Woman Who Could Not Forget (16 page)

When Iris fell in love with the work of one particular poet or writer at the time, she would be very passionate and would enthusiastically describe the life and work of the author to me. One time she was quite taken by Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fog.” She told me she loved the line “The fog comes on little cat’s feet.” When she recited the poem, her hands would mimic cat’s paws and her back arched like a cat approaching me. Iris was a cat lover, and I could see that she loved this line of the Sandburg poem. Sandburg’s birthplace was Galesburg, Illinois, and she badly wanted to visit the place. One summer, she and one of her friends did visit Galesburg. I wish I could have appreciated all those literary works as much as she did, but at the time I was very busy with my own research and did not discuss them further with her. Now that I look back, I realize I had lost the best chance to learn from her.

When the first semester of her senior year started in the fall of 1988, Iris moved to the Phi Beta Chi sorority house on Lincoln Avenue in Urbana. She had always been fascinated with the Greek system on campus. She said that since this was her last year in college, she wanted to find out what life in a sorority was like. Phi Beta Chi was a low-key sorority, and members were more academically oriented than in most sororities. She applied to join and was accepted. Although she was a senior, as a newcomer she had to live in the basement of the house. Shau-Jin helped her to move her stuff in, including the Apple IIc computer that she used all the time. She was using it to send news to the
Chicago Tribune
and
New York Times;
she was ahead of many of her journalism professors in using the computer as a daily tool at this very early stage. After all, she had been a computer science major.

Life in a sorority was different from living in a dormitory. In a sorority, like in a big family, each girl was assigned a number of responsibilities, such as cleaning the house. Iris never liked to clean, but she had to do it. She came home, took our portable vacuum cleaner, and persuaded me to donate it to the sorority. I gave it to her and hoped she would keep her room clean.

In general, Iris was enjoying living in the sorority house. Living there gave her an opportunity to know several students who came from a family background drastically different from her own. For example, she said she talked to a sorority sister who came from a blue-collar family and a small town. Her main goal was to find a good husband after graduation and settle down. To Iris, this was unthinkable. On the other hand, Iris was considered by others to be too idealistic.

Iris continued writing for the
DI,
but her articles now became long and in-depth, more like investigative reporting and commentary. On October 12, 1988, she had an article published in the
DI,
“How to take the sting out of criticism,” which was a review of a book titled
When Words Hurt: How to Keep Criticism from Undermining Your Self-Esteem
by Mary Lynne Heldmann. Iris wrote in the article that, according to Heldmann, we must brainwash ourselves to believe we can succeed. Heldmann emphasized “positive self talk,” which was her technique to combat criticism hurled toward
When Words Hurt.
Heldmann also emphasized the importance of daydreaming and picturing yourself achieving your goals in situations where you were in control. She also discussed ways to let those hurtful words bounce right off. Heldmann described four skills for dealing with criticism: silent observation, defusing, genuine inquiry, and stating your position.

Heldmann’s book influenced Iris tremendously. Iris had taught me these techniques to deal with hurtful words when my colleagues or even my relatives threw criticism at me. In high school, Iris had been laughed at by her peers and criticized for her constant daydreaming. And now, she had found that nothing was wrong with daydreaming. Now she knew how to deal with the criticism. In Iris’s writing career, especially with her second book
The Rape of Nanking
, she received a huge amount of criticism from Japanese right-wing groups, but she took the criticism in stride and no doubt applied these four techniques to help her cope. Years later, I saw that Iris wrote, on notecard after notecard, lists of “positive self talk” to confirm her beliefs and “brainwash” herself that she could succeed and not let the harsh words of others lead her to doubt herself.

In October 1988, Iris told me that she was going to compete for Homecoming Queen. This was another unexpected thing to many of her peers. To me, it was not entirely surprising. She had told me repeatedly that she wanted to experience college life as much as possible, plus she was also very competitive. I always supported whatever she wanted to do, as long as it was a sound activity. I never paid attention to the sports events on campus, even though I knew that students and many people living in Champaign-Urbana were crazy for the football games played in the stadium, especially at Homecoming weekend. Our experience of the stadium was limited to the July 4 firework display years ago.

