Woman Who Could Not Forget

by Richard Rhodes

  Delving into history, into other people’s stories, places all our problems into perspective. Time and again we have to remind ourselves how extraordinarily lucky we are.

  Much love, Iris

  Struggles for a Baby and a Movie

  After the big celebration at Renaissance Weekend in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Iris told me that the year 2000 would be a year to write and finish the first draft of her next book and, most importantly, to get pregnant. Iris and Brett had wished to start a family in the previous year, but without success.

  That January, she told me that she was reading a number of books and articles on pregnancy, and that she needed to adjust her diet. She also bought a shield for her computer monitor screen. She had been in front of the computer for very long hours and she was worried that the radiation from the computer screen might cause miscarriages, as some sources claimed. She was eating nutritious food and getting enough exercise to make sure she was healthy.

  On February 9, 2000, Iris informed us that she and Brett had moved to a townhouse in North San Jose. She had finally found this townhouse for rent when her boxes of research materials almost occupied their whole apartment. Iris said this house was a twenty-minute drive from the previous apartment and that it had more than double the space of the previous one, with a double-car garage attached. Besides, it was a five-minute walk to Cisco, where Brett worked. Iris felt very lucky because the owner of the house was very nice and the rent was reasonable. It took them about two weeks to move, unpack, and settle in. During the process, Iris organized her books, research materials, manuscripts, records, letters, etc. She could not believe that she could accumulate so many materials and almost filled the space again in the new house and in the garage.

  On February 14, hearing that “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles Schulz had died, Iris was quite sentimental and wrote me a letter:

  Dear Mom:

  I have a favor to ask of you. Can you save the last Peanuts comic strip that appeared yesterday (Sunday), and mail it to me? I’m still reeling from the news of Charles Schulz’s death. It’s the end of an era.

  I still remember all the hours I spent reading Peanuts books as a child. Do you recall the time we went together to a garage sale in Champaign, and you bought me my first Snoopy cartoon book—a used paperback, already yellow with age? That’s when I first fell in love with the Peanuts comic strip. You and Dad grew up with Peanuts cartoons as well, in Chinese newspapers in Taiwan, making both of you part of the Peanuts era as well.

  Years later, in Santa Barbara, I met Charles Schulz in person at the SB Writer’s conference (the summer of 1991, I believe). During his lecture, however, I was surprised by his demeanor, which was bitter, gloomy, and depressed—almost nasty!

  After his lecture, I stood in a long line, waiting for Schulz to autograph a copy of his book for me. When I finally stood in front of him, I asked Schulz if I could write a profile about him for the New Yorker or some other major magazine. “Why is a young person like you interested in an old man like me?” was his response. (At the time, I thought he was being sarcastic.) But later I learned that Schulz—like Charlie Brown—is a terribly insecure person, fundamentally convinced of his own unworthiness.

  That was the last time I ever saw Schulz. But last year, I had one more opportunity to see him. To make a long story short, I didn’t have time to make the long, two-hour drive to Santa Rosa, and I figured that I would see Schulz at the next Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference. I never expected that Schulz would pass away only a few months later.

  Do you think Charles Schulz committed suicide? Don’t you find it odd that he died the night before his final strip ran in the Sunday newspapers? As you know, Peanuts ran from 1950 to 2000—a perfect 50 years. And he died right when the strip ended. But life is seldom as neat and tidy as a cartoon box. It’s almost as if he timed his dramatic exit from this world . . . achieving his final deadline.

  Love, Iris

  It seemed like Iris could not get the death of Charles Schulz off of her mind. The next day, she wrote to me again about him:

  Dear Mom,

  I think it was Charles Schulz’s pessimism—as well as his ability to understand human failure, insecurity, heartbreak—that made millions love Peanuts.

  You’re absolutely right. Schulz had no reason whatsoever to be depressed, after achieving wealth and fame at such an early age. But depression is not rational. Perhaps he did have a mental problem, or some chemically induced condition. But whatever it was, it prevented him from losing touch with the underdogs of the world.

  It’s strange, but I still feel a void in my heart after Schulz’s death—even though I never knew him, and didn’t particularly like him after our meeting in person. It made me wonder, what is the secret to Schulz’s magical appeal?

  The answer, I believe, is simple. Schulz understands the heart of a loser. He captures those moments in life when we feel utterly unloved, unwanted, and alone. And all of us—no matter how successful—have felt like losers at some point in life.

  Love, Iris

  I had a feeling that at this time in her life, Iris felt that she could understand how Charles Schulz felt at the end of his.

  Shau-Jin retired from the University of Illinois after thirty years of teaching and research in physics just before the new year, and I was planning to retire from the Department of Microbiology in May 2000. Our friends wanted to give Shau-Jin, and several other Chinese faculty members at the UI who also retired at about the same time, a retirement party. The organizers invited Iris and Michael to come for this occasion, but both of them were busy working. So I asked both of them to write a few words for their father’s retirement. Iris, as usual, wrote a long, loving, and moving statement, which was read on March 2, 2000 at the party. She knew I was going to retire in May, which was only two months away, so in the statement she also gave her loving thoughts about me. Needless to say, I was so touched.

