How I came to Live in Hong Kong
After graduating from Bromfield I went to college. I did the "random studies" for the first year and the August before sophmore year I decided to major in East Asian Studies. I liked the major because all I needed to do was to study at least 2 years of intensive Chinese and take about 12 other courses in something to do with Asian studies. Since I was not the most focussed of people (a generalist) it was a great major for me.

Senior year (1986-87)I did do a lot of thinking about careers. Two books that I read were very influential to my thinking: "Working : people talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do" by Studs Turkle; and one of Sinclair Lewis's less famous (and less great) books called "A work of art". Both these books made me think about what I liked doing, what would provide me with satisfaction. In Turkel's book it seemed that creating a finished product was very important, to see the fruits of one's labor. In Lewis's work, the managing of a hotel, since it was the dream and life pursuit of the hero became a work of art, and the hotelier an artist.

I, like many people at my college, senior year was scared. All my
life I knew what to do: go to school, bring home good grades, enjoy; and everyone in my life would say "Well done! You're doing everything that we could expect of you, we approve." Suddenly, with graduation on the hoizon, what could I do that would meet with similar approbation

What was I to do with my life? I had no grand ambitions or plans. September 1986 I remember talking to a classmate and she said "what do you want to do?" And I replied "I don't know - have a life. You know, a house, a garden, raise a family, have a job that I like...?"

After I graduated I went to Taiwan for a year (or rather, about 9 months). I went there because:
A. I didn't know what else to do with myself and I studied Chinese for three years and I heard I could support myself teaching ESL

B. It seemed the "respectable" thing. I could still do something that my friends and family could still approve of "Oh, she's improving her Mandarin in Taiwan".

C. I could hide out, away from most of my family and friends and
their expectations and influence and figure out what I liked and didn't like, and what I wanted to do with my life (I only realized this was a motivation 2 or 3 years after the fact).

So I went to Taiwan with a one-way ticket and $ 1000 start-up money as a gift from my dad and grandma. My dad said that it was a one-way ticket because I was grown up and it was my responsibility to earn my way home (thanks dad - after 21 years we now start with the "tough love"?). Anyway, I was very fortunate that I had a college friend there to smooth my way and help me find a place to live and give me my bearings. I will always be grateful to her.

While there I did the usual expat ESL teacher thing and decided that while I liked teaching, I didn't want to teach as a career. It was too draining - so many performances and repetition and discipline was such a drag. Once I gave a litlle girl the same punishment as I meted out to her classmates (which hardly fazed them) and she wept and wept. I feared I emotionally scarred her for life.

I thought about Forestry School, but in the end decided that I would try to get a job in a library when I got back to the US, see if I liked library work full-time, and if I did, I would get an MLS (Master of Library Science, the "price of admission" to being a professional librarian).

When I last saw most of you (5th Reunion, 1988) I had been back from Taiwan a few months and was about to start working in one of Harvard's (the school) libraries. To try it out. I did like it, and worked at Littauer for almost 2 years.

In autumn 1990, I moved to Champaign-Urbana Illinois to get my MLS. It was fascinating living in the Midwest, my horizons certainly expanded in more than just a phsyical sense. I got my degree in a year and then moved to Chicago, where I got a job as a multi-lingual cataloger at the Chicago Public Library. This too was interesting, and I had a nice flat north of Lincoln Park, made some friends, found some community. But, I was also itching to go back to Asia.

April 1991, I saw a job add for a new Library in Hong Kong. I had visited HK when I was living in Taiwan, and thought that it would be a great place to live - Asia, but still comfy enough for a Westerner (e.g. I could find shops that sold cheese without too much trouble). The pay was good and the environment was stunningly beautiful. http://ihome.ust.hk/~meygao/PHOTOS/UST06.jpg I was lucky to get the job and arrived here on 27 October, 1992. For the first couple of years I enjoyed life as a single woman, going out w/ friends to party in Lan Kwai Fang, staying up late reading novels like when I was a teenager, and taking advantage of the travel opportunities. I traveled in China a fair amount and also visited Vietnam & Nepal.

Then my darling and I had a whirlwind courtship and we got married in 1995 and had our first child, Amelia/Mun-ming, in 1996. Isaac/Lok-ming followed 22 months later. So the late 90's passed quickly as we reared our babies. I kept working at the Library and am still here, loving it.

Peter is a Hong Kong guy, the man that I came here to meet (although I didn't know that at the time). There's an old Chinese legend/story that there's an invisible red thread tied around our ankles at birth that link us to our fated one. Then, as you grow up, the thread gets shorter and shorter until you meet, no matter how far you had to get there. So that's why I *had* to come to Hong Kong. :)

Amelia and Isaac take a lot of our time. We're trying to raise them bilingually and sending them to local schools which presents all sorts of issues and problems (as well as joys) for a person like myself who believed in anarcho-syndacalism in her mid-teens. ;)

With Peter's encouragement, I am also now studying for a master's (part-time) at the University of Hong Kong. It's in sociology/cultural andthropology and my research topic is pregnancy and birth in Hong Kong over the past 50 years.

Thanks if you've read this far. I look forward to reading other people's bios and meeting up with others in July