My college life: The white Printed Dress ...

 The White Printed Dress: Memories of Medical School

 

College life is a grand adventure, but nothing quite prepares you for the transition from the classroom to the hospital wards.

I still vividly remember my very first clinical visit during my second year of medical school. I was assigned to the outpatient injection room to observe the daily routine of our university's teaching hospital. The charge nurse on duty, Ms. Gao, was incredibly patient. She walked me through the steps of an intramuscular injection, demonstrating the technique perfectly on a patient.

Just then, the headmaster of our medical school walked in, needing an injection himself. Recognizing me as one of his students, he smiled and asked if I would do it for him. Panic surged through me. Terrified, I looked at Ms. Gao for rescue, but she simply gave me an encouraging nod, and the headmaster urged me on. Holding my breath, I followed her instructions and inserted the needle. But as I began pushing the plunger, my nerves got the best of me. The needle slowly drifted backward, slipping out too early. The injection ended up leaving a large, prominent bump on the headmaster's skin—a painful first lesson I would never forget.

 

Medical school also brought us closer together as friends. One summer break, while most students headed home, my sister had to undergo thyroid surgery at our university hospital. I stayed behind to accompany her. To my surprise, the boys from our class who had stayed on campus came to visit her in the ward. Their kindness meant the world to me, and I deeply appreciated their camaraderie.

As our clinical courses progressed, we became hungry for first-hand experience. We would look for any excuse to sneak into the hospital, even just to observe. One afternoon, our youngest classmate came down with a high fever and went to the clinic for a checkup. Right there in the examination room, he suddenly went into a violent seizure. The on-duty physician tried desperately to manage it, and several of us tried to hold him still, but his convulsions were too strong.

 

In the chaos, our class leader, Zhang Fengwei, kept his head. He raced through the corridors and found our internal medicine teacher, Professor Zhou Delin. Professor Zhou rushed in and immediately initiated therapeutic hypothermia. Slowly, the cooling treatment calmed the seizure and brought his raging temperature down. Our classmate made a full recovery, and we all credited Fengwei with saving his life. He had the instinct to find the exact right doctor when every second counted.

Time flew by, and soon it was our turn to leave the comfort of campus to become interns. Space was tight; there were only three major hospitals in town. The largest took only a select few, the second was the Nanyang City Hospital, and many of our classmates had to be sent to smaller county hospitals.

Luck was on our side. Zhourong, Dongju, and I were selected for the largest hospital in town. Because it was a long distance from our campus, Dongju’s father managed to arrange a room for us in one of his subordinate work units nearby. The three of us moved in together, starting a routine of riding our bicycles to the hospital every single morning.

Meanwhile, Jia and a few other students were assigned to Nanyang City Hospital, which provided them with dormitories. By then, Jia and I were harboring a secret love. We kept our romance completely hidden; not a single soul suspected a thing. On the day we were set to depart for our respective hospitals, he pulled me aside into a quiet corner. He slipped a farewell gift into my hands: a beautiful white dress printed all over with the word house. It became a treasured possession, and I wore it proudly for many years.

 

Living with Zhourong and Dongju was a time of pure joy. We threw ourselves into our clinic site, eagerly doing whatever our clinical instructors assigned to us. One evening, as the three of us unwound in our room, Zhourong opened up about her romance with an active army officer. He was the son of our head of student affairs and was currently attending the Army College. Since it was summer break, he had come home to visit and brought her gifts. He gently told her that because he had an income and she didn't, he wanted to leave some money with her to help her out.

Zhourong had burst into tears, crying, "Are you trying to buy me?" To her, the moment money touched romance, the purity of true love was ruined. Dongju and I listened in absolute awe; we shared the exact same romantic idealism.

A few evenings later, Jia came over to visit our apartment. The four of us laughed, talked, and shared a simple dinner at our unit's canteen. After Jia finally said goodnight and left, the air in the room was still buzzing. I looked at my two roommates and finally confessed: "I have a boyfriend too."

They gasped, leaning in. "Who is he? What does he do?"

I smiled and pointed toward the door. "He just left a moment ago."

