Ping Fu on APM's Marketplace

On January 4, 2013, Fu Ping had a brief live interview on American Public Media's Marketplace program, hosted by Sarah Gardner. In this short conversation, she reaffirmed that she had no formal schooling for 10 years during Cultural Revolution and repeated the myth of three English words.

The interview can be heard in its entirety here. Below is a transcript:

Gardner: This is the Marketplace from APM. I am Sarah Gardner. If you ever doubt the resilience of the human spirit, check out the new book by a woman named Ping Fu. She is the founder and CEO of a 3D software company called Geomagic. She has been honored by the White House. She has been the Entrepreneur of the Year. And the American government has named her the Outstanding American. All this, after surviving a hellish childhood in China during the Cultural Revolution after her parents have been sent away to a reeducation camp. Her new memoir is called Bend, Not Break -- A Life in Two Worlds. Ping Fu, welcome to the Marketplace.
Fu: Thank you for having me.
Gardner: You said the Red Guard used to force you to recite the words "I am a bug. My life is worthless." Did you believe it at the time?
Fu: After I repeated it many times that I was a nobody, I started to believe it.
Gardner: You essentially had no formal education from the time when you were 8 years old until about the time you were 18. Were you learning anything during that time?
Fu: I did learn a lot of things when I was working at factories. So, I think myself as a maker because I learned how to build radios, TV sets, speedometers for cars.
Gardner: You faced a lot of adversity during that time. I mean, you were gang-raped when you were 10 by some teenager boys and Red Guards. Your sister almost drowned  You saved her. How did you survive all that?
Fu: I think it was my sister, you know, I felt responsibility to take care of her. Without her I don't know what I would do. I probably would be killed or be much careless about protecting my own life. With the little girl next to me, I have to survive.
Gardner: Now, eventually after the Cultural Revolution, universities are opened up again. You said you had a ferocious apatite for learning. What did you do?
Fu: I was like a sponge. I wanted to be an astronaut but I was assigned to study Chinese literature. That turned out to be such a blessing. I couldn't believe that reading literature, watching movies, talking about play... you call that study. I want to learn anything and everything that is in front of me.
Gardner: Then you came to this country and you knew three words. What were they?
Fu: help, thank you, hello.
Gardner: Help, thank you, and hello. Amazing. You did get your degree in computer science in this country. You became a leader at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. You are now the CEO of a 3D computer software company whose clients included NASA. Now, that's like the amazing immigrant story.
Fu: I live such an amazing life in two drastically different worlds. I never imagined I would arrive at where I am. Being a little girl wanting to be an astronaut, I couldn't even study that field, and to end up to provide technology that helps secure the safety return of astronauts  I feel like life came to the full circle. I am living in the American dream.
Gardner: When you look back to the hardships of your childhood, how do you think they allowed you to get to where you are today?
Fu: When I grow up, I learned a lot about self-learning, and I learned a lot about adopting to changes, and I have to have a lot of resilience  All those things, self-learning, adopting to changes, and the enduring power of resilience, are the qualities of successful entrepreneurs.
Gardner: What is your best advice for young people in this country who want to become entrepreneurs?
Fu: First of all you have to understand who you are, authentically, and then understand why you want to do what you do. Some people think they want to start a company because they didn't like the work they do, that's the wrong reason. Or if you just want to make money, that's not the reason either.
Gardner: So, making money isn't a good reason to become an entrepreneur?
Fu: I don't think so. I don't think you make money just because you want to make money. You make money because you create value.

Fu Ping's 2013 PBS Interview

On January 30, 2013, Fu Ping was the guest on PBS' Tavis Smiley show in which she told her life story. The highlights of this version include:

1. It remarkably lacks the mention of the more sensational stories such as four-horse-killing, rape, kidnapping, or Deng Xiaoping's involvement.
2. She claimed be assigned to be a regular factory worker starting at 8 "build radios and speedometers" and later become an electrician.
3. The three English words she knew while arriving at US were "Hello", "Thank you", and "Help".
4. She and her sister were living alone for 5 years. Their mother came back when she was 13.
5. She brought up the infanticide research of the American Steven Mosher to corroborate her own research and impact.

The entire interview could be viewed here. PBS also provided a full transcript:

