Document: Official Book Description for "Bend, Not Break"

The following is the official book description from the publisher of Bend, Not Break, also printed on the jacket flaps of the book:

“Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance. It suggests resilience, meaning that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult times. . . . Your ability to thrive depends, in the end, on your attitude to your life circumstances. Take everything in stride with grace, putting forth energy when it is needed, yet always staying calm inwardly.”
—Ping Fu’s “Shanghai Papa”

Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student.

Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year. To be a friend and mentor to some of the best-known names in tech­nology. To build some of the coolest new products in the world. To give speeches that inspire huge crowds. To meet and advise the president of the United States.

It sounds too unbelievable for fiction, but this is the true story of a life in two worlds.

Born on the eve of China’s Cultural Revolution, Ping was separated from her family at the age of eight. She grew up fighting hunger and humiliation and shielding her younger sister from the teenagers in Mao’s Red Guard. At twenty-five, she found her way to the United States; her only resources were $80 in traveler’s checks and three phrases of English: thank you, hello, and help.

Yet Ping persevered, and the hard-won lessons of her childhood guided her to success in her new home­land. Aided by her well-honed survival instincts, a few good friends, and the kindness of strangers, she grew into someone she never thought she’d be—a strong, independent, entrepreneurial leader. A love of problem solving led her to computer science, and Ping became part of the team that created NCSA Mosaic, which became Netscape, the Web browser that forever changed how we access information. She then started a company, Geomagic, that has literally reshaped the world, from personalizing prosthetic limbs to repair­ing NASA spaceships.

Bend, Not Break depicts a journey from imprisonment to freedom, and from the dogmatic anticapitalism of Mao’s China to the high-stakes, take-no-prisoners world of technology start-ups in the United States. It is a tribute to one woman’s courage in the face of cruelty and a valuable lesson on the enduring power of resilience.

About Fu Ping

This bio was written according to what Fu Ping had told us in her book and interviews. Follow the embedded links to learn more.

Fu Ping (傅苹), known as Ping Fu in the west, was born on May 30, 1958, the anniversary of Rape of Nanjing. Her birth father was a grandchild of a famous revolutionary and her family had close ties with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, father of the Republic of China.

When she was only 11 days old, her mother decided to send her to Shanghai to be raised by her mother's sister and her husband, whom Fu Ping referred to as Shanghai Mama and Shanghai Papa, respectively. Fu Ping lived a luxurious lifestyle in Shanghai, where her Shanghai Papa taught her the virtue of bamboo.

Her happy childhood was brutally interrupted in 1966 when Red Guards marched into her Shanghai villa and "deported" her back to Nanjing, where she arrived just in time to see her Nanjing parents being sent away. On that day, the 8-year-old Fu Ping lost both sets of her parents and was forced to take care of her 4-year-old sister, surviving in a "ghetto."

For the next 10 years of Cultural Revolution, Fu Ping had no formal schooling. She was forced to eat "bitter meal," attend "struggle sessions," and witness unspeakable atrocities. As if that wasn't enough, she was gang-raped when she was only 10. With no school, she was assigned to work in factories and farms as a child labor and even be a child solider in the military.

But nonetheless she was occasionally allowed to have some fun and at least took one field trip with Red Guards. She may also have forgot to tell us that she was able to join the Chinese Communist Youth League while in the middle school she did not attend.

After the Cultural Revolution ended, she studied like crazy and passed the very first college entrance exam in 1977. (Despite her diligence, however, she somehow missed the concept of "fraction" in her math studying.) Although she had wanted to be an astronaut, the government assigned her to study Chinese Literature at Suzhou University.

Suzhou University turned out to be both heaven and hell for her. While enjoying college life, she was forced to submit herself to the humiliating "period checking" with fingers. She joined an underground student organization called Red Maple Society and published a journal that caught the eyes of no other than Deng Xiaoping. For that, the school "arrested" and interrogated her and her classmates.

But Fu Ping was not done. She then launched a graduation thesis project to investigate the female infanticide phenomenon due to China's one-child policy. Her report found its way to a prominent newspaper (although she is not too sure which one) and caused a huge backlash including threatened UN sanctions against China. She was once again arrested, or rather, kidnapped on campus. Guess who came to her rescue this time? Yes, it was Deng Xiaoping who ordered her release.

