Theological Education and Interfaith Learning

The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) has received a grant of $350,000 to support faculty development, curricular revision, and online continued educational programs on religious pluralism. The Luce Grant will enable EDS to offer courses on Islam. The Grant will also enable us to share what we are learning at EDS with the wider Episcopal Church and other faith communities.

Serene Jones during her installation in 2008 as the President of Union Theological Seminary in New York announced that preparing students to minister and work in a religiously pluralistic society would be one of her major strategic initiatives. Paul F. Knitter of the Seminary has been a pioneer in interfaith dialogue and John Thatamanil, a new faculty member, has done innovative work on comparative theology.

Last May, Claremont School of Theology received $50 million from David and Joan Lincoln to establish the Claremont Lincoln University to educate Muslim, Jewish, and Christian spiritual leaders. David Lincoln said, “We believe the outcome of this kind of education will be tolerance and respect among religions and the ability to better address global problems where religious cooperation and cooperating are needed to reach solutions and repair the world.”



Harvard Divinity School



I welcome and salute these various initiatives and innovations to enhance interfaith learning. As a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, I have been exposed to very rich and lively discussions of different religious traditions. Though Wilfred Cantwell Smith had retired from Harvard when I entered as a student, he had come back to lecture and his influences were clearly felt. His book The Meaning and End of Religion, published almost five decades ago, remains a classic in the field.



Center for the Study of World Religions



During 1986-87, I had the fortune of living at the Center for the Study of World Religions opposite the Divinity School. John Carman, a well-known scholar on Hindu culture and religion, was the Center’s director. Riffat Hassan, a leading Muslim feminist scholar, and Kurt Rudolph, who studied the Gnostic tradition, lived on the same floor. My five-year-old daughter became close friends with the children of a Sikh and Jewish couple and the young children of a Buddhist priest from Japan. The Center organized different seminars and talks, and I still remember Carol P. Christ came to speak about the Goddess tradition.

In addition to the events of the Center, I benefited from meeting the research associates of Women’s Studies in Religion Program and other women visiting professors from around the world. Mercy Oduyoye taught a course at the Divinity School during my first year there in 1984. She was working on Hearing and Knowing and began to develop an African feminist theology paying close attention to the indigenous African traditions. Mieke Bal spent a year as research associate, and her lecture on the Book of Judges was just brilliant. I also remember listening to Sylvia Marcos, an anthropologist and a pioneer in studying women in Mesoamerican religions.

Harvard-Yenching Library

This interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and multireligious learning has played a critical role in my development as a scholar and teacher. They have nurtured my interest in many fields: biblical studies, the study of religion and culture, and Christian theology.

The Divinity School and the Harvard-Yenching Institute, in close proximity to each other, were my intellectual homes. I had the privilege of studying with some of the most renowned philosophers and historians in Chinese studies. The late Benjamin Schwartz, author of the award-winning The World of Thought in Ancient China, guided my independent study on women and feminism in China. He jokingly said that he was a mild feminist.

One of the world’s leading Confucian scholars Tu Weiming taught me the Confucian and Daoist traditions and served on my dissertation committee. I was very grateful to Paul A. Cohen, a professor at Wellesley College and an authority on Christianity in modern China, who kindly agreed to co-direct my thesis. All these scholars have immense knowledge of philosophy, history, and historiography in the East and the West. They have always encouraged me not to be satisfied with ready-made answers and to search in the gray, in-between areas.

I will be able to share what I have learned about China, the study of religion, and Christianity in the EDS travel seminar to China next summer. My colleague Patrick Cheng will be the co-leader of the seminar and we plan to visit churches, seminaries, Christian organizations, as well as Buddhist temples, a Confucian temple, and the mosque in Xian. I am committed to helping my students to learn about China, a country that is so important for USA and the world in this century. The travel seminar will offer opportunities to learn about different concepts and functions of religion and interactions among different religious traditions in this ancient country.

Steve Jobs May Have Something to Teach Us about Theology

My first computer was an Apple Macintosh. It is still in my attic.