Tavis: Starting a successful company is never easy, but it certainly must have seemed impossible to Ping Fu. As a child growing up in China under Mao, she was separated from her family and sent to a forced labor camp, where she endured unspeakable hardship.
In 1984 she made her way to the U.S. with $80 in her pocket and just three English words in her vocabulary: “Hello,” “Thank you,” and my favorite – “Help.”
Against all odds she found her way into software, indeed starting her own software company called Geomagic, a 3D technology company that she continues to lead as its CEO.
The new book about what is truly a remarkable journey is called “Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds.” Ping Fu, an honor to have you on this program.
Ping Fu: It’s a pleasure to be here.
Tavis: Thank you for your time. Let me start where this all began. When you were eight they came to get you, but tell me what life was like, what you recall of life before Mao’s Cultural Revolution and you heard that knock on the door. What was life like in the first eight years of life?
Fu: Oh, that was wonderful. I was living with my Shanghai papa and mama. They were the most loving parents I could have had, and I was the youngest one of six out of five siblings, and they played with me all the time. I was in the kitchen. My mom, like, loves to cook wonderful meals, and she always say she puts a lot of love in her food.
Tavis: So you’re eight in China. Mao’s revolution is in full swing. Your family gets that dreaded knock at the door. Take it from there.
Fu: Yeah. Things already started going bad a little bit, and my Shanghai papa was locked up. So I knew something’s happening; I was too young. But one day I heard this loud noise and the boots marching through our backyard. Then I heard my mom crying, saying, “She’s so little.”
I was in the library on the third floor, and I looked out and I saw the Red Guards marching in, and they said, “She’s there,” and I knew it was they came for me. They took me and that was the first day they told me that my Shanghai papa and mama was not my birth parents, and my Shanghai mama said, “Yes, that’s true. Don’t fight.”
I was screaming and kicking and saying, “You’re lying, you’re lying. Last week you told me I was your favorite,” and I was taken away without even being able to give her a hug.
Tavis: That sounds like a double trauma; the first trauma being that of being taken away, the second trauma being told that your Shanghai mom, Shanghai dad, were not your parents. How does an eight-year-old process all of that at the same time?
Fu: Well, it happened so quickly, and then I was put on this jam-packed train with strangers and children are crying. At that point I knew I was going to Nanjing to be with my birth parents. All I wanted is to be with somebody, because I didn't like to be alone and it was too confusing.
But when I arrived in Nanjing I just arrived a little too late when my Nanjing parents were put on a truck to be taken away also. So one day I lost the parents who raised me and parents who bore me.
Tavis: So at eight, you’re on the way to Nanjing, you think that you’re going to be with your parents. When you get there, they've been placed on another train; they’re already gone. So what happens?
Fu: There was a lot of chaos going on, and then a few hours later I was taken to this dormitory, which is the old student college dormitory, emptied out. Students all went home. Looked like a garbage can, literally. I was led to this room, and in there I found my little sister, who was only four years old.
Tavis: Let me back up for a second. I know we’re on PBS and this is a very learned audience, but not everybody understands what Mao’s Cultural Revolution was all about, what his modus operandi was, what his intent was. It occurs to me I should back up just to make sure that we’re all on the same page here for people to get a better understanding of what the Cultural Revolution was all about.
Fu: Right. So Mao sort of lost the power a few years before Cultural Revolution due to the famine that he created, and Cultural Revolution was his way to regain the power, kind of use Stalin’s method of fear, killing.
He turned the country upside-down and told us that we don’t need to go to formal education, we all need to learn from farmers and soldiers and workers, and that’s how we get re-educated. Cultural Revolution is the biggest prosecution of educated families.
Tavis: So at eight years old you end up in a dormitory and you’re looking out, basically, for your little sister at the age of eight. So take me back to that dormitory and tell me how life sort of begins anew for you in this camp, as it were.
Fu: Yeah. At the beginning it was really confusing and scary, because we didn't have food. The room has no wash basin, no kitchen facility, nothing, and we were taken to the soccer field to witness the killing of teachers, and we were brainwashed that we were nobody and we were born black, we were born with black blood. Our parents were called “black elements” and we were all bastards of black elements.
Tavis: What becomes your daily routine when you were eight years old – eight, nine, 10?
Fu: Yeah, so first few months was just chaos. We go through bitter meals, struggle sessions. We go scream that we were nobody. Then I think it’s about a year later I was assigned to work in a factory. Some of the older kids got sent to countryside, but I was too young to do that.
So I went to factory to build radios and speedometers, and then later I learned how to be an electrician, and just manual work.
Tavis: So when you’re nine or 10, to your point, you’re working in the factory, but as I read in your book, that’s a lot better for you. The experience of doing that is better for you in part, you argue in the book, because at least you’re doing something for the benefit of somebody else.
But tell me how you processed being in that factory as a nine, 10-year-old, working on radios, et cetera.
Fu: Well, being told that I was nobody and then going to a factory, the workers are grownups, so they are actually quite kind to me. Radio is such a thing that we all have at home, because the communists always broadcasting their messages.
So being able to, like, turn on the first radio that we build, and knowing that I can actually make that and that’s the one that’s being used by everybody, I feel a sense of accomplishment at that age, yeah.
Tavis: At such a young age, who was nurturing you? I’m trying to imagine eight, nine, 10, and you’re building radios and you’re taking care of your little sister, both sets of your parents are gone. An eight-year-old, nine-year-old, you’re still a baby, you’re a child, and children need to be nurtured and loved and held. Who’s doing that for you during this period?
Fu: Well, there wasn’t any. There wasn’t any nurturing. There were other people around, there’s other kids who don’t have parents, and then there will be communist families where the family come from red blood, supposedly.
I see them have parents, but only thing I have is the memory of my Shanghai papa and mama, the first eight years where I did have a very loving family. Otherwise, there was just nobody there to give you a hug or make food for you (crosstalk).
Tavis: What did you eat, how did you eat, what was your source of nutrition?”
Fu: Oh, God, we ate bad stuff. Sometimes we eat bitter meal. That’s just occasionally. Otherwise, I dig a lot of vegetable from the ground, called wild vegetable. We have so many kids, some kids are bigger than me, and then we all tell each other.
Even today I look for those wild vegetables. They’re really good, actually. Really, I raise chicken, so I have some eggs. Otherwise, there’s very little meat. I don’t remember having much meat at all.
Tavis: Yeah. How long does this experience – how long are you forced to endure this Maoist experience?
Fu: The Cultural Revolution lasted for 10 years plus two. I was alone about the first five years. Then my mom came back when I was 13. Four or five years later it did get a little better. It loosened up a little, and then in ’72, when Nixon visited China with ping-pong diplomacy and Deng Xiaoping briefly came back, it got further better. So the first few years, like four or five years, is probably the worst.
Tavis: I want to fast-forward, because you end up doing some work to expose another atrocity in the People’s Republic of China as it relates specifically to the one-child policy.
Take me from the camp where you were held during the Cultural Revolution, advance me a few years to your working on the writings about the one-child policy.
Fu: So the Cultural Revolution ended in 19 -
Tavis: ’7?
Fu: – ’76.
Tavis: Right.
Fu: Yeah. Then university starts in 1977. I went into college in ’78, when my father came back. I didn't have any choice what to study. I wanted to be astronaut, but I ended up to study Chinese literature, because that was assigned major for me.
Before graduation, I decided to do humanitarian topic for my thesis research. I heard in the countryside that girls are being killed or there’s forced abortion in very late terms due to the one-child policy.
One-child policy is every couple can only have one child. China was still 95 percent agriculture at that time. Farmers want boys. So I went to do that research, and then I turned my research to my teacher. She gave it to a friend at newspaper, where her friends is editor. So they wrote an editorial basically called stopping the gender inequality or killing. It was a good editorial coverage.
Little did I know that was the very first time Chinese newspaper admitted that was happening. That’s what got me in trouble, and I got thrown in jail for that.
Tavis: It’s bad enough that under Mao’s Cultural Revolution as a child you’re basically incarcerated, as it were, told what to do, when to come, where to go. So you’ve already dealt with this once in life.
Now the revolution’s over, you get a chance to go to college. You write about this inhumane activity, and you end up back in jail again for doing this. How did you process that?
Fu: It was really sad. I saw my life just turned around. Why now? I thought I was going to get killed, but I didn’t know what’s going to happen with my life, and I just started to love what I was doing in college.