They screamed in shock, throwing pillows at me. "You kept that a secret this whole time?! How dare you!" We collapsed into laughter, staying up late into the night trading stories. With graduation looming on the horizon, the strict university rules against dating didn't seem to matter so much anymore.

 

We were happy, young, and in love. But as we stepped back onto the hospital floors the next morning, the reality of our final year settled in. We quickly realized that studying medicine from a textbook is worlds apart from holding a patient's life in your hands.

My College Life: Shadows in the Running Path,Gold in the Ashes

 

Shadows on the Running Path, Gold in the Ashes

Life at Nanyang Medical College soon fell into a steady rhythm. Three times a week, I still went home for my English studies, waking up in the predawn darkness the next morning to run all the way back to campus for exercise.

One of our school’s neighbors was a military unit known as Army Unit 0145. Every other morning, as I passed their heavy iron gates, the streets were empty and quiet. There was always a young soldier there, sweeping the road in front of the entrance—a duty he performed with quiet precision. At first, we were like any strangers. No nods, no words. I kept my pace, and he kept sweeping. But seeing each other every other day breeds a quiet familiarity. Soon, a distant nod turned into a brief smile, and eventually, a soft "Good morning."

Over time, our silent routine shifted. He began to run alongside me, joining my morning route. When he asked who I was, I told him I was a medical student running back to school. He shared that he was a conscript from Hunan province, fulfilling his military duty. But as the days passed, his constant presence began to make me feel uncomfortable.

I told my boyfriend about it. He didn't hesitate. "I knew your morning runs would eventually invite this kind of trouble," he said firmly. "From now on, I’m picking you up."

True to his word, he began waking up early, running down the road to meet me, and escorting me back. In those days, college students were strictly forbidden from dating; a romantic relationship could ruin your future. Our love had to be an absolute secret. As we neared the campus gates, my boyfriend would deliberately slow his pace, letting me walk ahead so we wouldn't be seen entering together.

When I finally confessed the relationship to my parents, my mother’s reaction was swift. "You are too young for a romance," she lectured. "Right now, your studies are the only thing that matters. Cut ties with him immediately."

I had always been an obedient daughter, and I tried to listen. But love is not a thread that can be cleanly snipped by parental decree. We could force ourselves to stop meeting, but we couldn't stop what we felt. In fact, the secrecy only made our bond feel stronger.

We lived in a small city within a sprawling agricultural province, and most of our classmates came from farming families. When the autumn wheat harvest arrived, the college granted a short break so students could return home to help their families in the fields.

When classes resumed, we noticed an empty desk. The oldest student in our class—a 28-year-old father of two—had not returned on time. Knowing how heavy the farm work must be for a family man, we assumed he was simply running late.

A week later, he finally walked back onto campus. Both of his eyes were heavily bruised and blackened.

The truth rippled through the school in hushed whispers. During the harvest break, he had run into his high school sweetheart. She was now married to an active military officer. Caught together by her husband's family, he had been brutally beaten. Worse than the physical wounds, his actions were deemed a political and moral transgression. Because he had entangled himself with a military officer's wife, the college revoked his student status.

Just like that, we lost a friend, a classmate, a big brother.

Getting into college after the Cultural Revolution meant everything—not just to him, but to all of us. He had waited ten long years for the Gaokao to resume. He was a man of immense talent, gifted in painting, music, and English. As our class's cultural committee leader, he had directed our plays and led us in song. Before coming to Nanyang, he had been a rural teacher, instructing children in everything from mathematics and Chinese literature to art and music. But a countryside teaching post offered no financial security, no pension, and no future.

He scored well on the exams, but because of his older age, the top-tier universities rejected him. Nanyang Medical College was his hard-won second chance at a dignified life. Now, it was entirely ruined.

I always believed his high school sweetheart hadn't married him years before because he had no prospects. Now that he was a college student with a guaranteed state job in his future, she had been drawn back to him. While the male students in our class judged him harshly, all the girls felt a profound, lingering sorrow for him.