Nevertheless, Fu Ping was being deported or expelled from China. But in order to leave, she still had to wait more than a year for a passport, which was eventually delivered as if in a spy operation. Even though her friends and family had worked hard to secure the acceptance by University of New Mexico for her, somehow she had no idea that was where she was going.

Coming to America was an adventure by itself. She found herself short of money at San Francisco airport and then kidnapped for 3 days upon landing at Albuquerque. But she survived, with only three English words at her disposal.

She worked hard at New Mexico despite being cheated as a babysitter and sexually harassed by Sylvester Stallone as a waitress. She made it through and became a graduate student at UNM. However, that school must have been so poor that, one year before graduation, Fu Ping suddenly decided to abandon her upcoming MS and become an undergraduate student at University of California at San Diego, starting all over again.

UCSD proved to be much nicer to Fu Ping. There, she had a marriage that she forgot to mention, which secured her immigration status. She also had a job that paid her more than handsomely. While happy at work, she didn't like what her boss was doing. Upon graduation, she apparently missed the first opportunity to get really rich.

It's not known when exactly she divorced her first husband Richard Lynn Ewald, but she did find her true love with Herbert Edelsbrunner and joined the National Center of Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois. There, she hired a lad named Marc Andreesen who, well, changed the world.

In 1996, a dozen years after she was deported, Fu Ping was able to publish the first version of her autobiography, Drifting Bottle, in China. In that book, she told a dramatically different version of her early life from those in Bend, Not Break.

In the late 1990s, Fu Ping and her then-husband Herbert Edelsbrunner co-founded Geomagic and she served as its CEO for many years. The remarkable success made her a celebrity in the tech and entrepreneur world.

On the last day of 2012, she published her autobiography, Bend, Not Break, co-written with Meimei Fox. The rest, as they say, is herstory.

Fu Ping's Interview with a Chinese Newspaper in USA

On July 3, 2013, Fu Ping was interviewed by Qiaobao, a Chinese language newspaper published in the USA, in which she answered some questions raised by her alma mater Suzhou University. The interview is originally in Chinese.

Qiaobao: Suzhou University accused you for falsifying academic credentials. They displayed your student registration and files at the school and proved that you had dropped out in March, 1982 and did not earn any degree there. Have you ever publicly stated that you have a Bachelor degree in Chinese Language and Literature from Suzhou University? 

Fu Ping: I rarely mentioned Suzhou University because I didn't obtain any degree there. In my social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc., I never included Suzhou University. In fact, in all places I have control, I never mention Suzhou University. 

But there are places that I have no control of. About 10 years ago, our company's marketing department has a girl from Malaysia. I told her that I did not graduate from Suzhou University. So she wrote on our page "post graduate degree." Because she thought "post graduate degree" could also mean "non degree" besides "masters graduate student." We made corrections right away and it was not on our company web site. But recently when our company changed web site, an program that was automatically fetching files made it visible again. I did not discover it in time. 

Right now there are many web sites, including Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, etc., all carried this incorrect information. I found out later that it was because their automated search feature. The real culprit of this academic credentials fraud is the automated search, not me. 

In fact, my business is in computers. I earned BS and MS in computer science in the US. I do not need a degree from Suzhou University for any of my work. It's not like a degree from Harvard, after all. 

Someone said that they obtained information from University of Illinois where I had worked to prove that I had claimed of possessing a degree from Suzhou University. But the information I do possess do not prove that. I have also inquired to University of Illinois. They told me that they have never told anyone that I had a degree from Suzhou University. I feel that those who are attacking me were misled. [Note: we do have evidence indicating otherwise.] 

Another place is a technological paper I wrote as the third author. The author's bio section of this paper stated that I earned a Bachelor of Chinese Language and Literature in 1983. As a matter of fact, I did not write that. I only published a technological paper. The author's bio was added by editors. 

Qiaobao: In your book, you said that in the fall of 1982, you "innocently walked across campus making preparations for graduation, someone sneaked up behind me, jammed a black canvas bag over my head ... escorted into a nearby car." Since you had already dropped out school that March, why were you walking on campus in the fall? 