When Iris informed me that she was one of the ten female students selected into the Homecoming Court, I was very excited for her. The selection process was based on a good GPA and involvement in campus activities. In addition, an essay to describe the applicant’s life goal was one of the criteria; a face-to-face interview was also involved. Each of ten female students was paired with one of ten male students elected to form a pair representing one of the Big Ten schools. Among these ten couples, a Homecoming King and Queen were chosen. In the final, Iris was not chosen as Queen, but she and her partner, who represented Purdue University in the Homecoming Court, would still participate in the parade.

When the news came that she was going to participate in the Homecoming Parade, and then when we were invited to the next day’s football game in the stadium to watch her appearance in the halftime show, I was very excited but also nervous. I felt ashamed that I did not know anything about football or Homecoming. I quickly dug out the navy sweatshirt for Shau-Jin with the big white words “Illini Dad” on the front—a Christmas gift from Iris that Shau-Jin had never worn. For myself, I thought the orange sweater I’d bought for Halloween night would do. At least I remembered that the color scheme for the “Fighting Illini” was orange and navy blue!

Iris did not have any formal dark suits to wear for the parade, and there was not enough time to go shopping. It put me at ease that one of her sorority sisters was nice enough to lend her a suit for the occasion. But the parade was in the late afternoon and the weather was quite chilly. Iris needed a nice overcoat; she caught cold easily. I told her that I had just bought a beautiful green overcoat and I could lend it to her. Iris and I had shared clothes frequently since the time she had been a senior in high school.

On Friday, October 21, 1988, I quickly finished my work in the lab and went to Wright Street, where most of the fraternity and sorority houses were located. I learned from the
DI
that the parade would start on Wright Street and turn onto Green Street. I carried my camera and waited on the side of the street. At this moment, huge crowds of students gathered on the side of the street. The noise of music from loudspeakers was blasting, and the colorful flags with the Fighting Illini logo were swinging in the sky. I saw there were several convertibles carrying the Homecoming Court approaching and waving to the crowds. From the songs and slogans I heard, I realized that the next day’s football game was Illini versus Michigan State. I also learned that the team color of Michigan State was green. I was immediately regretting that I had lent my green overcoat to Iris; she should be wearing navy or any other color, but not green.

When I saw Iris riding in the convertible in the procession of the parade approaching me, she also spotted me in the crowd and I took several pictures of her. She was smiling and waving to me, and I was sure that she was not aware that she was dressed in the “wrong” color.

When the parade was over, I couldn’t find her. It turned out she and the entire Homecoming Court were at the Quad in front of the Auditorium. They had a pep rally late into that night. It was so exciting for her that she forgot to tell me where she was. I tried to call her about the overcoat and advise her that she should not wear the green coat again at halftime the next day. The next day, early in the morning, I finally reached her. She and I immediately went to Market Place Mall. I bought a new black overcoat for her.

That afternoon, Shau-Jin dressed in his “Illini Dad” navy sweatshirt and I dressed in the bright orange sweater, and we proudly accompanied Iris to the stadium. Michael also came to join in. Michael was now a sophomore in the UI Electrical Engineering Department. We, as parents of a Homecoming Princess, were invited to sit in the front row of the back section of the stadium. This was our first time, after nineteen years of being in Champaign-Urbana, to attend a football game. We were quite close to the players, only a few feet from them. Although I did not understand the rules of the game, the cheering, the noises, and the enthusiastic crowds excited me all the same.

Finally, at halftime, they announced the names of the Homecoming King and Queen. The entire Homecoming Court appeared in the center of the stadium with the Illini marching band and music. With thousands of students and people watching and cheering and waving, I was terribly moved, and proud. For Iris, I believe this experience enhanced her confidence and her longing for visibility and fame.