Later, another classmate, Jia, crossed paths with him at the train station. Looking at his packed bags, Jia asked, "What is your plan now? Where are you going?"

He looked back with a bittersweet smile. "I’ll be a vagrant," he replied quietly. "I'll make everywhere my home."

Thirty years passed. I had long since moved to the United States when, by some twist of fate, we reconnected. I can no longer remember exactly how we found each other's contact information, but one afternoon, I found myself listening to his voice on the phone.

The story he told me left me breathless.

After being expelled, he had boarded a train to the remote Xinjiang region. There, a sympathetic official in a middle school helped him erase the "black history" from his record. After a few years of teaching, the burning desire for a higher education refused to die. With a clean record, he braved the grueling college entrance examination a second time.

He passed. He gained admission to an agricultural university, choosing to study agricultural machinery. After graduation, he returned to the very school where he had once been a teacher in Xinjiang—but this time, he returned as a respected professional. He poured his passion into research, securing several independent patents and inventions for farming equipment. Today, he is still happily married, his is highly successful in the machinery field, and his two sons have grown into accomplished men.

What a life. The currents of history forced him to wait ten years for a chance, and a moment of romantic passion nearly cost him everything. But his story taught me a truth I will never forget: true gold will always shine, no matter how deep it is buried in the ashes.

My college life: the young love

 

Apologies in the Vegetable Field

Right before the summer break, our school had finished moving to the new campus. It was an isolated area, bordered by vast, green vegetable fields. It was during the height of the "Watch Switch" rumor—when I was feeling deeply wronged, misunderstood, and defensive—that Jia had initially approached me, asking to take a walk by those very fields.

The sun was setting, and the breeze carried the fresh, earthy scent of the crops. He looked incredibly anxious, nervously rubbing his hands together before looking me in the eyes.

"I want to apologize to you," Jia said gently, his voice heavy with sincerity. "When the whole 'Watch Switch' thing happened and caused such a stir, I didn't stand up to stop the rumors. I let you face that unfair embarrassment alone."

Looking into his apologetic eyes, the armor of resentment I had built up suddenly melted away. I forced a light smile. "It’s not a big deal. I know what my own intentions were. It didn't mean anything to me."

We talked for a long time that day. While the exact sentences have faded over the decades, his delicate care—his absolute terror of hurting my pride—stayed with me. It was like a seed planted in the barren soil of my depressed college life. That summer, whenever the power went out at home or the afternoons grew quiet, my mind would drift back to that vibrant green vegetable field, and the boy who stood there offering me a piece of his heart wrapped in an apology.

I had insisted I didn't want a relationship with anyone, but when someone approaches you with such genuine gentleness and polite respect, a young girl's heart can only resist for so long. Throughout that long summer break, away from the stresses of school, Jia occupied my thoughts constantly.

In truth, during that long summer break, Jia had already occupied my thoughts far more than I cared to admit. By the time we returned for the next term, the distance between us had collapsed. During study breaks, we began to share a quiet, unspoken understanding, often wandering to the quiet end of the balcony just to steal a few minutes of conversation. I began to notice a shift in the way he looked at me.

The term, the brand new of everything: classrooms, laboratories, the dining hall, and the dormitories. Everyone seemed buzzing with excitement, except for me. I was still harboring my deep resentment toward medical school, and the looming class elections only added to my anxiety. I desperately hoped to be voted out of my position as temporary class leader.

Unfortunately, I won the highest number of votes. I was stuck. When they distributed the duties, I made sure to take on the lightest workload, which brought some relief. But wherever people gather, drama follows. Soon, a bitter conflict erupted between our league branch secretary and the class advisor. The secretary abruptly resigned, and the responsibility was dumped squarely on my shoulders. Lacking the will to fight it, I simply let it be and went through the motions.

The sole highlight of my week was the newly launched televised English class, which aired every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. It was taught by Professor Chen Lin, a brilliant instructor from a foreign language college. I had always yearned to learn English. Because the school didn't provide a television, I walked home three times a week just to catch the broadcast. We lived in a small city where the accompanying textbook was impossible to find. Desperate, I wrote to a high school classmate who had gone off to a major university in a big city. He bought the textbook for me and mailed it to Nanyang. Thanks to that program, my English improved significantly.

