I couldn’t find a job in architecture because no one would hire someone without experience... so I set about making a portfolio showing my facility in translating ideas from drawings to different media hoping a school would give me an opportunity. I turned sketches into etchings, drawings into wax models into casts into bronze sculptures, and drawings into paintings and glass collages. My delusional hope was I could show enough potential that they could imagine I could turn a drawing into a building. I spent a couple years in manufacturing to learn computer drafting by taking a job at a power supply company. I ended up looking in depth at production processes to try to improve assembly times and quality. These power supplies were being used all over the world by companies like Cisco, Nortel, etc... the internet was booming and there was a demand for infrastructure. I didn’t know much about electrical engineering, but I did know some of the thin copper stamped coil inductors were failing because their solder joints were cracking in the field under extreme conditions. I wondered if it was possible to make a coil without joints by folding a stamped piece of copper like origami so the path of electrons could move helically around the magnetic core. An idea led to a crude paper origami model, which led to a copper prototype, thorough electrical and thermal testing, and finally the machines to manufacture them. I ended up designing the inductive transformers and the tooling and presses to make them, and eventually the assembly lines in Mexico to mass produce these components which are probably now scattered all over the world. I put this work into my architecture portfolio and I received a patent for it at the same time. An admissions officer remarked to me in an interview, my inductor looked like a building on the paths of the PC board. It was an exciting time of crazy hours and concentrated work. When you receive a patent in America, you get a paperback book with the legal claims delineated inside. On the front cover is some fancy calligraphy and a red, blue, and gold metal embossed ribbon.
Growing up, my mother would often tell me, with a twinkle in her eye, I had a streak of crazy in me like my grandfather. Over the years, I’ve found crazy to her was positive. It meant the ability to think outside the box... to sometimes go against norms.... and to focus on something wholeheartedly. My grandfather was the last of 6 sons of a farming family in Ewu, outside of Shanghai. Legend has it, his father was an orphan and a prolific gambler. His smartest decision was to quit gambling after he won big. He used the proceeds to buy a piece of land. That led to a rice paddy, rice wine production, and special ham operation. Being an orphan, my great grandfather resolved to have his kids go to the best schools to gain status in society. The first would go to Bei Da, (Harvard of China) and come back to the town and become a mayor. The second and third continued the profitable farm operations. The fourth and fifth became doctors, and the last, my grandfather became a chemist. He also went to Bei Da... not the type of school you would expect a farmer’s son to attend. He always had a chip on his shoulder, something to prove. He was the youngest and the smallest of his family and compensated for this with his mind and observations. Growing up he would often tell me, “see the problem, solve the problem.” He would explain phenomena like the Doppler effect, or distillation, etc... always asking and prodding his grandkids to think.
His term through school was fraught with danger. For a couple years, the students went west to Kunming to study as the Japanese advanced into China. Upon graduation, he first worked designing paint formulas, and then served in the military as a chemist. After the war the feud between the Nationalists and Communists threatened the mainland. On a scouting trip to Taiwan, he was amazed to find an island ruled by Japanese, where the sugar was white, and the watermelons sweet and plentiful. He convinced my grandmother and a couple nephews to move with him to Taiwan with the Nationalists. There were 2 ferries to the Taiwan the day they departed. The boat carrying my grandfather and his family survived the journey and made it safely to Taiwan... they witnessed the other boat meet disaster and sink in the straits.
My grandfather taught physical chemistry at the Taiwan's National University. On the side, he taught himself acupuncture. As a kid, I would see him place needles in others. He was always inventing something or another, a distiller, a tofu machine, etc... but his claim to fame was a sterilization process for saline solutions used in hospitals. I can’t tell you how many times our family members listened and endured his hour long recount of this process. It’s ingrained in all his descendants. A copy of paper he had published in Science about it was buried with him in his grave.
“When I went to the hospital, I saw all these people shaking. Fa do fa do (speaking half English half Chinese. Fa do means to shake)” he said while shaking his body showing what the symptoms looked like. “Nobody knew what was happening. But I started to look at the sterilization process to find the cause. At that time, glass bottles of saline were put in an autoclave, the steam would enter the machine, people would take the bottles out and give it to patients... and sometimes the people would shake ad have very bad reactions. There was something happening in the process. I noticed that some bottles were slightly yellow and brown, while others were clear. I thought the temperature must be uneven in the autoclave despite the steam and it was reflected in the slight differences of color.” By now, he was drawing an autoclave and the bottles with a ball point pen on scrap paper. His writing was like a Chinese farmer’s-- bold dark lines and unkempt. Then he would ask, “do you know what the problem was?” Shame on you if your attention strayed and forgot the answer from a previous telling. “In science, you must see the problem, then solve the problem.” Here he brought the story up to seeing the problem. The solution was deceivingly simple. “I made an escape valve for the autoclave. When I first start the machine, the valve would be open, letting all air out as the steam came in. After a period of time, the valve would be closed, and the steam could fill the chamber at uniform sterilization temperature. All the bottles would appear the same color. No more fa do.” By now, the sheet of paper would be dotted with equations like pv=nrt, expansion of gas laws, etc... apparently without a valve, dirty air would be trapped to condense and contaminate bottles. For this process and idea, he received a patent and made a significant income.
The crazy part of my grandfather extended to his raising of kids. At one point my 4th aunt received a toy piano. My grandfather noticed if he played a note, she could tell him what it was. If he played 10 notes together she could do the same. With no musical talents himself, he brought her to a local school to play on a real piano. He beseeched music teachers to develop her talent. With his patent winnings, he eventually bought a piano. At that time pianos came into the harbor from overseas and cost a year’s salary... $40,000. My mom recounted the day the piano reached shore, and was loaded on a flatbed trailer pulled by bicyclists through town to their 2 room house for 6 kids and 2 parents and installed in the room to the amazement of onlookers. At nine years old, my aunt was an established concert pianist and had outgrown the island. My grandfather sent her to the conservatory in Germany to refine her craft. The two younger siblings followed suit. That’s why half my mother’s family has European roots now. Their minds are a mix of Chinese and German cultures.
My grandfather never stopped tinkering, even when he retired and immigrated to Boston. At our house, he would splice trees together, plant tiger lilies, make his own pungent yogurt. One time he came up to me and asked to shave off a mole that was growing on his face with hairs coming out. He had noticed wounds heal better when the don’t get wet. I thought he was crazy, but after the mole was shaved, he put a clear piece of packing tape over the bloody wound. Within a couple weeks, the mole was gone, the cheek was smooth and clear. For all the patent books he would receive, he would carefully peel off the embossed ribbons and save them in a plastic bag like a stack of delicate butterfly thin trophies.
I didn’t speak to my grandfather for several years before his death. When I had learned to sail, I discussed my wonder with him about sailing into the wind. The Bernoulli effect is such that air moving at a higher velocity on the front face of the sail rather than the back will cause a lower pressure situation and hence a vacuum sucking the sail forward. The same principle is employed in airplanes for flight. My grandfather was incredulous. He thought you’d always have to have the wind blowing at the back of the sail to propel a sailboat. We had discussions about this that they turned heated... to the point of yelling! All I wanted to do was take him on the water and show him the amazing feeling of gliding on the water sailing into the wind. He thought I was an idiot. I took him on the water... he had a makeshift pendulum device with styrofoam balls to indicate the direction of the wind as we sailed. I took pictures of us sailing the Charles river with the balls being blown backwards. He never would admit the Bernoulli effect despite the pictures. We ceased communication.
As the 4th of July fireworks over the Charles River lit up the night sky I thought of my time sailing with my grandfather years ago on the same river... fireworks and all.
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