After Homecoming, Iris told me that she had received a lot of attention from male students who were eager to date her. One night, several weeks after Homecoming, Iris called us to say that she had met a UI electrical engineering student named Brett Douglas at a campus fraternity party. From what she described to us, she seemed quite taken by this tall, handsome young man. So we told Iris to invite Brett over for dinner.

In December, Iris did just that. I had prepared several good Chinese dishes for this special guest. We learned that Brett was a graduate student in electrical engineering and was two years older than Iris. He was indeed, as Iris had described to us, tall, handsome, and courteous. His family lived in Mason City, a small Illinois town about sixty miles west of Urbana. His father was a farmer, and his mother was an elementary-school teacher. He had grown up in Mason City and had graduated first in his class from his high school. He planned to get a doctoral degree in electrical engineering. I could see that Iris received full admiration and attention from Brett throughout the evening.

Later, Iris showed me many pictures of her campus activities. Among those were ones of her and Brett, taken together at many of the fraternity and sorority parties. One was Brett giving a big heart-shaped box of chocolates and a bunch of red roses to Iris on Valentine’s Day, 1989. Another one was Brett embracing Iris so closely that my face turned red when I saw it. Iris showed me and told me everything about her inner thoughts, and sometimes I wished she would keep some of that to herself. No doubt, Iris was falling in love with Brett, even though she had told me in the past that she wanted to concentrate on her career first.

When the fall semester of her senior year ended, Iris was actively looking for a summer job for the next year. She thought she would need an extra year to graduate because of having changed majors. She told us she was applying to many newspapers for internships, but the job situation in newspapers was always grim. Sometimes she got discouraged, but she was working hard at her job search. She borrowed our car to drive to Chicago a couple of times to talk to people at the
Chicago Sun-Times
and
Chicago Tribune
.

On our side, for the second semester of the 1988-1989 academic year, Shau-Jin was on sabbatical leave to the La Jolla Theoretical Institute, near San Diego, for half a year. Because of that, I was applying to the Department of Biology at UC-San Diego. Professor Milton Saier replied and invited me to work in his lab as a visiting scientist. Therefore, we were busy preparing to move to La Jolla for half a year. We rented our house to a visiting professor who was hired by UI, who also promised to take care of Iris’s cat. Because there was a month of winter break between the semesters, Iris and Michael went with us to California for the holiday.

Due to the rush in our preparation for moving to La Jolla, we all bought instant gifts for each other for Christmas, 1988. Among the gifts we gave Iris were a yearlong subscription to the
New Yorker
and
Atlantic Monthly
. She gave us a collection of classical music on CD. While we were in La Jolla, both Shau-Jin and I worked hard. I helped Saier’s lab characterize the gene expressions of several bacterial genes of their interest by the genetic fusion technique in a few week. Both children called us regularly.

Iris wrote us on January 25, 1989. This was her last semester at the University of Illinois:

Dear Mom and Dad,

I hope both of you are enjoying the sunny California weather. . . . It’s not very cold in Urbana, but it rains a lot.

Today is the third day of class, and I spend most of my time writing, sending off applications, studying or attending meetings. Brett and I decided to study together yesterday and both of us got an incredible amount of studying done because we made a date to sit down and study. We’re going to do this once or twice a week; both of us will probably become more disciplined. There were no interruptions because we studied in Brett’s EE office.

The moment I got home everyone has been throwing paper at me, . . . Someone called me “Miss P. R.” I’m not going to have time to do all this, so I won’t. . . .

At least I’m not lonely here at the U of I, even though you are away. There are now seven people living in the basement. Two of them caught colds and gave it to everyone else. . . .

The entire house is gloomy these days. It seems that half the girls in the sorority broke up with their boyfriends during break; the other half got engaged. Everyone in Phi Beta Chi is worried about their future. Every day I see girls sobbing into the phone or screaming at each other. I’m rather happy these days, though. I’m lucky. . . .

Love you, Iris