  Date: March 2, 2000

  IRIS CHANG’S MESSAGE FOR HER DAD’S RETIREMENT PARTY

  My parents have spent half their lives at the University of Illinois. It’s hard to believe they are now retiring from academic life. After three decades, the two of them have left behind a legacy of research and education for which they should be proud.

  My mother was my first role model, and remains one of my great heroes. For as long as I could remember, she would strive to balance career with family. As a child, I saw her rush home from the laboratory to cook for us. These meals, both healthy and exquisite (worthy of a Chinese gourmet restaurant) would take hours to prepare, and as she labored over a countertop or steaming stove the two of us would discuss our dreams, our insecurities, our relationships with others. These kitchen talks helped forge who I am, enlightening me about the range of opportunities—and difficulties—that faced professional women of her time. After dinner, Mother often went back to the university at night to continue her research. Time and again, always by example, she demonstrated her sincere dedication to her work.

  It was only much later in my life, after I married and launched my own career, that I began to truly appreciate her struggle to live three roles: that of wife, mother and scientist. But she performed beautifully in all three. It is a great privilege for me to call myself her daughter. Nothing could make me prouder.

  My father, too, represented an ideal for me to aspire to. He is, perhaps, one of the most idealistic people I know—one of the rare individuals on this earth motivated solely by the pursuit of knowledge, rather than personal ambition. Years ago, I was astounded to learn that, despite his obvious talent and brilliance, in his youth he never craved, or even dreamt that he would achieve a position higher than that of high school teacher. Money, power, social status—all of these things meant nothing to him unless he could enjoy a quiet intellectual life, doing the two things he loved most: physics, and the nurturing of young minds. I consider him blessed because he found that life at the University of Illinois.

 
Father also possessed a strong sense of justice. I always believed that had he not become a physicist that he would have made an excellent judge. He had a keen sense of what was fair, as well as the uncanny ability to perceive an issue from all different points of view. But he also had a deep compassion for others, an intuitive understanding of human weakness, and a genuine sympathy for the underdog, a feeling that extended even to animals—such as cats, baby birds and insects. Nothing distressed him more than to see a helpless creature hurt, just as nothing infuriated him more than to see a blatant abuse of power.

  Perhaps what I admire most about my father is that he never lost that childlike wonder for the world. Rare in a world of cynics, Father has retained his fascination for the universe, and for all the mysteries that lie within. For him, education is a lifelong endeavor. He devours books like a student, reading biology, computer science, literature, history, astronomy, psychology—to name just a few subjects that interest him. He is what Einstein would have considered the quintessential intellectual—the person who learns for the same reasons a child wants to learn . . . for love, curiosity, and the sheer thrill of discovery.

  He found joy in the smallest things in life. One time, when taking a walk with my father in Crystal Lake Park, we passed an oil slick gleaming on the water. Pointing to that iridescent patch, Father mentioned that a similar slick once inspired a genius to calculate the size of an atom—because he possessed the ability to grasp the universe within a drop of oil. What I learned from my father that day is that the power of truth lies within us all—but truth reveals itself only to those [who] know how to see.

  For my parents’ retirement, I give them my love and deepest congratulations. Of course, their retirement signifies not just an ending, but an exciting new beginning. They used to tell me that in life, it is the journey, not the final destination, that counts. For life is not a race, but a quest. May these thoughts be with them, and inspire them, as they embark on the next stage of their journey together.

  If Iris had not mentioned the walk we took at Crystal Lake in Urbana when she was in high school, I would have forgotten it. I remember it was a perfect October fall day; the red sugar maple leaves were glittering, and the copper brown oak trees were lining the lake under the golden sunshine as we walked along the park path. Shau-Jin was talking to Iris about how he looked into the beauty of nature. He pointed to a little puddle on the path on which a rainbow of oil was reflected under the sun. That sight inspired Shau-Jin to talk about the ingenious experiment designed by past scientists using oil films on water to estimate the size of molecules. I was amazed that Iris could remember it so clearly.

  After my retirement, I focused on repairing our house and cleaning the clutter that had accumulated during so many years. I should have done these chores a long time before, but had never been able to find the time, and I finally had it. Shau-Jin was busy engaging with a number of Chinese-American professors to form an organization called the Chinese-American Association of Central Illinois (CAACI) at the end of 1999, and he was elected the first president. CAACI was originally created to push for a legislative bill (H.R. 126) initiated by Illinois House Representative William O. Lipinski. Lipinski initiated the bill to express the sentiments of Congress concerning the war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II. And later, with the news of the unfair treatment of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, Chinese-Americans realized that we should band together to voice our concerns on the issue of human rights, including racial profiling and discrimination. Since then, Shau-Jin and I had been actively involved in promoting awareness of human-rights issues in Central Illinois. Because of Iris, we had hooked up with the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia in California and a number of similar organizations across the U.S., Canada, and Asia.