The year was 1985, and I needed a computer for my graduate work, one that was simple and easy to learn. People around me told me to get a Mac. Before coming to the U.S., I took several classes about using a PC, and that was the age when you had to memorize what F7 or F10 stood for. When I heard that the Mac could do everything simply by clicking a little mouse, I was sold.

I liked my Mac so much that when I returned to Hong Kong, I brought it with me. In an age with the laptop and iPad, one possibly can’t imagine how much trouble that would take. I bought a blue canvas bag that was large enough to pack the whole computer. I had to turn the computer on at the security to show that it was really a computer and not something else. I was traveling with my seven-year-old daughter and I put the bag under the seat in front of her as we flew across the Pacific. She loved it because she could put her feet on top of it.

Not many people used the Mac at the time in Hong Kong. I finally had to give it up because the cost of repair was too high.

I didn’t know that iPod would start a cultural revolution when it debuted in 2001. Since then you could see the ubiquitous white earplugs in people’s ears. The little white gadget looks like “some sort of magical water-washed river stone that you just had to have.” Who dreamed of such a design?

I first saw the iPhone in 2007 in my friend Serene’s living room. It had a red cover and looked smooth and cute. I could still remember Serene’s excitement about how this mobile unit could do all the wonders for her.

I don’t know why you need an iPad when you have a Netbook already. I bought a Netbook before my trip to China because it was less than 3 lbs. But boy, the iPad weighs about half of it and runs much faster. I touched an iPad for the first time when the faculty and students of my school were traveling on a bus to Ian Douglas’s installation as a bishop. We passed the iPad around, giggling like kids sharing a new toy.

The Mac was my only rendezvous with Apple. I don’t have a smart phone and still have not been persuaded that I need a tablet, from Steve Jobs or from Moses. But in the past few days, I was fascinated by reactions from Apple employees, tech geeks, and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak to Jobs’ resignation as Apple’s CEO. The Mac was my first love. You remember your first romance long afterward.

Steve Jobs, a Zen Buddhist who had gone to India to find a guru, may have a lesson or two for theologians. The genius behind Apple insists that function and form must go together. Every commentator speaks about the aesthetics and minimalism of Apple’s design. When Jobs dropped out from Reed College, he went back to audit a calligraphy course and it had forever changed his sensibility. He introduced the different typefaces in the Mac and firmly believes that technology must have a strong aesthetic component.

I wish theologians have a better aesthetic sense when we create our theological systems. Aquinas’ theology has a cathedral-like design, with transepts and side-chapels, flying arches and vaults. Paul Tillich pictured his systematic theology as a mountain, and drew a detailed sketch of the various sections of the work.

Jobs wants us to forget about the technology when we use Apple products. He makes them so intuitive that you can figure out by playing with them. When you see the clock icon on your iPhone, you know what it stands for.

Technology should not stand between you and life, he says. Theology should be like that too. Yet so much theology has been written to make you feel so stupid that you wonder what it is about. This ensures that there are always the theo-novices to depend on the theo-geeks.

But Jobs’ greatest legacy is in the Apple’s slogan—think different. When no one thought that there would be a market for personal computers, he and Wozniak created one from scratch in his garage. When computers were in black and beige colors, the iMac came out in astonishingly bondi blue, bright orange, and lime green.

Think different. God is still waiting to come out from the little boxes we have created. Who will write the first iTheology to start a game change?

World Competition in Sport Metaphors

With China’s growing economic clout and political stature, Beijing has been talking about China’s “peaceful rise” to great-power status for several years. As China is preparing for leadership change in the fall of 2012, the world is watching whether Xi Jinping, who will most likely replace President Hu Jintao, will bring any policy changes.

Since China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest economy last year, economists and China-watchers have been debating when China would overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy. Some have coined the term “Chinamerica” to highlight the close interactions and interdependency between China and the US. Commentators use the term “Beijing Consensus” to describe an alternative model of economic development to the Washington Consensus of market-friendly policies.

Within China, intellectuals and writers from many sectors have debated rigorously the implications of China’s “peaceful rise.” One of the interesting books I have come across is the best-seller 中国梦：后美国时代的大国思维与战略定位（China Dream: Post-American Age’s Mindset for a Big Country and Strategic Positioning).