Fu: This is a typo. If you read the whole passage, all the stories happened in the spring. The fall only occurred in this sentence. It was an error. 

In fact, I have corrected it as soon as I found this mistake. 

Qiaobao: You also mentioned in your memoir that you published a paper while you were in school, on the subject of female infanticide under the one-child policy. You were arrested and deported because of it. But Suzhou University said that all the graduation thesis in the Department of Chinese Literature were about literature or linguistics. They wouldn't be involved in sociology subjects such as infanticide. There were no teacher for this thesis of yours. How do you respond? 

Fu: Before graduation, I wanted to go to graduate school in journalism at Nanjing University. So I intended my thesis to be like a news report. In 1981, the one-child policy was going crazy in China and got my interest. With the permission from my adviser, I started interviewing people and then discovered the female infanticide problem in rural China. 

I heard a lot of stories from rural women and became their sounding board. In order to do this work, I had indeed spent a lot of time and missed a lot of classes. 

Then I wrote them down and showed my teacher. My teacher passed my article to his friend in Shanghai's Wenhui Daily. At that time I did not know where this paper reached, but heard later that it was handed higher and higher in the official hierarchy and reached the Party Central. 

This was not good news for the new leadership. Therefore I was arrested and locked up for 3 days. After the release, the police told me to leave Suzhou University and not tell anyone the reason. That's why my mother and I were insistent in dropping out of the school. 

Qiaobao: Who is the teacher who allowed you to write this article? 

Fu: It's not just one, but I cannot provide names. In fact, the person who approved my work no longer admits that. I don't think it's necessary to expose this. They are all my teachers and classmates. If they want to say I am lying, then let them say that. I know who I am and don't want to explain. 

Qiaobao: In your book you said that you experienced "finger checking" for pregnancy. This was strongly condemned by Suzhou University and your classmates. What happened there? 

Fu:  This is indeed my mistake. I wrote about "finger checking" to illustrate the difference between China's one-child policy and the population policy in the west. In 1981, getting pregnant in China could be illegal. Therefore there was checking with fingers. But the procedure was using one's own fingers to prove period, not allowing other people's fingers to enter. 

I told my coauthor Meimei Fox of this concept. But she did not write accurately. The illegal pregnancy checking was subjecting to those who have already given birth, not all females. It was written in the book as for all women, but not students of Suzhou University. 

But Chinese are not a precise language. It could be interpreted in different ways when viewed from different angles. It read like all female students in Suzhou University must submit to the checking. I discovered it later and corrected it on New York Times.
I feel sorry for this. I did not spot this mistake before the book went to press. Later Fang Zhouzi hyped on it and wrote it in a very dirty way. If this hurt the dignity of students in Suzhou University, I am willing to apologize. 

But the "finger checking" absolutely happened. It was not just me. Other articles have mentioned it too. I wrote it because I hope to raise the outside world's awareness of China's one-child policy. It was not meant to insult female students in Suzhou University. 

Qiaobao: You had participated in a literature organization called Red Maple Society. You said in the book that you were arrested and interrogated because an article published by the society. Suzhou University said that was a lie. What do you think? 

Fu: I had indeed not been taken into custody because of Red Maple Society. But in my book I used the word "arrest," which could mean "taking into custody" or "detain," it could also be understood as "stop." It was not as going into prison, but that they don't allow you to attend classes. They put several of you into a room, make you write confessions and expose each other. 

The Department of Chinese Literature had a student journal called Wu Gou. According to my memory, I was the editor-in-chief (主编) for Wu Gou, but not the ultimate decision maker (总编). Because I was the only girl in the society and the journal, they let me be the editor-in-chief, in charge of printing and logistics. Now some people say I wasn't the editor-in-chief. If they could tell me who was, I would like to correct that.
In January, 1979, Wu Gou published the article "The Confession of a Communist Party Member" by Liu Buchun. The article raised doubts on Communist Party and Communism. 

At that same time, Peking University, Tsinghua University and other 11 colleges co-founded the magazine This Generation. They reprinted an article from Wu Gou. Our journal sent a representative to Beijing to attend a meeting by This Generation. I don't remember who went, but it wasn't me. 

