this day—was that they are warm, giving people. The experience offered me this life lesson: “When in doubt, always err on the side of generosity.” It is a value that I have held dear to my heart ever since.

  —

  When I got to Albuquerque, I found myself stranded once again. My father had given me the name of Mr. Sheng, a former student of his who was studying at the University of New Mexico and had helped my family to get me accepted there. I called him several times, but the phone rang endlessly. I waited, hoping eventually I’d reach this stranger who was my only U.S. contact. I had nowhere else to turn. (Later, I learned that Mr. Sheng had graduated from UNM a few weeks before I arrived and was touring America before returning to China.)

  As I sat on the curb outside the luggage claim with my one large, tattered bag, I watched the cars coming and going. The popping sound of car trunks opening unnerved me. No one seemed to notice me; they were all too busy leaving the airport or coming here to pick up their loved ones. It reminded me of the day, when I was eight years old, that I left Shanghai by train and arrived at the Nanjing station alone. The feelings of loss hit me hard, and I began to cry.

  A car pulled up in front of me sometime later. When I looked up with hazy eyes, I saw a Chinese man sitting in the driver’s seat. He rolled down the window slowly.

  “Do you need help?” the man asked, speaking in Mandarin with a thick accent that I couldn’t place. Yes, I said, I needed a ride to the University of New Mexico campus. “Get in,” he said, waving his hand toward the passenger seat. “I’ll take you there.”

  Another generous American! And not only that, there were Chinese-speaking people everywhere here. I couldn’t believe my luck.

  We drove off in his beat-up car across a vast and desolate desert plain that resembled a postapocalyptic landscape. My limited impressions of America had come entirely from Chinese state-run television, which I had watched from time to time, huddled in groups with my classmates and neighbors around someone’s black-and-white TV. Mostly, I knew that the Chinese dominated the Americans in Ping-Pong. Still, I had expected to be living in a city like the dense metropolises of Nanjing and Shanghai where I had grown up, not a place like this.

  “Do you mind if we stop by my house?” the man asked. “I need to check in on my kids before I can drop you off at the university.”

  I nodded. A few minutes later, we drove into the Albuquerque center city, where the cluttered, uniform housing complexes looked not unlike those in Nanjing. At least here were signs of familiarity. But unlike in any Chinese urban center, the streets were empty. The only people I saw were homeless with dirty sleeping bags and signs that looked like they were selling themselves or their children. I began anxiously tapping my fingers against my knee. The man pulled up in front of an apartment compound with high windows covered by metal bars. It reminded me of a Chinese prison. Later, I found out it was government-subsidized housing for refugees, and the man was a Vietnamese refugee of Chinese descent.

  “Please come inside and meet my children for a minute,” the man offered. “You can stay with us if you want.” He took my suitcase out of his trunk and carried it to the front door.

  I climbed out of the passenger seat and followed him. Although the surroundings made me a little uneasy, I had no reason to feel suspicious. He seemed like a caring father and had been so kind to me.

  As soon as I stepped inside, he handed me a box of cookies and stammered, “My wife just walked out on me. I need someone to look after the children for a few hours because I have to go to work.” Then he dashed out of the small apartment. I heard him lock the front door from the outside with a padlock.

  I turned around and saw two young boys, perhaps three and four years old, and a baby girl with wide, watery eyes. They stared at me with their hands reaching out and feet glued to the ground, desperate for attention but too scared to approach me.

  “Mama, Mama,” they cried out. Mama means “mother” in Chinese as it does in much of the rest of the world.

  “No, no, I am not your mother,” I said in Mandarin. But they didn’t understand.

  “Mama, mama,” they continued in unison, voices reaching a fever pitch.

  For a few frantic moments, I ignored the children and searched the dingy apartment for a back door or a window whose bars I could slide my petite frame through—any hope of escape. I found none. I saw no telephone, either, though even if I had, I wouldn’t have known to dial 911. I was a prisoner.

  The strain of the past few days caught up with me and I sank onto the cool concrete of the living room floor. My body frozen, all I could hear was the pounding of my heart. The plain gray walls were closing in on me. The faces of the children were fading. I felt like I was going to pass out.

  Then the toddler came up to me and took my hand. She placed her face next to mine, eyes innocent as a bunny rabbit’s and skin soft as finely ground flour. I had a great deal of experience caring for children, so I gathered up the energy to care for these three. I doled out the cookies, washed their dirty faces, and let them ride on my back for a game of horsey, which I’d been fond of playing as a child. When I got worn out, I would fall to the ground. They would laugh and call out strange words. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand; I assumed they wanted me to repeat the game, time and time again.

  Hours passed and the sky grew dark, but the children’s father did not return. I wondered how long I might be held captive, hoping that the man was working a late shift and would come home soon. I put the children to sleep in the bedroom, which had only one bed. The living room and kitchen shared the same space. Next to the dining table were two chairs and a hard bench, no couch. I was too tired to care. I wound up spending my first night in America as I had passed many in China: sleeping on a concrete floor, cold, exhausted, hungry, and miserable.

  The next morning, the children quickly finished the cookies. The two boys became cranky, crying and patting their tummies.
I found a box of macaroni and cheese in the apartment’s near-empty cupboards, but I had no idea how to prepare it properly. So I boiled the noodles and we ate them plain, without the cheese that lay hidden in its metal envelope.

  By midmorning, with no sign of the father’s return, I started to wonder if something had happened to him. Through an open barred window, I began shouting one of the few English words I knew: “Help.” The children joined in with me, thinking we were playing another game. But the passersby—and there weren’t many—did nothing.

  The next day I tried again. My voice grew louder and more desperate with each passing hour, as we all became hungrier and I lost hope that my captor would ever return to set us free.

  Finally, on the third day, we heard shouts from just outside, followed by pounding on the apartment door. “Help, help!” I screamed. Moments later, police busted the door open. At last, a neighbor had heard us and called the cops. They loaded us into a paddy wagon and took us downtown to the police station.

  As soon as they had found a Chinese interpreter, two burly policemen began to interrogate me. “Do you know your kidnapper? Why did you get into a stranger’s car? How did you end up inside his house? Who can we call about the children? Do you have any family or friends we can call to verify your identity? Did the man hurt you?”

  My answers came out as hysterical semi-nonsense. Not only was I sleep deprived and ravenous, but also I had a well-developed suspicion of authority figures. In China, no one trusted the police, and we never wanted our names appearing on official paperwork—that almost always brought lifelong troubles. Was I now considered a criminal by the American government, I wondered? Would I be punished? Would the Chinese government find out that I’d gotten into trouble on my very first day in the United States of America? If so, would they go after my family in China for revenge?

  The police tried to get me to press kidnapping charges against the Vietnamese man. I refused. I simply begged them to set me free. Eventually they gave up on me and put a call into UNM on my behalf. They got directions for where on campus I needed to go: the International Student Center.