The author 刘明福 (Liu Mingfu) is a professor of National Security University and Director of the Research Center for Military Construction at the University. Liu, who joined the Chinese army in 1969, argues that China’s dream to be a powerful country has had a long history.

The Chinese monarchy was overthrown in 1911 and the Chinese Republic was established. Even though China was dirt poor at the time, Sun Yat Sen, the father of the Chinese Republic, exhorted his Chinese compatriots to build China to be “the world’s most prosperous and powerful country.” Then in 1955, Mao Zedong has famously said that China has to surpass Britain and catch up with the US. But the Great Leap Forward resulted in famine and disaster.

Liu’s book uses three interesting metaphors to describe the competition among world powers.

· Dueling: No world power would willingly give up its dominance without resorting to violence and war. Different world powers have risen to prominence in modern history: Portugal in 16th century, the Netherlands in 17th, Britain in 19th and 20th, and the USA in the latter part of the 20th century. The replacement of the old world power by the new has often been accompanied by war. The USA became a world power as a result of the two world wars. Dueling is a very cruel form of competition.

· Boxing: The Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the US can be compared to boxing. The Cold War was more “civil” than the world wars: the arms race did not lead to direct military confrontations between the superpowers. In boxing, each party wants to win, but one does not need to kill or eliminate the opponent.

· Track and Field: The competition between China and the US in the 21st century is more like challenges in track and field, instead of dueling or boxing. The motto of the Olympic games is “faster, higher, and stronger.” The rise of China is not to create another superpower, but to help build a peaceful, open, and harmonious world. The development of China will contribute to the economy of the US and benefit the world.

Each of these sports has its own rules; the key question will be who will be setting the rules for world competition in the 21st century? How will the smaller and weaker nations have a say in determining the criteria for an open and harmonious world? What kind of global structures would need to be created to arbitrate the “world games”?

Since China lost the Opium War to Britain in 1842, China has been forced to sign numerous unequal and humiliating treaties. Deng Xiaoping’s socialism with Chinese characteristics has awakened the sleeping giant in the East. His open policies have radically changed the economic and social contours of the most populous country on earth. With economic growth, many Chinese have regained confidence in their country. Books like China Can Say No have become very popular.

Liu’s book plays into the rising nationalistic sentiments of the Chinese. He states that in order to become a world power, China must compete with the US in terms of military power and capability. His hawkish position has been criticized because this will lead to a new round of arms race and the increase of nuclear arsenals.

Nationalism runs very deep in China today. On Chinese web sites, many Chinese bloggers and commentators rush to defend China whenever China is criticized, especially by Western media. A strong China dream has the danger of romanticizing the nation, the people, or the state. It can lead to blind trust and uncritical support of the nation. When this happens, China dream could become nightmare for other countries and peoples.

Hope Abundant Received an Award

About two and a half years ago I met Susan Perry of Orbis Books at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. I told Sue that the book With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology, one of the first anthologies on Third World women’s theology, was out of date. Since the book’s publication by Orbis Books in 1988, the world has changed so much.

Sue said that she had thought of bringing out a sequel. Unfortunately the original editors Virginia Fabella and Mercy Amba Oduyoye were not able to do so.

I told Sue that I have been teaching a course on Third World feminist theology regularly, and we needed a newer text. Sue asked me if I would be willing to bring out a new volume. I was happy to edit a volume to showcase the works of a newer generation of women theologians from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania.

I also wanted to include indigenous women’s voices, since their contributions to the global chorus of feminist theology have often been neglected.

With Passion and Compassion was based on the first intercontinental conference of the women theologians of the Third World in the city of Oaxtepec, Mexico, in 1986. I was away in the United States doing graduate studies and did not attend the meeting. María Pilar Aquino was kind enough to send me some of the photos she took at the meeting, while I was working on Hope Abundant: Third World and Indigenous Women's Theology. Pilar, Mercy, Virginia, and the other participants looked much younger then.

Third World and indigenous women theologians have published a lot since their initial meeting in Mexico. Mercy Amba Oduyoye was instrumental in forming the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians in 1989. The Circle became the primary forum for African women theologians to exchange ideas. One of the aims of the Circle was to encourage the publication of theological works by African women.

