Thirty years ago, at the end of the Ch'ing dynasty, going to school was an earth-shaking event, especially for a girl. I was the first in my family to go to school, that was why I had to be particularly persistent. Although the school I went to in Shanghai did not benefit me greatly, one must remember one's origins. Undeniably, I escaped a fate as the wife of a ministerial candidate and was able to study abroad because of my diligence in going to school. And the one who instilled in me this desire to go to school was my uncle Mr Chuang Szu-chien, who hailed from Wutsin county.
      Of all my relatives, my uncle doted on me most. When I was about five or six years old, my uncle, along with my aunt and my cousins, moved to Kwangsi to fill a government post. Since my maternal grandmother still lived in her old home in Wutsin county, my uncle often came back to visit her. My family had rented out our big house and had moved into the western wing of her compound. (My family came from Hunan originally, but since my grandmother was from Wutsin, she owned houses in Changchow.)
      Whenever my uncle came back to visit, I would wake early in the morning and start nagging my mother to let me visit him. My uncle liked to sleep in. Arriving in her part of the compound, I would give my maternal grandmother a hasty greeting and then dash straight into my uncle's room. My uncle was always in bed. He would pat the side of the bed, indicating that I should sit there. Then he would begin, "What shall I tell you today?" He liked to tell me his thoughts and observations. He had already been transferred from Kwangsi to Canton, a large trading port where he had many opportunities to come into contact with European and American culture, especially its medicine. He had great admiration for Western science and Western medicine, and was most impressed by the American women who had come to serve in China. He often told me about the Western hospitals and schools he had seen, and life in a modern culture. He always ended his tales by saying, "You're an ambitious girl. You should learn from these independent Western women."
      I was a very impressionable child. My uncle's exhortations made my heart leap into my throat and my eyes brim with hot tears. "How can I learn to be like them?" My uncle always replied, "Go to school! There is a women's medical school in Canton. You should study medicine there. Are you willing to come with me to study there?"

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