After arriving at Beijing, he didn't attend the meeting but went to the Great Hall of People to watch Deng Xiaoping receiving leaders of the Communist Youth League. There, Deng Xiaoping clearly stated that he wouldn't allow universities publish their underground journals. Afterwords, This Generation and Wu Gou all closed down. The school investigated and interrogated us. The Red Maple Society could not meet any more.

Document: University of Illinois Letter on Fu Ping's Credential

In early February, 2013, Daily Kos' xgz made an inquiry to University of Illinois where Fu Ping had earned an MS degree in computer science. The response showed that the school believes Fu Ping had previously earned a BA degree from Suzhou University.

The following email was forwarded to xgz by Keely K Ashman of UIUC:

-----Original Message-----
From: Kelley, Mary Beth A
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 1:48 PM
To: Ashman, Keely K
Subject: RE: Inquiry about Ms. Ping Fu's MS degree 

Hi Keely 

We had a student by that name graduate with an MS from UIUC May 1990 and her Advisor was Jane Liu.  She also obtained a BA in Computer Science & Economics from the University of CA, San Diego in 1988 and a BA in Literature from Shuzou University-China in 1982.  Her original application file indicated she attended the University of New Mexico from 1984 to 1986, but no degree was awarded.  It appears her wiki page is missing some information. 

Mary Beth

-----Original Message-----
From: Ashman, Keely K
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 1:25 PM
To: Kelley, Mary Beth A
Subject: FW: Inquiry about Ms. Ping Fu's MS degree 

Mary Beth, 

Hi! How are you? I need to come over for a visit sometime soon so we can catch up!
Weird question, who would be able to find out if the student below graduated in 1988 with CS degree? Thanks! 

Keely K Ashman
Recruiting Assistant
Engineering Career Services
3275 Digital Computer Lab
1304 W. Springfield Ave.
Urbana, Il 61801
217-333-6454
kashman@illinois.edu

Christine: Understanding the "Unrelenting Vilification" of Ping Fu

The following article was posted by Christine on Shanghai Shiok on July 2, 2013:

Understanding the “unrelenting vilification” of Ping Fu
by CHRISTINE  

Yes, another Ping Fu post. Bear with me. 

Since I wrote the last one, South China Morning Post published a piece called ‘Heartbroken’ author Ping Fu willing to apologise for inaccuracies in memoir. To summarize it, her alma mater and even some former schoolmates are threatening to sue her for libel. Fu acknowledges and admits to some errors in her book (which, as the article points out, she has also done previously), and cites confusion and people remembering things differently as the culprit. 

The SCMP article doesn’t seem to have done much to calm the anti-Ping storm. “A fake apology,” say her detractors. For them, it’s not enough. What would be enough, perhaps, is a statement from Fu saying: “I made many things up. I’m sorry.” Until then, their quest continues, with a fervor that angers the pro-Ping camp and, I have to admit, even alarms those who are/were more on-the-fence about the issue, like myself. 

Whether Fu lied or not, I do not know and am not going to explore. I have read almost all the accusations against her — some making a lot of sense, others not so much — and many of the comments defending her — again, some making a lot of sense, others not so much. What interests me now is how many who are more pro-Ping have become that way because, to quote Joe Nocera’s New York Times column, “it is a little hard to understand why Ping Fu’s memoir, ‘Bend, Not Break,’ has aroused such fury in some quarters of the Chinese immigrant community.” Nocera also calls this fury “extreme, unrelenting vilification,” and tries to make sense of the anti-Ping zeal by calling the detractors “vigilantes” who want to squash discussion of the Cultural Revolution. 

I agree that the sheer force of the anti-Ping anger is hard for outsiders to understand. I’m trying to. I think I know the answer — and it has nothing to do with wanting to cover up the Cultural Revolution. 

First, let me state who I am: I am a third or fourth generation Malaysian of Chinese descent, depending on which grandparent you count from. My ancestors left China before 1949, and certainly before the Cultural Revolution. Though I’m fascinated by modern Chinese history, it’s not my family’s history, and I have no personal investment, really, in Ping Fu’s stories. 