Meanwhile, Jia and I grew closer. Our interactions were subtle—mostly just talking more during our grueling study breaks. Life marched on, dominated by the relentless pace of our medical studies.

Our Private Thirty Minutes

When our classmate Lu Shao Yuan contracted Hepatitis A and was admitted to Nanyang City Hospital, Jia and I happened to talk about it after dinner near the classrooms. Realizing we both intended to visit him, we decided to walk over together.

The hospital was about a thirty-minute walk from campus. In those days, there were no bright neon lights or bustling night markets like today; the streets were dark, lined only with the soft rustling shadows of trees. The moment we stepped away from the crowded, noisy campus, a profound quiet wrapped around us, leaving only the rhythmic sound of our footsteps side by side.

At first, we stayed behind a wall of polite formality, talking about class gossip and the suffocating pressure of our medical studies. But as the distance from school grew, the conversation shifted. Jia began to tell me about his hometown, childhood memories, and his quiet anxieties about the future. For the first time, I found myself opening up to someone, admitting how much I disliked medicine and how utterly exhausted I was by the forced responsibility of being the class leader.

Back in the classroom, Jia was always the polite, restrained, academic boy. But in the stillness of that night walk, I discovered a rare depth of gentleness and vulnerability in him.

Those thirty minutes there and back became the very first time I felt a sense of relief in my suffocating college life. There were no medical terms to memorize, no parental expectations weighing me down—just his soft voice and comforting warmth beside me in the dark. It was during that walk that I realized my heart was no longer resisting his approach.

The Beautiful Choice

Then came the evening he asked me to walk with him again.

The moonlight stretched our long shadows across the path. He walked close to my side, his hands stuffed nervously into his pockets, far tenser than usual. After walking a short distance, he stopped, turned around to face me, and took a deep, steadying breath.

"I have an aunt who lives here in town," his voice trembled slightly, breaking the silence. "She wants to introduce me to her daughter for marriage. I’ve been stalling... because I wanted to ask you first. I like you. If you don’t feel the same way and want me to meet her daughter, I will go. But if you don't want me to meet her, I won't go."

My heart skipped a beat.

In an instant, I understood what this boy was doing. In the most gentlemanly, profoundly respectful way possible, he was handing the entire key to his future over to me. He didn't force a heavy confession upon me; instead, he opened up his path ahead and asked me to guide it.

The numbness, the passivity, and the cold detachment that had defined my life at Nanyang Medical School evaporated in a single second. Looking up into his eyes—filled with an agonizing mix of hope and vulnerability—I didn't hesitate.

"Please don’t meet her," I whispered.

At that exact moment, it felt as though the wind itself had stopped. My bleak, heavy, seventeen-year-old world had suddenly, beautifully, burst into color.

My college life: the class of 1978

 The Class of 1978:

Medicine, Maturity, and a Swapped Watch

I was only seventeen when I was admitted to Nanyang Medical School, and it was entirely against my will. Fresh out of high school, I was still deeply in love with that world and deeply admired my teachers. Naturally, my first choice was a teachers' college and becoming one. But my mother, who worked for the city’s health administration, had a profound reverence for doctors. She insisted I list medical school as my second or third choice, and I reluctantly complied. Leveraging her connections, she arranged for a medical school representative who traveled to the provincial capital to admit students, pulled my file first, and secured my admission. That was how I unexpectedly found myself on the path to becoming a doctor.

Because the historic resumption of the college entrance exam took place in December, 1977 and the class of 1977 was started at the following September, 1978. To avoid the confusing with the prior year's class, we, the Class of 1978, started in the winter of December 1978.

College life was a jarring departure from everything I knew. Our classroom was a melting pot of entirely different generations. Out of 45 students, fewer than ten of us were fresh high school graduates like me. The remaining 35 were older, seasoned by life; many had been sent down to the countryside for re-education, while others had already worked as teachers or laborers. The age gap was massive. One of my classmates was already a father of two, and several other older boys had left girlfriends behind in the villages; and the youngest one was only 15 years old at the time.