In 1988, the Asian Women’s Resource Centre for Culture and Theology was formed in Hong Kong. The late Rev. Sun Ai Lee Park from South Korea played a leadership role in the early years of the Centre. The Centre published the journal In God’s Image and many other books on Asian women’s theology. It is now located in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

The Con-spirando Collective in Santiago, Chile, formed in 1991, provided an avenue for Latin American women to work together and they have devoted their energy to ecofeminist issues. The Collective published a journal Con-spirando.

During my travels in Asia and in the ecumenical circles, I have gathered a lot of materials from Third World women. It was more demanding to find materials from Latin America since the works needed to have been translated. I was fortunate to be able to rely on colleagues such as María Pilar Aquino and Nancy Bedford for suggestions.

I gathered indigenous and tribal women’s theology from India, Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, Palestine, and the United States, though not all pieces went into the book because of limited space. I hope that more work from indigenous women will be available in the future.

Earlier today I was so happy to receive the news that Hope Abundant was awarded second place in the category of Gender Issues by the Catholic Press Association. These awards are presented each year at the Association’s annual convention.

The citation reads: “This is an important book that gathers a new generation of women theologians from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America into the global theological conversation. Filled with powerful, moving insights from both Protestant and Catholic perspectives, the eighteen contributors explore everything from why the exodus story is a story of liberation for some and a story that justifies occupation and genocide for others to how Catholic women in the Philippines are using women’s mystical tradition and new liturgies and symbols to sustain their work for justice. These are faith-filled theological reflections that offer abundant hope in the midst of poverty, violence, oppression, and war.”

I am very grateful for the recognition and I hope that the award will bring wider publicity for the volume. Proceeds from the book will be used to support the Institute of Women in Religion and Culture at Trinity Theological College in Accra, Ghana, founded by Mercy for training African women leaders. I urge you to support their work by buying a copy of this very exciting volume and please visit the Web site for the book at http://HopeAbundant.org.

The Song of Songs in Three Languages

The Song of Songs is considered one of the most beautiful love poems of all time. For centuries, it has inspired painters, composers, singers, and writers because of its expansive imageries and its dramatic glorification of carnal love. Yet, in Christian worship, we have seldom been exposed to the love poetry of the Bible.

In the past several days, I have had very moving and captivating experience with the Song of Songs. Last week, in my course on Eros, Sexuality, and the Spirit, I introduced the Song of Songs and talked about the interlace between sacred and carnal desire and longing.

The word "poetry" comes from Greek term poiesis, which means forming or making. It is an art form in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities.

For love is as strong as death,
jealousy is cruel as hell;
the lights thereof are lights of fire and flames (8:6)

The sound and cadence of a poem are as important as the meaning of it. To help students appreciate the Song of Songs in Hebrew, I asked the students to listen to Roy White’s recitation of the Song in Sephardic Cantillation manner on YouTube.

Then I asked a male and a female student to recite part of the Song from Marcia Falk’s translation. A poet and a painter, Falk has worked on the Song for many years and her translation combines rigorous scholarship with poetic sensibilities. She tries to capture the full force of female eroticism in this only book in the Bible in which women speak more than half the lines.

“The song expresses mutuality and balances between the sexes, along with an absence of stereotyped notions of masculine and feminine behavior and characteristics,” Falk writes.

Last Saturday, some of my students and I attended the Boston Pride Interfaith Service. The reading from Tanach was taken from Song of Songs 8:1-7. It was first read in Hebrew and then in English. The Rev. Liz Walker, an award-winning television journalist and anchor, spoke of the excessiveness of love in her sermon.

My feast of the Song of Songs continued on, when I went to the Jordan Hall in Boston to listen to Les Voix Baroques from Montreal singing Canticum Canticorum (The Song of Songs) in Latin. I have almost missed this if not for a student telling me that the Boston Early Music Festival is taking place this week.

The program included songs by Roland de Lassus (ca 1532-1594), Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), and Marin Marais (1656-1728). The music captured the different kinds of voices in the Song: female, male, and a group. Director Stephen Stubbs played the lute and it was wonderful to see his body expand and contract as he played the instrument. I had the feeling that his body was a part of the music. Anyone who has watched Yo-Yo Ma play understands what this feeling is like.