But then my sister got older by then. I thought maybe it’s okay if I die. I don’t have responsibility anymore like when she was little. But it was very sad.
Tavis: So you get thrown in jail for writing about the inhumanity of this one-child policy and what’s happening to girls all throughout China. Ultimately at some point they tell you or you discover that you’re not going to be put to death, but you are getting kicked out of here.
Fu: Right.
Tavis: So we’re not going to kill you, but you've got to get out of China.
Fu: Right. I was asked to leave quietly.
Tavis: Right.
Fu: At the time, I didn't know. Now I knew because there was an American journalist who wrote about the same thing, and published a book in 1983 called “Broken Earth.” His book and my research at the same year was a coincidence.
But it formed a perfect storm for international outcry for human rights violations. So China’s new government was embarrassed by what’s being revealed, and accidentally they actually validated that claim.
So killing me is only going to cause more trouble, so I was asked to leave and never come back again. Do not apply for political asylum. Just go be a student and start your life somewhere else.
Tavis: That somewhere else was where?
Fu: Well, “somewhere else” luckily happened to be United States.
Tavis: Where specifically?
Fu: I got a visa from University of New Mexico, and then I flew to San Francisco with $80 travelers checks in my pocket. When I landed I was $5 short for the ticket, and this American man behind me gave $5 to the counter so I could buy my ticket. That was my first impression of American – that people are generous and helpful here to new immigrants.
Tavis: So that extra $5 got you from San Francisco to New Mexico.
Fu: Right.
Tavis: But when you get here your English isn’t so good.
Fu: No.
Tavis: Yeah.
Fu: I tried to learn more, but I couldn't remember anything. By the time I landed I only remembered three words.
Tavis: Yeah. So you sojourn to New Mexico and knowing so little English when you get to Mexico – it’s one thing you don’t have any money, but you can’t even speak the language. So when you get to New Mexico, what happens? How do you navigate your way through? How do you get around? How do you make all this work?
Fu: Right. So first I studied English as a second language, and I knew unlike immigrants who come here and have connections to the homeland, I knew I couldn't go back, so I have to stay here. I stayed with my English teacher so that I can learn more English quickly.
Then I observed that my English teacher couldn't find a job, having a Ph.D. in literature. (Laughter) I saw that (unintelligible).
Tavis: That’s not funny, but it is, yeah.
Fu: It was, yes. So I thought I was going to study comparative literature, and I didn't have enough English, either, so I thought, okay, I’m going to have to study something with a marketable skill.
Tavis: Right.
Fu: So I asked someone what can I study since I didn't do formal education, I didn't have math and science. Someone said, “Well, check out this new field called computer science,” and I said, “What’s that?” He said, “It’s manmade language, and you use it to make stuff.”
I was like, “Great. I’m good with language and I know how to make stuff.” That’s what I was going to study. So fortunately that was a great up-rising new field.
Tavis: Yeah. What do you make, looking back on it now, on how that just came to be that the burgeoning growth of computer technology just happened to coincide with your arriving here. Somebody suggested maybe you ought to try this.
I’m asking how you process that, because in a minute we’re going to go to all the great success you’ve had and why you’re now sitting on President Obama’s commission and committee. It’s quite a fascinating journey. What do you make looking back on the decision at that time when you could barely speak English, to study computer technology, computer science?
Fu: Well, what it taught me with that experience is that behind every closed door there’s new opportunity. It’s like every time life shut door, close on me, and I end up doing something else and there’s a new world opened up to me.
So in my experience I learned in my life journey many times when something that when it looks like there’s no road ahead of you, behind that mountain there’s another road. So if you try, you can always find a path.
Tavis: Just give me some key markers along the road, key decisions, key moments, that happened for you that have allowed you to get to this place of Geomagic once you left New Mexico.
Fu: Okay. Well, interesting, my key moments are all unconventional. First I met this entrepreneur in San Diego. I worked for him while I was studying computer science. Then I took a job at Bell Labs because it’s an iconic company in the United States. I took a pay cut from the startup job to the Bell Labs job in pursuit of innovation and education.
Then I got bored at Bell Labs. I took another job at university, again took a pay cut, because I saw that I was going to make the movie, “Terminator 2,” with Arnold, and so that was something I really wanted to do. It’s art and it’s science, it’s visual, and I would do that without being paid.
Now interestingly, at the startup company I did database, and at Bell Labs I did network, and at the national center, supercomputing center, I did graphics. Those three are what formed the basis for the Mosaic browser, which turned into Netscape and Internet Explorer, and Marc Andreessen was my student.
So being able to guide this group of students to create the first multimedia Internet browser comes from my trajectory of pursuing something that I’m interested, not necessarily a higher position or better pay.
Tavis: Yeah.
Fu: But it gives me that basis to do that.
Tavis: Given where you started, what do you make of being on the front side of the Internet browser, Netscape – these are terms now – Marc Andreessen is iconic, even at his young age now, in Silicon Valley. He was your student, but what do you make of how all this came to be, given where you started?
Fu: I think part of it, when I look at it, was that I was a nobody and I wanted to be somebody, and I didn't know where to start. So I went this life journey of never trying to admit, or never agree to that I was nobody or I couldn't do something.
But I also didn't have a target, so I traversed my life in this unconventional way, just pursuing whatever I had passion, whatever I feel could contribute to society or this technology is going to be tomorrow’s technology.
So I pursued that, and that’s why I say life is a mountain range. At every peak the view is different, but for you to arrive to a different peak, sometimes you have to go down before you go up.
Here, a lot of time we don’t want to take a down step. We just want to keep going up, which there is nothing wrong with that, but you’re stuck at one peak and one view.
Tavis: Yeah, it’s anti-American to step down.
Fu: That’s right.
Tavis: Yeah, that’s our problem, but you’re right, you can’t get to that next peak without -
Fu: Without going -
Tavis: – the ebb and the flow, yeah. So tell me about your work at Geomagic these days.
Fu: Well, it’s very interesting, because when I started Geomagic I wanted to combine Internet technology with manufacturing. Makes sense, because I was working Internet and I came from manufacturing.
Idea was to change the manufacturing to what I call mass customization or personalized fabrication. So you see my shoe, this is a 3D-printed shoe. There’s 3D printing as a new technology for tomorrow’s manufacturing.
Tavis: Get that shoe, Jonathan. Go ahead, keep on talking, I’m sorry.
Fu: Then it’s molded to my feet, it’s a MOMA piece, it’s exhibited at the Modern Museum of Art in New York. Lightweight, material is biodegradable.
So my passion is about how can we change the things that I design and manufacture such that we can bring jobs back to our country, and it’ll be greener technology, so there’s not a lot of shipping across the seas. It’s less carbon footprint. So I think this is the next big thing.
Tavis: Yeah. I think I get it and I think the audience gets it now, but when you decided to call this book “Bend, Not Break,” what did you have in mind?
Fu: Resilience. Yeah. I think whether or not it’s entrepreneurship, whether or not it’s a country being divided or business is going through a difficult environment, that we need to build resilience in our system or in how we live.
Tavis: Yeah. I have been to China. I've had the honor of traveling to China many, many times now, but my very first trip I was taken by a friend of mine in New York who’s probably watching tonight named An Ping, and after spending a week or two in China and having just been moved the very first time I went and learned so much, it was literally the last day of the trip I was sitting with An Ping.
We were sitting waiting on a plane to take off or something, traveling between Beijing and Shanghai, and I didn't realize that she had grown up in that Cultural Revolution during the time of Chairman Mao.
After being there for all these days and learning so much, the most moving part of the entire trip was sitting there talking to her about what it was like trying to navigate and move through that period of history that you had to endure.
I’m so glad that An Ping got through it and I’m glad that you got through it, and I’m glad that you are doing the wonderful work that you’re doing now. Tell me quickly about your work with President Obama. You’re on this entrepreneurship committee?
Fu: Yeah, I’m on the advisory board for entrepreneurship and innovation, which are two topics very dear to my heart.
Tavis: Right.
Fu: So we meet quarterly to give advice on policy, how to remove barriers so that policy is more favorable for entrepreneurship and innovation, and we believe innovation is the key for us to create jobs in this country.
Tavis: Yeah. Life is funny, isn't it? You start out being told that you are nobody, and you end up hanging out with the president of the United States a few years later.
Fu: Yeah.
Tavis: That’s funny.
Fu: So life has treated me well.
Tavis: Yeah. The book is called “Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds,” by Ping Fu, founder and CEO of Geomagic, Inc. Ping, good to have you on the program. All the best to you.
Fu: Thank you.