Most of the students came from surrounding rural counties, while only a few of us were locals from the city. The school required everyone to live in the dormitories during the week. On Sundays, our only day off, those of us with family nearby would head home to helper with household chores and indulge in a comforting, homemade meal.

The medical class was divided into two units. My unit was Class Two, consisting of 46 students, including just nine girls. Class One was an additional unit added later to accommodate the high volume of qualified applicants, and it had only six girls. The nine of us in Class Two shared a single room crammed with bunk beds. I claimed a lower berth, using the upper mattress strictly to store our extra belongings. My roommates included the two Zhaos—Chunling and Dongju, both born in 1957, who came from the countryside. Then there was Yanjiang (born in 1958) from another city, followed by Zhourong (1959), Wangyu (1960), Xiaorui (1960), myself (1961), Wanling (1961), and Hongping (1962).

We rarely had conflicts, finding joy in simple pleasures. We would walk to the park, take group photographs, and occasionally watch movies. As sheltered high school graduates coming out of the shadow of the Cultural Revolution, we possessed absolutely no knowledge of biology, physiology, or romance. We had to start entirely from the basics. Worse, time was against us. The faculty didn't have the luxury of teaching us in detail; they could only provide brief overviews to teach us how to navigate the textbooks. Consequently, we were buried under mountains of reading assignments. We read constantly, desperately memorizing pages upon pages without fully understanding the concepts. We were forced to compress a standard five-year medical curriculum into just three grueling years.

Our routine was relentless. We woke up at 6:00 AM and studied in the classroom until 10:00 PM. Free time was a luxury we didn't have. Even on weekends, the classrooms remained packed with students hunched over books.

By the second term, the school relocated to a new campus. In a desperate bid to secure cadavers for our anatomy lab, some of the boys in my class actually went to a local execution site. They brought an unclaimed body back to the school and placed it in the dissection lab. Looking back now, I seriously question the legality of it all, and I am still astonished that my classmates possessed the nerve to do it.

Because my heart was never in medicine, a quiet depression settled over me during those college years. I studied hard and tried my best, but my grades hovered strictly in the middle, sometimes just barely passing. I learned firsthand that when your passion is entirely absent, everything becomes an agonizing hurdle, and excellence remains out of reach.

There are few bright spots in my memories of that time, but I did fall in love with a classmate—a distraction that undoubtedly contributed to my mediocre grades.

To understand how it happened, I have to go back to the very beginning. During our opening ceremony, Wanling and I were chosen as student staff to serve tea to the principals and faculty. Later, our class advisor, Mr. Fan, appointed me and two boys as temporary class leaders because I had held a similar role in high school. I resented the appointment. I was miserable in medical school, younger than most of my peers, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with class politics. But I didn't even have the energy to fight it—a numbness that I now realize was a symptom of my depression. I chose to stay silent and detached. Fortunately, the two boys were incredibly proactive, handles all the responsibilities so I never had to bother.

In those days, owning a wristwatch was a major status symbol. As a reward for getting into college, my mother had gifted me a beautiful Shanghai-brand watch, which I wore every day. One evening, during a study break in the classroom, a male classmate showed me his watch, which featured a sleek, dark dial.

"That's beautiful," I remarked.

"If you like it, we can exchange watches for a few days," he offered. Then, testing me, he asked, "Do you dare to switch?"

"Why not?" I replied. At seventeen, I was fearless and stubborn. So, right there in front of the entire class, we swapped watches. To me, it was a harmless, temporary exchange between classmates.

But to him, and to the rest of the class, it was a monumental event.

The older boys, with their more mature and complicated minds, viewed the switch as an exchange of romantic tokens—a formal confirmation of a relationship. It caused a massive stir in the boys' dormitory. Every boy in the class knew about it, while the girls and I remained completely in the dark.

