Gold

“Take this…” said his professor.

The bag of shiny gold nuggets and jewelry was heavy and Yang-Ming had never carried so much responsibility in the palm of his hands.

By the time he was seven, both his parents were dead and life had given him few breaks.  Sheer force of will, hard work and a bit of luck had gotten him to college, where he lived in cramped quarters with seven others at Taiwan Normal College.   

Almost all his peers were refugees from mainland China like himself - given free room and board, a dollar a month for spending, and one drab grey school uniform for the year.  Even under these depressing conditions, Yang-Ming still found the drive to succeed and be excellent.  He held onto his dream, the same dream of his peers, to someday make it to America or Meiguo, “The Beautiful Country”. 

It was a spring day in 1957 when an envelope arrived with a coveted acceptance letter to a graduate school in Meiguo.  With that acceptance he could obtain an exchange visa, allowing him US entrance and subsequent return home to China.  However, he’d heard the student visa was the one to aspire to.  That visa would allow him wide-ranging opportunity in the US and the possibility of staying there.  His hopes were quickly dashed when he found he needed to be wealthy - $2400 in a US bank account - to obtain one. 
 
It was just days later when he unexpectedly found himself clutching the bag of gold - the entire life savings of a professor he worked for in the science labs at college.  Professor Koh, a well-respected teacher, had invited him over to his house after hearing his story.  

“Take this…convert it to US dollars and put it in your own account.  Return it when you can.”  

No contracts, witnesses or lawyers were involved when Professor Koh and his wife handed Yang-Ming everything they owned. 

Yang-Ming returned the money immediately after landing on American soil and over the years, Professor Koh used that same $2400 to help countless other Chinese students fulfill their dreams.  That bag of gold afforded Yang-Ming the “American Dream”.  He graduated with a PhD, married a beautiful woman, became an US citizen, had three children and five grandchildren and retired after an illustrative thirty-five year career in the sciences. 

Today he says with great affection, “All my accomplishments were initiated by my professor’s big heart to help a poor soul like me.  I will never forget him.”

I’m grateful for Professor Koh and I won’t forget him either, though unfortunately I was too young to remember meeting him when he visited Yang-Ming (“Dad” to me) and our family back in Pennsylvania.

Professor Koh’s spirit lives on in the stories we’ve shared over the years at the dinner table and in the blessed life my family leads in the suburbs of Boston.  Every gift I wrap this season, filled with the Christmas wishes and dreams of our four children, are connected to one Chinese professor’s great generosity and heart of gold. 

               Prof. and Mrs. Koh, my sister Ann and my mother in 1965

In many ways, my work with SixSeeds is an effort to honor the Professor Ting-Pong Koh’s of the world - those big-hearted people who have come before me and transformed the lives of countless others by their generous and joyful giving.