| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | This may be small, but in the eyes of a nine year old it was huge. My mother was adamant about school attendance. I can count the days I didn't attend (including sick days) on one hand. So when my father pulled me and my sister out of school one day, I was giddy. Without telling us where or why we started driving into the city, which added its own layer of mystique. We arrived at a grand old theater, all sculpted and gilded, with velvet seats and curtains. Sitting there eating popcorn (also a rare occurrence), for the next two hours I was in Jurassic Park. We saw Jurassic Park in its opening week and we both got our own popcorn! After the movie, still floating in the hazy area between reality and fantasy, my father turned to me and my sister and told us to keep this between the three of us (meaning, don't tell your mother), which was something that simply Was Not Done. I will hold this small memory with me forever. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | My father and I are cut from the same cloth, so to speak. We are deeply caring and generally unflappable. Doing things for others is the way we tend to show that we care. We relate to the world in a physical way. We are good at using our hands to express ourselves. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I really admire a flexibility of intellect balanced with a tenacity of heart. I think that the ability to absorb new knowledge that contradicts your beliefs and change your mind accordingly is sorely lacking in today's climate. That, coupled with determination of integrity, makes for an admirably righteous person. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | When I was eleven or twelve, my father took my family on a canoe trip in the boundary waters in Minnesota. I had done a lot of camping with my father and the Boy Scouts prior, but this was the first time camping with my mother and sister. It was pretty nice feeling like an old hand at camping, helping my mother and sister do all the things that I had learned in scouts. We had fun swimming in the cold waters and now, in retrospect, my first experience with leeches was pretty humorous. Much more so now than at the time. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | While being Chinese does not come up often in my day to day life, China would be an adventure. Visiting the village my where my grandmother was born and raised would be transformative. Plus, the food is awesome. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | When I have children I would like to pass on resourcefulness and integrity. Of course you want your children to share your moral compass, political leanings, taste in music, etc. but to give them the tools to succeed without compromising themselves would be a success in my eyes. |