A few days later, while the girls and I were taking our usual post-dinner walk outside the campus, we bumped into the main class leader. He pulled me aside and told me what the boys were saying. I burst into tears on the spot, overwhelmed by a deep sense of injustice. As an innocent seventeen-year-old, romance hadn't even crossed my mind, and I had absolutely no desire to be in a relationship. The moment I got back to the classroom, I threw his watch back to him and took mine back. That became the school's famous "Watch Switch" incident.

My college life

A Turning Point in 1978

It was February 1978 when I arrived at Tanghe First High School to join Class 2 of the third-grade science track. Officially, I was a "repeat student." I had already graduated from high school in Nanyang City, but after failing the 1977 college entrance examination, my mother refused to let me give up. Determined to see me succeed, she arranged for me to move to her hometown in Tanghe County to prepare for the upcoming exams.

During those months, I lived with my maternal aunt, Feng. She was my mother’s younger sister and only five years older than my own sister. Aunt Feng worked as a contract laborer at a local cotton factory—a precarious existence at the time. Unlike permanent workers, she had no job security, no health or retirement benefits, lower pay, and her household registration (hukou) remained tied to the countryside.

Because she was newly married, the factory had allotted her a tiny room. Her husband worked at an oil factory, where he had a small room of his own, but they had chosen to set up their first home together in my aunt's quarters. My arrival disrupted their newlyweds' life. Too young and naive to understand the sacrifice they were making for my education, I accepted the arrangement. To give me space to study, my aunt sent her husband back to sleep at his own factory housing. He would only come over for lunch and dinner before leaving each night.

With a roof over my head, I threw myself entirely into my studies. Because my high school years in Nanyang coincided with the Cultural Revolution, I had barely learned the standard curriculum. Although this was supposed to be a "review" year, almost everything was brand new to me. Armed with a series of mathematics, physics, and chemistry textbooks my mother had bought, I was eager to learn and held my own in class.

Even though I was the same age as my peers—having started primary school a year early—a few classmates found it strange that a city girl had come to a county school. They correctly guessed I was a repeat student. In the culture of the late 1970s, failing the exam and repeating a year was stigmatized as a failure, and some of them laughed at me. While it stung, I kept my eyes on the prize. I knew exactly why I was there, so I refused to let their whispers derail me.

I did manage to make a few meaningful connections. I formed a quiet friendship with the girl who shared my desk. I also grew to admire the top student in our class, viewing her as my role model. It wasn’t until after the exams that I realized she liked me, too; she warmly invited me to her home to share a meal with her family.

My time in Tanghe was short—just about six months. After taking the college entrance examination in July, I returned home to Nanyang. As a high school graduate in 1977, I was part of the "waiting-for-employment" youth town-girls, facing a stark reality: I either needed to get into a school or find a job to secure my future. My mother remained fiercely determined that I should continue my education. To cover all bases, she had also signed me up for the Secondary Technical School exam (meant for middle school graduates) and the Technical School exam (which trained skilled factory workers).

Once home, I took both tests. Because they only covered middle school material, I sailed through them. Soon, an incredible piece of luck came my way: I passed all three examinations and received physical exam notifications for all of them.

Naturally, the university track was my first choice, so I returned to Tanghe County for my college medical evaluation. I will never forget the look on my physics teacher’s face when he saw me. With a disdaining sneer, he asked, "Is it really you? You got to get a physical exam?" I knew I wasn't the most naturally brilliant student in his class, but I also knew how hard I had worked, constantly asking questions during those five grueling months. Against his expectations, I had made it.

To everyone's surprise, the girl who had been the top student failed the college entrance exam and had to move to another high school to repeat the year. Though she qualified for a secondary technical school, she initially resisted going, but her parents pressured her to take it. At that time, any higher education—even a secondary technical school—guaranteed a city residency and a stable state-assigned job. Her parents were ordinary town workers who desperately wanted that security for her. As for the boys in our class, some of them performed exceptionally well and scattered off to various universities.

I ultimately attended the medical checkup for the secondary technical school, where I met some genuine middle school graduates. Safe in the knowledge that I had qualified for far better options, I didn't even bother showing up for the basic technical school physical. I had fought my way out, and a new life was finally waiting for me.