Fu Ping's 2010 Speech at UNC

Sometime around Janurary, 2010, Fu Ping gave a speech, "Story of an Entrepreneur", at the Kenan Institute at University of North Carolina. The speech was uploaded to YouTube on January 21, 2010, from the institute's official account.

In this speech, Fu Ping told her life story besides her entrepreneur experience. In this version,

1. She asserted that she never went to school during the 10 years of Cultural Revolution, but "I went to countryside plant rice fields. I worked in factories and I was in the military learning how to shoot." [it's curious how a "bad element" child could be allowed to join the military at that time.]
2. She stated that it was a family relative who "engineered an escape" while she was in prison for her infanticide research, no mention of Deng Xiaoping's involvement.
3. She stated that "Within two weeks out of jail I was given a passport." [She would later admit that she spent another year in China, "because it was hard to get a passport."]
4. She also provided a more detailed description on how the original idea for Mosaic browser came about.

The entire speech can be viewed on YouTube in five parts: one, two, three, four, and five. The following is a partial transcript relevant to her early life:

I was born in China in 1958. Unfortunately when I was 8 to 18, which was supposedly from elementary to high school, China started the Cultural Revolution. So I didn't have a chance to go to school. My aunt and uncle actually raised me in a very loving family. In 1966, I was taken away from them. I thought they were my parents. And sent back to Nanjing. I was in Shanghai. I was sent back to Nanjing where my biological parents were. When I was just arriving at Nanjing, it was too late. My parents were put in a truck and sent in exile. I only saw them away and the last word I remember from my mother was "Please take care of your sister." I was 8 and she was 4, with no parents around. That day was such a fateful day. I lost the mother who raised me, the mother who born me, and I became the surrogate mother to my sister. 

I was the youngest in that generation of what they called "black kids" -- black by birth as our parents are bourgeois. If you are educated or if you are entrepreneur, you are bad. Children of educated parents are called black bastard, or black elements. We were treated extremely poor and teachers were killed right in front of us kids to scare us. My sister was thrown into a river to drown. I tried to save her and I was gang-raped by the Red Guards because I jumped into the river to try to save my sister. So, the life during the Cultural Revolution was unimaginable for us kids without parents and for us being called black. I am sorry. I always get emotional when I think about that time. 

Fast forward 10 years. The Cultural Revolution ended the year I was supposed to graduate from high school. I actually never went to school during those 10 years. I went to countryside plant rice fields. I worked in factories and I was in the military learning how to shoot.  

10 years later China ended Cultural Revolution and allowed people to go back to school. I passed the national exam and went back to school. I didn't have a choice as I was assigned to study Chinese literature. I really liked school and studying Chinese literature even though it wasn't my choice. I loved it. In my graduation thesis, I chose a humanitarian topic because I realized that at the time China was enforcing the one-child policy. Baby girls are being killed in the countryside because, being still primarily an agriculture society, people want boys. Later I knew -- now I know -- during that time when I was in college, 30 millions of babies were killed. When I did my research, the subject was normally being suppressed. When my research came out, the government and some newspapers actually supported it so they reported it. That was the first time China admitted that killing was existed. So the news was immediately covered by the international press. I became the scapegoat when UN imposed sanctions to China for human rights violations  I was thrown into jail in a black room with no windows. I thought I was surely going to be killed. I didn't know why I was arrested at the time. All I wish was a quick and painless pill. I thought it was so cruel because my life was just turning around. I was able to go to a university. 