The Jewish people began to interpret Song as a symbolic text describing the love between Yahweh and the people of Israel from the first centuries of our era. Around 400, when St. Jerome translated the text into Latin, Christians had taken the Song to mean the love between Christ and the Church, following the allegorical method.

In “Dialogo della cantica” by Domenico Mazzocchi (1592-1665), Song 1:13 was rendered as

Fasciculus myrrhae dilectus meus Christus est,
Inter ubera mea commorabitum.

(A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved Christ unto me,
He shall lie betwixt my breasts.)

The Hebrew Song does not mention God or religion, and of course nowhere does it refer to Christ!

The evening concluded with an English song, “My beloved spake,” by Henry Purcell (1659-1695), a baroque composer, considered to be one of the greatest English composers.

My beloved spake, and said unto me,
Rise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear upon the earth;
And the time of the singing of birds is come,
Alleluia. (2:10-12)

Stand Up for Transgender Youths

This morning at the Boston Pride Interfaith Service, Ken and Marcia Garber received the 2011 Pride Interfaith Award. As David Houle of Dignity Boston read the award citation, Ken Garber would not hold back his tears.

CJ, the child of Ken and Marcia, wanted to be a boy since four years old. Ken, a firefighter, believes that parents should love and affirm their child, no matter the gender identity of the child. Marcia and Ken found that the Catholic Church to which they belonged could not quite accept that they had a transgender son. They were tired of hearing that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people would go to hell.

They became involved in Dignity Boston and turned to the transgender community for support and help when CJ began his gender affirmation process. They have been active in the Massachusetts Commission for GLBT Youth, Mass Equality, and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). Sadly, CJ died of a drug dose at 20 years old, after suffering from years of bullying in school and struggling to find a job.

People around me at the Interfaith Service and I cried as we listened to Ken and Marcia telling their story. As a parent, I could relate to their deep felt pain. We all want to see our children grow up strong and enjoy life. Yet, our society has made it so difficult for CJ and others like him to survive and flourish. I could imagine the teases, snares, and belittlement. . .

Many years ago, after I taught at the Episcopal Divinity School for about two years, the students organized a weeklong evening services for GLBT people. A student Ann told the story of what happened after she had come out to her family as a lesbian. She was only about 13 or so, and her family wouldn’t accept who she was. The next day, her parents put all her belongings on the porch and asked her to leave.

My daughter was around 13 at the time, and I could not imagine doing this to my own child. Why was it so unacceptable to hear that your daughter loved a person of her gender?

Ann’s story opened a window for me to understand the pain and anguish of gay and lesbian youth. Discrimination against GLBT people was no longer something abstract, because one of my students was thrown out of her family simply because of who she was.

I was so moved by Ann’s story and I pledged to do whatever I could to stand in solidarity with GLBT people, so that fewer children would need to go through what Ann had gone through.

Transgender people are particularly at risk in our society. They face widespread discrimination and violence. Currently the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition is pushing for the passage of a bill that will add Massachusetts to the 15 other states that protect transgender people. The bill will include gender identity and expression in the state’s non-discrimination statute and will amend existing hate crime laws to explicitly protect people targeted for violence and harassment.

Ken has spoken at rallies and testified at the State House. Ken and Marcia have not gone back to live quietly in their suburban town. They have turned their pain into courage to stand up for others. We must do our part to stop hate and intolerance and make sure that it gets better for our transgender youths.

Mentors in My Life

When I told people that I had a woman priest in my teenage years in Hong Kong, they were very surprised. That was back in the 1960s!

Deacon Hwang Hsien-yuin was the vicar of my church even before she became one of two women officially ordained in the Anglican Communion in November 1971. Rev. Hwang was an educator and a priest, and she was the principal of a primary school, while serving as the head of my church. Born into a privileged family, Deacon Hwang received her college education in China and obtained a Master’s degree at Columbia University. This was rare for women of her generation.