To a old friend

 

Dear Friend,

This is Snow again. It has been a long time since I last wrote, though I am glad we have been able to catch up on the phone a few times.

After my last letter, I traveled to Vancouver, B.C., to seek further teachings from my Buddhist master. I arrived on the evening of August 10th, spoke with my master the following day, and immediately entered a silent retreat as the Lama directed. After a week of retreat, I spent two days learning directly from my Lama before returning to retreat for another three days. I had hoped to visit a friend while in Vancouver, but plans didn’t work out. Even so, the retreat was incredibly grounding, and I am deeply grateful for it. It was my very first retreat, and I absolutely loved the experience.

My travels went smoothly, but a couple of days after returning home to Virginia, I came down with a cough and a fever. Aside from having COVID-19 in the past, this was the first time I had been sick since moving to the United States. It lasted for an entire month, and the symptoms actually felt worse than COVID. Throughout it all, however, I kept a clear mind, knowing that it would eventually pass and that I would recover.

For over a month, I could do nothing but rest in bed. The cough and fever were persistent, with my temperature hovering between 37.5°C and 38.5°C almost every day. I completely lost my appetite, eating only once a day or sometimes once every few days. I felt no hunger, no energy, and no desires—I just slept. By the end of August, as I began to turn a corner, I started studying the Dharma teachings I received from my Lama, and I began practicing three days later. By September 11th, the practice had become part of my daily routine. I am so grateful for the Dharma; even while bedridden, I felt my time wasn't wasted.

I am completely well now and doing much better as I adjust to retirement. Having worked continuously since I was 20 years old, retiring initially brought a sense of emptiness and left me feeling a bit lost. Unwinding 46 years of career-related tension is quite a task, and I am still learning how to do it. But writing to you again is a wonderful sign that I am finding my footing, and I know I will be just fine.

I painted my outdoor chairs as light purple and I really like them now. I am sitting on it and took a picture to attach it here so you can see me again. 

Recently, I attended a death doula training class and absolutely loved it. The instructor is a hospice nurse who has cared for over a thousand people at the end of their lives, and her depth of knowledge is remarkable. She wrote a book called The Good Death, which I bought and am currently reading. It reminds me that while our culture tends to avoid talking about death—pretending it will never happen—it is the one absolute certainty in an impermanent world. From a Buddhist perspective, death is not the end, but the beginning of a new chapter. It is simply like changing clothes; when the old body no longer works, we move on to a new one. This is what I truly believe. Even with my medical background as a doctor in China and a nurse in the US, the spiritual side of death still felt somewhat foreign to me, which is why I find Susanne's book so captivating. If you are interested, I would love to order a copy and have it shipped to you. Let me know!

I think my husband is just waking up from his nap, so I will close for now. I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Love,
Snow

Saturday, October 24, 2026

 

                                              

 

 

 

Write to a good friend

 

Dear Friend,

It is me again, your friend from China. In my last letter, I told you that I got a job interview and was waiting to hear back. That is why I am writing a little late. I still do not have a final confirmation yet. My husband told me that things move a little slowly here, and now I believe it!

I did get a phone call from them asking for my previous supervisor’s personal phone number because they called the work number I provided and only left a message. They want to be a little quicker, so I gave it to them. It seems like they are going to hire me, but again, there is no confirmation yet.

Last time on the phone, you mentioned that you did not know how big my yard is. This time, I took a picture of the whole view so you can see it. It is about 10 acres!

I do not remember if I told you that we got chicks. There are 10 of them. They have been here for almost a month and were living on the porch. Today, we moved them out to the yard. I put wheels under the chicken coop to make it moveable. Now I can move it to a different spot once in a while to let them fertilize the yard and save me some cleaning. I am so proud of myself—after I changed the coop, it is very easy to move! I am sending some pictures of that to you too.

This month, I plan to go to Vancouver BC to ask Lama Rinpoche to give me more Dharma teaching. I sent email to them and waiting for them to give me a time so I can go.

Life here is busy due to the large property and new to us. But life is good. I appreciate my American life.

How are you doing? I will call you later.

Sincerely,

Love Snow

Monday, August 3, 2026