But I was kind of lucky that one of my grandfather's friends engineered an escape for me from China. I was not secretly escaped but kicked out since my report was really a humanitarian issue. He was from Taiwan and China wanted Taiwan to return to China so they agreed to kick me out of China.  

In 1982, very few Chinese were able to come to the States. It was considered lucky that I was able to leave China and come to the United States to study. But I did not plan it and I didn't speak any English. My life plan did not include leaving my family in China and come to the United States. Within two weeks out of jail I was given a passport and told to leave.  

So I came to United States. I didn't speak English and I didn't study any math or science. Or I had was Chinese literature and I couldn't live from that. I need to find a more marketable skill. That's what lead me into computer science, which leads me to Geomagic. 

In early 80s, computer science happen to be a new field. People who studied it in college don't know how to program, unlike today it's like a second skill. But at that time I felt that I was good at language and computer science is a man-made language. So I studied computer science and one thing led to another I landed a job at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. I tell you that was the best job of my life. Actually one of our employees in the audience who was my student there and followed me all the way here. That was a job that you can just dream about what science and math can do and you don't have to worry about profit and loss. We had a 40 million dollars annual budget and I was managing 10 million dollars in industrial relationship and 30 million federal government. So, we could actually do anything we wanted. I just happened to hire this student his name is Marc Andreessen. He didn't really want to work in heavy math and wanted something simpler. So I said, "how about a browser?" He said, "what browser?" So we talked about a multi-media browser. One of the reasons is our group actually worked on telnet, imaging software, Apple computer as well as server. So we had a big database and we had Internet and multi-media. It was pretty natural idea to have a graphic user interface that people can navigate something. Another reason is I was managing public domain software. Everyday I spent a lot time to tell people the Internet domain account. I just got tired of typing that. So I thought would it be nice to have a graphic user interface to tell people there is an image on it and, when they click on it, they can get there. It was a very simple idea. At that time it was hard-coded and it was not as complicated as today. But anyway, once Netscape went public, it became history.

USCIS: Outstanding Americans by Choice

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recognized Fu Ping as an Outstanding Americans by Choice in 2012. With the award, USCIS' profile of Fu Ping reads:

Ping Fu
President and CEO, Geomagic
Morrisville, North Carolina
Ms. Ping Fu co-founded Geomagic, a leading U.S. software company which pioneers 3D technologies that fundamentally change the way products are designed and manufactured around the world. Since 2010, Ms. Fu has been serving on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship board at the White House and is a member of the National Council on Women in Technology. In 2005, Inc. Magazine named Ms. Fu, “The Entrepreneur of the Year.” She describes herself as an artist and a scientist whose chosen expression is business. 

Ms. Fu arrived in the United States in 1983 as a 23-year-old student with virtually no money or English language skills. She grew up during the height of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, and had to raise herself at the age of seven, as well as her younger sister when her parents were forced into a concentration camp. For ten years, Ms. Fu survived on her own determination. She was imprisoned during college for her research into China’s history of infanticide. When she was expelled from China, she found her way to the United States. Ms. Fu chose a career in computers and software design earning both a Bachelor of Science degree and Master’s degree in Computer Science. 

Ms. Fu became a naturalized citizen in 1992.

UIAA: The Tao of Fu

The following is a profile of Fu Ping by the University of Illinois Alumni Association by Deb Aronson. Judging from its mention of  Fu Ping's age, it was probably written around 2007.

The Tao of Fu

By Deb Aronson
In the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, followers strive to bring harmony to the universe through the balance of opposites. 

So too has Ping Fu, MS ’90 ENG, carefully negotiated a balancing act in the course of her life. Moving from the violence of China’s Cultural Revolution to the positivity of America’s entrepreneurial climate, Fu has counteracted despair with hope, chaos with order, and survival mode with serenity. 

A comparative literature major who created and heads Geomagic Inc., a $30 million software company, Fu continues to strive for that harmony today, even in the sometimes cutthroat world of high tech business. According to the 49-year-old entrepreneur, the “essence of what you do … is to make life better.” 

Hope for a better life may have seemed elusive in Fu’s childhood during China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. Ripped from her home in Nanjing, China, at the age of 7, Fu and her sister, Hong, 3, were sent to live in a dormitory for children of “capitalist-road” parents. Fu spent her entire childhood there – 11 years – until she was released at age 18. Eventually, she made her way to the United States as a young adult and now lives in Chapel Hill, N.C. 

Today, through a combination of perseverance, resilience and a bit of luck, Fu has led Geomagic to become a leader in the field of digital shape sampling and processing (DSSP). The technology, which uses optical beams to digitally capture a physical object and automatically create a three-dimensional model, can be applied to manufacturing, testing and inspection processes. The technique is so precise and efficient that NASA used it to replicate damaged space shuttle tiles on Earth while the shuttle was still in orbit. Among other honors, the company earned Fu recognition as Inc. magazine’s 2005 “Entrepreneur of the Year.” 

ONE OF A KIND
According to Fu, Geomagic, which is located in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, is the only company of its kind in the United States. 

“We could see right off Geomagic’s applicability,” said Paul Magelli, whom Fu approached for guidance early in her efforts to form the business. 

The senior director of both the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Illinois Business Consulting at the University of Illinois College of Business, Magelli said, “There was never any question that Geomagic was a strong technology; it was just waiting for its time.” 

Before Geomagic, the skills required to create a smooth image from the shape sampling took a fleet of engineers and designers working laboriously for weeks to digitally process an object. The method was too time-consuming and expensive to work. With Geomagic’s magic, that step now takes place with the click of a button. 