But what if I did? What if… my great-grandpa or grandma had returned to China, and they, and my parents or aunts and uncles were beaten by Red Guards because of foreign connections, humiliated in public, their education disrupted, their lives in disarray? What if they survived all that, and scrimped and saved to send me to school in America, and suddenly I’m there and hearing about a woman who seemed to have suffered like my family had and is now rich and famous due to her hard work — wow, good for her, I want to be like her — but then I find out there are all sorts of inconsistencies in her story and that — the worst thing of all — is that she might have been a Red Guard, like the ones who beat my Ah Mah and Pa and Ma? She might have lied about being a ‘black’ when she was actually a ‘red,’ and now she’s rich and famous in America and people are going “poor her” when… wow, she might even have lied on her greed card application? WTF?! 

I might become an angry netizen too. 

My point here is, I think the anti-Ping fervor is about privilege. Frustration over privilege should be something we all understand. Racial privilege, class privilege, economic privilege — these are all hot topics. Privilege makes people angry. For the most part, I doubt many Chinese have a problem with privilege that is deserved. But throw in corruption and deception and that’s where things get heated. At the heart of the Ping Fu outcry is the hatred of privilege that is procured through ill means. 

The last time I ever read about such widespread anger among Chinese netizens was the Zhu Ling poisoning case. Zhu Ling was a very bright student with a promising future when she was mysteriously poisoned with thallium in 1995. Today, her body is disabled, her mind deformed. She is less than a shadow of her former self. The main suspect was questioned by the police but let go, and is now living in the US and, according to different sources, living a very good life indeed. There were allegations that the suspect was highly privileged, with political connections who helped her leave China, leaving an unsolved mystery — and a poor, ruined girl — behind. 

Chinese netizens jumped on this with a fury that threw me. They did to the suspect in the Zhu Ling case what they’re doing to Ping Fu now — they set up websites and forums, dug up very personal information, petitioned the White House to do something, anything. Supporters of the suspect said the same thing Fu’s supporters are saying now — this is a horrible personal attack that is crossing the line; this is the work of a mob. In Zhu Ling’s case though, there is no Cultural Revolution involved, no painful shared history for Chinese netizens to unite over or Westerners to point at. No, the root of the anger was privilege through ill means, and it sickened many Chinese to think about how, in an unjust society, privilege means getting away with anything, including murder. 

Ping Fu isn’t accused of murdering anyone. She is accused of living a privileged life in a period that was hell for most, then playing the victim in the West; of being privileged enough to publish a book, but producing one with so many contradictions while many voices go unheard. Some of the things the anti-Ping voices are saying are over-the-top (such as asking her to show her scar in order to prove that she was raped), but I think it’s perfectly reasonable for them to ask whether she was a Red Guard/Communist Youth League member, and what privileges were attached to that. She says she wasn’t. Her Chinese university says she was, and they have a record to prove it. While such “I-say-you-say” contradictions exist, the furor isn’t going away. 

I found this comment (posted to a Bloomberg column about Joe Nocera’s defense of Ping Fu) to be one of the calmer, more poignant voices that points to privilege as the reason for the anger:

I am one of those on Amazon who have been attempted to tell the world about the truthfulness of her book. However, at this point, I am willing to focus on one issue: her membership with the Communist Youth League. I am sorry for getting a little bit more personal. My family suffered a great deal during the Cultural Revolution. If Ping Fu became a member of that communist organization in 1973, that means she was from a politically privileged family during the Cultural Revolution. 

I am aware that the information about her membership of the Communist Youth League was from a communist university. That is why I am willing to wait for her to show some evidence that Suzhou U manufactured that piece of record. 

I am waiting!

And many are waiting too. For many Fu sympathizers, undeserved privilege — especially suspected undeserved privilege — will never, ever justify “unrelenting vilification.” I honestly don’t know if it does. I’m just trying to understand why it’s happening. 

(Just so you know, I’m planning on buying her book, knowingly paying money for a piece of work that many claim is false. I’m sure I’ll enjoy reading it, and will find the entrepreneurial side of Ms. Fu very impressive. I divide the books on my shelf into fiction and non-fiction, and I’ll be sliding Bend, Not Break right in the middle when I’m done.)

