Where I Come From
14 Sep 2010 1 Comment
in Traveling Tags: America, Smethport, summer
A Chinese student, a talented English major from a university in Hunan, China, asked me to describe my hometown. This is what I wrote:
Smethport is very different from Chenzhou. It is like a dream that I’m afraid will seem unreal or too abstract for you to realize. Words alone are not enough to describe the beauty, wonder, and charm of my home town. But I will try.
Right now it is a very special time of the year in which we celebrate the birth of our country, the Declaration of Independence and like your country, a revolution against Imperial tyranny. Now the weather is much like Kunming in the autumn, winter or spring: everything is blue sky and very sunny. The people ride their bikes, fish, boat, swim, garden, walk their dogs, tend their lawns and the upkeep of their homes, or just go for a country drive to enjoy the scenery. Depending on the time of day you will smell fresh cut grass, sweet fresh air born upon a northerly breeze or the cooking smells of backyard barbecues that make your stomach growl.
Bear Fighting in Cyberspace
20 Nov 2009 1 Comment
in Traveling Tags: America, anomie, CASPA, China, College of William and Mary, global economic downturn, grail, jobs, T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, University of Vermont, Yale University
Some have wondered if I will one day practice medicine in China. During an interview at Rocky Mountain College, home of the Battlin’ Bears, the director had even suggested that I could do a clinical rotation here. The thought had occurred to me many times. Many friends and fellow Bull Dogs from Yale University’s PA program completed international rotations in Latin America, South East Asia, and the Middle East. Yale even has a tropical medicine rotation in Kampala, Uganda. This feature was one of the major draws that lured me into their program back in 2007. In any case, I believe my international experience – of which my time in China is the backbone — will be an asset as the PA profession continues to globalize, and more international students attend American PA schools to bring the Rod of Asclepius back to their own countries.