The technology has already transformed business. American firms use DSSP to perform full digital inspection for new parts. A preservation team has utilized the software to record the Statue of Liberty, so that it could be reconstructed, if necessary. Toyota uses the software to design cars and inspect parts. 

The software can benefit an individual from head to toe – from better-fitting dental bridgework to hearing aids to high-tech prosthetics. Fu imagines consumers will soon be able to send a DSSP model of their feet to a manufacturer to order new shoes.

STEAK AND SIZZLE
But Geomagic is about more than technology for Fu, who speaks of her company’s goals not in terms that are measurable but in ideas that are far less tangible. 

“Our goal was not to go public or make a billion dollars – what does that mean?” she asked. “To set a goal for your company like ‘We have to make $10 million this year, $15 million next year’ is the same as telling your children, ‘You have to get an A on everything.’ It doesn't mean anything.” 

The “essence” of what we do, she said, should “create a true value.” 

Fu’s vision for her company – its essence – is to change the very nature of production. She believes that businesses are cutting manufacturing costs to the bone instead of taking a knife to far meatier portions, such as inventory and enormous advertising campaigns. 

“Why do you need to spend $30 million on advertisement for a shoe?” Fu posed. “What did [the marketing] do, make [the footwear] more comfortable? 

“So,” she went on, “spend the $10 to manufacture the shoe in the U.S., instead of the $2 it takes in China, and spend less money on advertisement, inventory and building those bigger and bigger stores where I go in, and I can’t find a pair of shoes that fits me.” 

Fu wants Geomagic to bring manufacturing back to the United States and stop the model of cutting costs in all the wrong places. 

“If manufacturing is the steak and advertising is the sizzle – you lose the steak, you don’t have the sizzle,” said Fu. “Our technology will help build better products closer to where the customers are, so businesses don’t have to spend a lot on advertisement or shipping or the wrong model.” 

FROM CHINA TO CHAMPAIGN
It’s a long way from China to the United States, and Fu’s path was particularly tortured, both figuratively and literally. As a child, she was forced to watch the Red Guard kill or torture people, including her little sister, who was scalded for making too much noise while playing. In another instance, when the Red Guard threw Hong into a river just to watch her drown, Fu jumped in to save her. For that action, Fu was raped, and both girls were beaten. 

In 1976, Chairman Mao Zedong died, the Cultural Revolution ended, and Fu was released. While enrolled at university, a professor suggested Fu study the rumors of female infanticide in the Chinese countryside. In 1980, the professor received Fu’s findings, which were then published in Shanghai’s largest newspaper. 

At first, the report was widely praised (though Fu was not given credit). In a turnabout, she suddenly became well-known when she was blamed after the story received negative international attention. As Fu was taken into custody, she felt certain she would be executed.
Instead, Fu’s luck began to change. Inexplicably, she was bundled on a plane and sent to the University of New Mexico, where she studied comparative literature. Fu then changed majors and moved to the University of California, San Diego, to complete her undergraduate degree in computer science. 

“No matter what negativity or tragedy happens around me, I have to grab for the beacon of light,” Fu said. “Otherwise, I would never have survived.” 

A chance meeting on the beach led to a part-time job for her at a startup software design company. Despite being offered a stake in the firm, which would have made her a millionaire, she instead headed to Bell Labs in the Naperville-Lisle area in Illinois. 

“Even in China, we knew that Bell Labs was the place to work, that it was synonymous with innovation,” Fu said of her decision. While there, she had the opportunity through a special program to earn a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois. 

That’s how Fu met Herbert Edelsbrunner, a UI computer science professor. Her relationship with Edelsbrunner drew Fu downstate, where she began working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications on the Urbana campus. They married in 1991. 

“I like Herbert’s mind,” said Fu. “He is an incredibly intelligent person and so intuitive and down-to-earth.” 

Fu loved her job at NCSA, too, which, at the time, was the center for computer graphics and visualization. Among other things, her eight-person group did ground-breaking work on the movie “Terminator 2” and early work with the simulation of tornadoes. Fu started the team that developed Mosaic, the first graphical browser that led to Netscape and made Marc Andreessen ’94 ENG a household name. 

“NCSA was such an incredible group of people who were excited about doing new things. It was a dream job,” she said. 

‘BEING SO CLOSE TO FAILURE GAVE ME CONFIDENCE’
In 1996, while still at NCSA, Fu founded Geomagic. The going was rough at first, with Fu trying to attract needed talent to central Illinois. Eventually, Fu and her husband left Illinois in 1999 for North Carolina’s Research Triangle. 

Even worse than personnel matters, though, was the slow signup of potential customers skeptical of the new technology. Fu ran through her first $8.5 million without making a sale, but she didn't lose faith. She hunkered down, laid off her sales staff and mortgaged her house to pay their severance. Fu asked her remaining employees to give her three months to turn the company around, which she did. Within a year, the company was showing a profit and now employs several hundred people in three countries. 

“Being so close to failure somehow gave me confidence,” Fu told Inc. magazine in 2005. “Everybody worked together; we reinforced each other. The crisis committed me to running the company.” 

Along the way, Fu developed her own style of command, which sounds quite similar to the way Benjamin Hoff describes Taoism in his best-selling book, “The Tao of Pooh.” “Taoism is happy, gentle, childlike and serene,” he wrote. “Its key principles are Natural Simplicity, Effortless Action, Spontaneity and Compassion.” 

That simplicity and compassion are evident in Fu’s vision of her company’s future. “I don’t have an ultimate goal,” she said. “I want every day to be a good day. And I want tomorrow to be better than today. I want my employees to wake up in the morning and feel energized and want to come to work. And, if I have customers who love to do business with us, I have a business. This is how I see the company.” 

One of those employees, Rob Black, has been an applications engineer at Geomagic since 1999. 

“Ping doesn't overwhelm you with her personality,” he said. 

“It [wasn't] apparent at first how different she was. Soon, though, I began to realize how approachable she is. She would just come around and chat with us. 

“She’s a very strong person and perfectly capable of making important decisions, but she also does a great job of listening to us. Our input is very much valued.” 