Alicia: Disgraced Author Ping Fu almost Apologizes (Again) for Memoir Inaccuracies

The following article was published by Alicia on Beijing Cream on July 2, 2013:

Disgraced Author Ping Fu Almost Apologizes (Again) For Memoir Inaccuracies
By Alicia

We wrote about Ping Fu earlier this year when she was called out for lying in her memoir, Bend, Not Break. It looks like the author is in the news again, giving an interview with SCMP in response to a lawsuit threatened by Soochow University, Fu’s alma mater, along with some of her former classmates who remain upset over the “falsehoods” in her book. 

The author had this to say: 

“I would like to issue an open apology for the description that appears about [Soochow University] conducting intrusive physical checks on all female students’ periods for birth control purpose.”

If she stopped there, she would have done herself a favor. But she continues: 

“I wrote a memoir and this was my memory of what happened [30 years ago] and how I felt. If someone said they remember differently I’m not going to say they are wrong. It’s just we remember differently.”

That echoes a claim she made in a New York Times interview in February, in which she blamed factual errors in her book on “emotional memory.” 

SCMP published a transcript of its Q-and-A with Fu, in which the author adds:

“Different people have different memories. We are talking about something that happened more than 30 years ago. If you ask different people what happened, you may hear different answers. I wrote a memoir and this was my memory of what happened and how I felt. If someone said they remember differently I’m not going to say they are wrong. It’s just we remember differently.”

Sounds like excuses instead of an apology. And that’s a pity. With her success as CEO of Geomagic, a pioneer in 3D printing, Fu could have been a role model for many. Instead, her reputation has been tarnished, and she’ll forever be known as one who lied about the Cultural Revolution. I guess the moral of the story is don’t exaggerate stories in your memoir, especially if you’re writing about shared experiences, where many of those who can — and will — fact-check you have no such problems with “emotional memory."

Fu Ping's Speech at the American Library Association

On June 30, 2013, Fu Ping delivered a speech at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Library Association. The following is an advance transcript released by her through the Geomagic web site:

Dear ALA organizers, librarians, authors and fellow book lovers, 

I’d like to say, “thank you.” It’s a great honor to deliver this speech. 

It is very hard for me to put into words what libraries mean to me. 

Living with my Shanghai parents as a child, the library was where Shanghai Papa cultivated in me a lasting appreciation of ideas, which he said, like books, required proper care. 

Later, as a college student – new to our country – libraries large and small became places of refuge. My favorite is the Geisel Library at UCSD, a lantern design building with a strong geometric form and a fabulous Dr. Seuss collection. 

There, I could escape from the world and sit quietly. Surrounded by the 360-degree glass windows, I could go into the world of ideas, of intellectual challenges, of the experiences of others. And, as a scientist, I could immerse myself in the never-ending search for facts and the truth. I could refuse to be diverted either by what one might wish to believe, or by what could have been the beneficial social effects if it were believed.  

All of this is self-evident for Americans, in large part because of the extraordinary work done by the librarians. 

What I’m saying is that libraries made me feel safe: safe to explore new places, wonders, and controversial ideas. Safe to go off-path, safe to question. 

And I have to share with you: There were times before I came to this country when I did not feel safe. There were times when even asking questions was dangerous. 

So I couldn't, as my Shanghai Papa urged, properly care for my independent thoughts.
I was eight when my world changed. 

My beloved parents were university educated, but in the Cultural Revolution, learning was a crime. As a result, the government cracked down on teachers, professors and intellectuals. Like many other educated Chinese, my parents were sent to the countryside for hard labor camp.  

Suddenly, I was stripped of my afternoons in the library. And I was a long way from the happy kitchen in which my Shanghai Mama taught me the five essential elements of cooking: aroma, color, texture, taste and love. Although only a small child, I was placed in a one-room dormitory with my younger sister, Hong, under the vigilant watch of the Red Guards.  

I was supposed to be in first grade, but schools were closed and books were forbidden. My days were spent studying the works of Chairman Mao, working at factory to build radios, and following the Communist party’s strict code of obedience. 

There were no libraries for my sister and me, or for anyone.  

I was so young and the mind works in ways to protect us from our worst experiences. 

Today is not the time to relive those struggles, but I want you to know that although it was 47 years ago, I can still feel the trauma as my memories flutter like butterflies at the edges of my consciousness. By no means is it impossible, however, for an unexpected trigger to bring the trauma from the periphery to the center so that I actually relive it. 