I was a youth leader of my church and sang in the choir for our 8 a.m. morning service. After the service and before choir practice, Deacon Hwang would come to lead a short devotion. It was during these short devotions that I first heard a feminist interpretation of the Bible. As she struggled to be ordained as a woman priest, she discussed with us the meaning of ministry and God’s calling to both women and men to serve.

I had a desire to know more about Christian faith while serving in the church. I fondly remember it was Dr. Philip Shen’s three lectures on theology that opened my eyes to the breadth and depth of the Christian tradition. Dr. Shen was a professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He taught courses on Christian classics and philosophy of religion, and was a keen promoter of general education in higher education. In addition, he was a well-known creator of origami.

As a graduate of the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, he had received a broad-based theological training. When I left Hong Kong to begin my doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. Shen told me not to hurry back and to take my time. He knew more than I did at the time that education of a person is a very long process.

I had the fortune of meeting Professor Letty Russell in Korea the year before I went to the United States for doctoral work. She was invited to deliver a series of lectures on feminist theology in Seoul and I was invited as her respondent. Letty became a mentor, colleague, and friend. Letty, Katie Geneva Cannon, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, and I co-edited the volume Inheriting Our Mothers’ Gardens.

Letty was a keenest supporter and promoter of generations of Third World and racial and ethnic minority women theologians. Many scholars can recount stories of how Letty has helped them in their personal and professional journeys.

It was at Letty and her partner Shannon Clarkson’s home that a small gathering of Asian and Asian American women in theology and ministry was held in the fall of 1984. Letty and Shannon called together several Asian women students studying theology on the East coast and ministers. The network that later became Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM) was born.

For 12 years, Letty and Shannon served as the network’s advisors, raising and managing funds for us. In 1997 when the Asian and Asian American advisors took over the responsibilities, we had a farewell party for them. I told Letty that it was from her that I learned how to become a mentor, modeling after her example.

During my graduate studies, I had the privilege of studying with Professors Mary Daly and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. I took a course with Mary Daly soon after her book Pure Lust was published and she used the book as a primary text. The class was small and Daly was famous for “not allowing” men in her classes. From her I learned that women had to learn to think independently outside the “sacred canopy”—the male church hierarchy, androcentric regimes of knowledge, and the male reward system.

Daly’s image of life “on the boundary” became a constant reminder of never submitting to the temptation of “fitting in.” Later when I became interested in postcolonial studies, Daly’s teaching has prepared me to think in the “in-between” spaces. Although I have criticized Daly’s work, my respect for her as a pioneer, trail-blazer, and a fierce fighter for truth is enormous. She also taught me that scholarship can be done with a lot of passion and humor.

Elisabeth was teaching at the Episcopal Divinity School when I took her course on Gospel Stories of Women. Her book In Memory of Her was published a few years ago and quickly became a must-read for women in divinity schools. As women were fighting against male systems of knowing and scholarship, some had misgivings about Elisabeth’s book as it is so dense and with so many footnotes. When I discussed this with Elisabeth, she said that she had worries about who would read her book. The male establishment would not take it seriously and the women would find it too hard. But she said, liberating scholarship is liberating. Women have not been encouraged to develop ourselves to be scholars, and we have to claim back the power to become theological subjects.

I went to Elisabeth’s office for my first appointment with her. She listened to the theological project I was interested in pursuing. Some 25 years after, I still remember the advice she has given me. She told me my work would need three paradigm shifts: from male to female, from West to Asia, and from privileged women to poor women. I did not fully anticipate the process of decolonizing of mind that these paradigm shifts would require and that this would be a life-long work.

I am a faculty member of the Asian Theological Summer Institute, held this week at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. This Institute provides mentoring and support for Asian and Asian American doctoral students in the United States and Canada. Yesterday during a seminar, I heard myself telling the students that they had to go through multiple paradigm shifts in their work. And I remember I first heard this from Elisabeth.

Learning takes place in a matrix of relationships, as my former student Alan Hesse has said. I am very privileged and fortunate to have many mentors who have accompanied me in my long journey to become a scholar. I came from a family of modest means and my parents were farmers from China. Without the help of others who have recognized that I might have something to contribute, I would never have been able to dream of who and what I can become. I am full of gratitude to my mentors and teachers and I hope to pass on the wisdom I have learned to others.