  Iris called routinely to update us on her progress in writing her book. When her thirty-second birthday arrived on March 28, 2000, she wrote me that she did not want to celebrate it. In the letter, Iris said she was very health-oriented these days, and she didn’t even like the idea of stepping into an airplane! She wrote, “It could be a reaction to the year-long tour for THE RAPE OF NANKING in 1998, or simply my unwillingness to be interrupted as I write the third book.” She had taken every step to ensure that she was physically healthy in preparation for her pregnancy.

  In April, she said she had finally finished all the entries in her database. From these entries, she would write the outline and then the first draft of the manuscript. During this period, she complained that progress was slow and that she was not very productive. There were two major factors that interfered with her writing. One was her struggle to have a baby, and the other was to get a movie made from The Rape of Nanking. Whenever she watched a good movie or heard a bestselling book had gotten contracted to make into a movie, she would be depressed and ask why her own book had not.

  On May 3, 2000, she went to Los Angeles for the Committee of 100 meeting and met several people in the movie industry. It made her realize that her movie sub-agent had not been capable of getting her a movie deal for over a year due to a faulty plan. Iris called us to complain that a year had been wasted and she needed to ask her movie agent and sub-agent to revert the movie rights back to her. She confessed to us that she was devastated to find out that she had lost more than a year of time, a prime time at that, when her book was still on the best-seller list. She became extremely depressed over this movie issue and almost got sick thinking of the lost time. We told her that she should not blame herself, and we reminded her that she’d been extremely busy at the time traveling to promote her book, and had had no time to think about the movie project. We said to her that lessons are learned by going through failures, after all.

  Iris was determined, however, to make a movie happen and spent June actively looking for a new movie agent and finding possible producers and directors for the movie version of her book. She updated us from time to time that she had met several potential movie producers and directors; but by the end of the year, she still had not gotten a concrete result. She admitted that the movie industry was quite different from the publishing business.

  Watching movies was still a major pastime for Iris whenever she wanted to relax and take her mind off writing. She not only went to see movies in the theater with Brett and friends, but she often rented videos to watch at home. Because she was obsessed with making her Nanking book into a movie, our conversation turned to movies most of the time. Sometimes she was devastated to have to tell me that some of the books on the New York Times “Best Sellers” list at the time as hers—for example, The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air—had already been made into movies.

  When she saw movies such as Braveheart and Gladiator, she was very impressed. On the other hand, after she saw a movie called Romeo Must Die, she told me it was one of the most offensive movies she had ever seen. According to Iris, the Chinese-Americans in the movie were portrayed as foreigners, not Americans. And worse yet, almost all the Chinese in the movie were brutal, cruel, and evil. This led her to reiterate her conviction that more Asian-Americans needed to enter the field of entertainment.

  Iris told me that her friend, a Chinese-American actress who appeared in the movie The Joy Luck Club, complained to her that there were not many opportunities for Asian actors in Hollywood. Iris expressed her opinions on the issue in an e-mail:

  . . . about Asian actors in Hollywood, I’m convinced that this situation will not change until (a) we get more Asians in those key “money” positions in the industry and (b) Asians THEMSELVES support films that portray them with dignity. Perhaps the Chinese community itself is to be blamed for not encouraging their sons and daughters to pursue careers in show business. We need not only more Asian actors, screenwriters, and directors, but more Asian producers, distributors and studio heads. Also, we need [a] loyal constituency of viewers—Asian or otherwise—who are willing to go out, in droves, to support a movie with multi-dimensional Asian characters. Only when Hollywo
od sees hard evidence, in cash, that this viewership exists (and I believe it does!) will Hollywood change.

  Iris’s interest in film and scriptwriting never wavered, and she continued to hone her screenwriting skills. Back in October 1999, she had flown to Burbank to take David Freeman’s screenwriting class over the weekend. I admired her passion in pursuing her interests; she was a person who never passed up a chance to learn and was never afraid to meet a challenge.

  We visited Iris and Michael at the end of June and liked Iris and Brett’s townhouse very much. The townhouse complex was located in quiet North San Jose and was surrounded by white pines, sweet gums, and pear and cherry trees. I particularly liked the location because it was not far from a major Chinese grocery shop, in a shopping center with many Chinese restaurants. Iris entertained us by taking us to the Santa Cruz beach. It was the July Fourth weekend, and everywhere we went was full of people. On the way to Santa Cruz, she drove us to see the house in the Los Gatos Mountains where they had made an offer the year before that did not go through. The road to the house was winding and narrow. I told Iris that it would have been very inconvenient to live there, and they were fortunate that they did not end up buying it.