Those memories have faded into my dreams and my dreams into my memories, but I know for sure the only thing that kept me going was the responsibility for my younger sister and trying to reach a safe place. Fortunately, even in the most vulnerable moment, I can always regain my strength in a good piece of writing. 

You see, life has been messy for me, as it has for most everyone. But we put ourselves back together, don't we? We continue on, toward our journey. 

We heal, leaving small fissures and cracks behind, but these imperfections are okay because it is through these cracks that our authenticity shines.  

We develop compassion, which is emotion shared.  

And it is by revealing these cracks that we can learn to see and be seen deeply. The power of resilience is in all of us, in body and soul. 

When I first arrived in US, like many first-generation immigrants, I had no money or support system. I could not study comparative literature, my previously chosen field, because my English was too poor.  

Talk about being stuck and feeling hopeless!  

But I went forward, going off the beaten path. 

I gained remarkable support from faculty and new friends. And I found those safe places, those libraries, where I could read what I wanted, think independently, and let my mind and spirit venture into new worlds. 

While the study of English was difficult, I found – in science libraries – the language of computer science, which opened to me a whole new world. Instead of writing essays on Montaigne, I was coding for a future that was not yet imagined, a breakthrough that switched the trajectory of my life, both personally and professionally. 

I began working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which was on the vanguard of innovation. There we took on the “grand challenges of science.” We worked on analyzing protein folding, predicting earthquakes, and revealing the nuances of quantum mechanics.  

Every day I had fun, was challenged, and felt happy!  

We were fortunate. We had few budget constraints and no limits set on our imaginations. We wrote history in scraps of software and tossed much of it into the public domain. We took the work of theoretical scientists and gave it dimension, color and transparency. 

As a child, I had always sought out beauty. This had been a critical part of my survival strategy.  

Now, I had found beauty in the most unlikely place as creating beautiful objects from computer programs was an integral part of my everyday life. For the first time I felt a sense of space and time evaporate as I lost myself deep within my work – the experience of being “in the flow.” 

I believe that innovation is imagination applied. And my imagination and confidence that I could overcome life hurdles didn't allow me to stand idle. I had to innovate. In 1996, I saw a demo from Chuck Hull, the inventor of 3D printing. I was mesmerized. From my factory work in China, I knew the milling machine and casting process. But this was different. Just as a regular printer lays down ink on a blank page in order to form words and pictures, this machine laid down materials – plastic, metal, or ceramic – a layer at a time in order to make parts and products. 

These 3D printers depended on 3D computer models for which I wrote software at NCSA. This was my Aha! moment. Just like how Adobe and Microsoft reinvented desktop publishing, with this technology, we could reinvent desktop manufacturing. This is the Internet of things. This is not about display and sharing data, this is about using data to make stuff. The product is in the software code. My head spun with possibilities. 

It was those possibilities that led Prof. Herbert Edelsbrunner and I to start Geomagic in 1997, a software company to create 3D content for design, print and more. 

When I was growing up, I dreamt of being an astronaut. 

I couldn’t have imagined that the technology we created would be installed on a NASA space shuttle to guarantee the safe return of astronauts. 

Our software has also been used to preserve world heritage sites, such as statue of liberty, and to create beautiful smiles with Invisalign. 

This has been my journey, a circle connected by resilience, compassion and safe places along the way. I was once that broken child. Today, I am the chief strategy officer of a trend-setting public company, 3D Systems. I am an advisor to president Obama on innovation and entrepreneurship, and above all, I am a proud mother of a wonderful daughter. 

And I have a voice now. 

“Bend, Not Break” is a memoir. It is a book, and today it sits on the shelves of libraries around the world. 

I wrote my story – my memoir – in the voice of a mother talking to her daughter, not just any daughter, of course, but my own lovely daughter. 

And I wrote for all the other daughters, too. 

I want to think that in the years to come, a young girl, long after we here are all gone, will reach up and take “Bend, Not Break” from the shelf of a library where she can immerse herself in the words of wisdom. 

And pull it down. 

And turn the pages one by one. 

And say to herself, "I can do this thing, this thing we call life that is sometimes so hard, I can push back the painful dreams and memories and experiences, I can go on.”
“And I will not break...” 

Thank you very much.