Fu often tells people that being a leader is not that different from being a mother. “The key is when you wake up in the morning and your best interest is someone else rather than yourself – your perspective changes,” she said. 

Fu’s own perspective has been formed by XiXi (pronounced “shi-shi”), her 13-year-old daughter with Edelsbrunner. 

“I’m much more interested in her curiosity and learning ability,” Fu said of her daughter. “I want her to want to learn. That’s what I’m proud of. We are not focusing on her grades. 

“To me, so long as the person has motivation and knows what they want to do, they can do wonderful things,” Fu said. “But their motivation cannot be to please their parents or to please their teacher or their boss. Their motivation has to be what they want. And that makes a world of difference. I see so many children who go to an elite school because they are pleasing their parents. Their parents will be so proud if they go to MIT or Harvard. If they do, they get a car.” 

Fu laughed at the very thought. “I would never do that for my daughter,” she said. 

While Fu’s outlook on child-rearing differs from some, her gruesome childhood experiences and incredible resiliency have also given her a different perspective from most entrepreneurs.
“I had to have this mind set,” she said of her resistance to fear. “I had to believe, ‘I can be somebody someday.’ 

“No matter what negativity or tragedy happens around me, I have to grab for the beacon of light,” Fu said. “Otherwise, I would never have survived.”

Fu Ping's Interview with WNYC's Leonard Lopate

On January, 14, 2013, Fu Ping was the guest on WNYC's Leopard Lopate show in which they discussed extensively her life and book. Among the highlights:

1. Fu Ping stated that "I went to research that and I saw hundreds of baby girls being killed right in front of my eyes. I saw girls being tossed into the river when their embryonic cord still fresh." [She had since claimed that she misstated.]
2. Fu Ping claimed that she became a factory worker starting from age 8, which provided her "root" in manufacturing.
3. In this version, the original idea of developing the Mosaic browser came from Marc Andreessen instead of Fu Ping herself.
4. They discussed the earlier, Chinese version her her autobiography. The host expressed surprise that she was able to publish it in China.
5. In this version, the three English words Fu Ping knew when she arrived in America was "hello", "thank you", and "help". 

The half-hour interview can be heard in its entirety here. Below is a transcript:

Lopate: Ping Fu has not only helped develop the web browser Mosaic, advised President Obama's administration on entrepreneurship  she is also the founder and CEO of the Geomagic, a leading 3D digital reality solution company. But before all of this, from the ages of 8 to 18, she endured the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a political prisoner, factory worker, and sexual abuse victim. Ms. Fu talks about her journey from the troubles of her youth in China to the frontier technology in America in her memoir Bend, Not Break. It's published by Penguin Portfolio. I am very pleased to welcome her to our show today. Hello.
Fu: Hello.
Lopate: What part of China were you born in?
Fu: I was born in Nanjing, a city south of Shanghai.
Lopate: Famous in most people's mind because of the terrible things happened there during the World War II.
Fu: That's right.
Lopate: Is that where you spent the childhood yours?
Fu: No. I was sent to Shanghai on 11th day after I was born in Nanjing to be raised by my aunt and uncle.
Lopate: Was there a reason for that? Did you know at the time why they take you from your parents and sent to your aunt and uncle?
Fu: My Mom is a working woman and she didn't want children. So my aunt picked me up and raised me.
Lopate: And Shanghai was still considered the Paris of the East in 1966?
Fu: Yes, I think it has always been considered as the Paris of the East.
Lopate: Well, Shanghai is an odd city. It almost felt for a while it's out of the loop. How fast did Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution reforms reach Shanghai?
Fu: Shanghai was the target because the Gang of Four, who was responsible for a lot of the propaganda and atrocities of China, was in Shanghai.
Lopate: And Shanghai was seen as the most westernized city, probably the one that needed to be cleansed the most?
Fu: That's correct.
Lopate: Let's look at your title for a moment. It refers to part of the three friends of the winter. The book is called Bend, Not Break, based on the quality of the bamboo. Why did you pick the bamboo instead of the other friends of winter, the plum blossom and the pine tree.
Fu: My Shanghai Papa said that I need to be bamboo, as if he knew that atrocity was waiting for me.
Lopate: So you had to learn to bend without breaking.
Fu: Yes.
Lopate: Is that something that stayed in your mind throughout your childhood?
Fu: It was. I thought my Shanghai Papa was very wise to pick the bamboo because he knew that I would be killed if I stand too straight.
Lopate: Well, then the Red Guards took you from that Shanghai home and put you alone on a train back to Nanjing. You were just 9 years old.
Fu: I was 8 and I arrived in Nanjing just a little bit too late, when my biological parents were sent to exile.
Lopate: Why were they sent to exile? Were you one of the people who had to deal with the fact that your parents and their families had been merchants or had some wealth before the revolution?
Fu: Yeah, my Mom come from an entrepreneur family and my Dad is educated. He was a professor. So both of them were targets.
Lopate: I would assume that would also apply to your Shanghai family?
Fu: Yes. Shanghai Papa was from a banking company. Shanghai Mama would stay home. So she did not get to send exile.
Lopate: So here you are at Nanjing. Your parents are sent into exile. Who did you live with?
Fu: I was live by myself and was my little sister. She was 4 years old.
Lopate: You just lived in a school dormitory?
Fu: Yeah, they put us into the emptied university dormitory which is kind of a ghetto for all the "black elements" kid.
Lopate: Sometimes you found a little surprises at your door. What were they?
Fu: We didn't have any food. Sometimes I find food left out of the door for us.
Lopate: Did you ever find out who gave that extra food?
Fu: One of the person who were giving us food was our neighbor's son. I only found out after Cultural Revolution was over (Lopate: when he could admit it.) Yeah, they had to risk their lives to do that.
Lopate: So, could you describe your daily routine when you were living in this student dormitory?
Fu: In the beginning it was a lot of chaos. We were put into "bitter meal" sessions or denunciation sessions that go on stage and condemn ourselves and our families.
Lopate: But you were 8 or 9 years old. How much could you even know about your family?
Fu: I didn't. I just mimic what other people do and try to not get in trouble. Otherwise, they hit me.
Lopate: And then at 10 you were sent to work in a factory?
Fu: I started factory pretty early, I think even at 8. Soon after. A few months after.
Lopate: Were you getting any schooling at this time?
Fu: Not official, not the academic study. I did learn a lot by doing things.
Lopate: Well, what kind of factories were you working in?
Fu: When I was 8, I was there peeling plastic covers to separate them and then I started to build radios around 10.
Lopate: So, do you think that experience is as awful as it was working in a factory at 10? Is it the source of your interest in technology?
Fu: I think that certainly was the unconsciousness behind my mind to start Geomagic in the manufacturing sector and combine technology with manufacturing as well to do with that experience.
Lopate: You were 10 years old working in a factory. Were you alone or were there other kids who were in the same situation?
Fu: There were hundreds of "black kids" being in our sector...
Lopate: "Black kids" because your names were blackened?
Fu: No, we were told our blood was blackened. We had a black lineage. So we were born with black blood.
Lopate: Even though, when you cut yourself, it turned out to be red.
Fu: Right. But...
Lopate: Which is the color of the Communist Party. I doubt they can explain that.
Lopate: There was a man named Wang. He was really important to your life at that time.
Fu: Yes, he was my supervisor at the factories. He gave me a lot of encouragement and taught me that I can do things that I thought I couldn't do.
Lopate: So, despite the harshness of your life there were strangers who express kindness to you.
Fu: Yes, often I've seen kindness in people, even in my tormentors.
Lopate: You said you had black blood. Were there punishments people with black blood automatically received?
Fu: Yes. Because we were stripped with all rights, we had no rights and were nobody. We have no rights to go to school and no rights to take a decent job. We can't even fall in love with people who has red blood.
Lopate: You were publicly humiliated, weren't you?
Fu: I was told to scream out of my lung that I was nobody. I was gang-raped at age of 10 and then being publicly humiliated as a "broken shoe". So, at 10, I was a ruined woman.
Lopate: So, the Red Guards raped you?
Fu: Yes. There were about 10 or 12 Red Guards. They threw my sister into the water canal. I jumped in to save her. She was saved but I was not spared.
Lopate: Now, the Red Guards were supposed to be the moral conscience of China at the time. How could they reconcile with what they did?
Fu: At that time, the Red Guards did a lot of things. Raping, killing, taking things from people. And it was encouraged. They were told that they were masters of the country. They were told that the bourgeoisie class had deprived them for better lives so they were allowed to do anything. It's kind of like the Nazies.
Lopate: And you were keeping a journal at the time. That didn't help when they found the journals?
Fu: Yeah, my journal was the only friends I had. I didn't have anybody to talk to so I wrote a journal on the backside of the Communist propaganda and hoping that it wouldn't be discovered. But it was discovered when I was 13. It was burned right in front of me.
Lopate: So, you developed a sense of shame about your family's wealthy background. How long did that last?
Fu: I think that last almost entire life. I am getting better now. Sometimes it will still catch up with me.
Lopate: You are an entrepreneur. Your family have been entrepreneur  So you must see at some level that there is almost a generic reason for you being the way you are.
Fu: I do believe I was born with good genes, good temperaments. But I do, with that kind of experience I do have doubts in my head. I had to consciously working on it.
Lopate: You can never really recover from the trauma of that kind of situation in which you received sexual abuse. But how long before you were able at least to try to pick up the pieces and try to move on with your life?
Fu: When I was 13 or 14, one of my uncle, Uncle W who I wrote in the book, brought me some western literature. I read them at night. I wasn't caught by reading those literature  That opened a different world for me. Then when I got older, I started to question the authority's message. I started to develop my own independent thinking.
Lopate: You were admitted to Suzhou University, even though you barely received a formal education. How did you get into the university if you had black blood?
Fu: After the Cultural Revolution was over in 1976, China was going to reopen universities in 1977. Many of us studied to pass the national exam to get into universities and I did pass the national exam.
Lopate: What did you study at the university?
Fu: I want to be an astronaut but I was assigned to study Chinese literature. So that's what I studied.
Lopate: Then you were deported? What have you done?
Fu: Yeah, I was doing my graduation thesis research and I heard that there were baby girls being killed in the countryside due to one-child policy. I went to research that and I saw hundreds of baby girls being killed right in front of my eyes. I saw girls being tossed into the river when their embryonic cord still fresh. So I wrote a report and that got picked up by Chinese newspaper, then got picked up by international newspaper. That caused a outcry for human rights violation in China and I got in trouble.
Lopate: So, were you thinking of yourself as an activist journalist at the time?
Fu: No, I was just trying to graduate. But I did care about that issue. What I saw broke my heart. So I raised the issue to the national consciousness.
Lopate: It's still a problem for people in China who want to write about things you observed. You can't call yourself a journalist but you can blog about what you observe and perhpas getting in trouble.
Fu: That is still true. The freedom of expression is still not quite allowed in China.
Lopate: So you left China. How old were you?
Fu: I was 25 when I left.
Lopate: Have you ever returned?
Fu: I did return in 1993 after I became a US citizen.
Lopate: You came here knowing how many words of English?
Fu: I tried. I only remember three when I landed here, which is "hello", "thank you", "help".
Lopate: Then you ended up going to the University of New Mexico.
Fu: They were the one who issued me a visa for English as a Second Language. That's my first landing point.
Lopate: You had to support yourself.
Fu: I worked. I cleaned house and I worked as a waitress and tried to get through school.
Lopate: Have you brought any money with you?
Fu: No, I was penniless. I only had 80 dollars as traveler's check to buy a transfer ticket from San Francisco to New Mexico and I told that story in my book. When I got to San Francisco I was 5 dollars short for the ticket. In China, price never change and in United States price do change. In this case it went up. I couldn't buy my ticket. There was an American man standing behind me who gave $5 to the counter. That's my first impression of America. People are generous and warm.
Lopate: Although you had experienced some generosity in China as well.
Fu: That's true.
Lopate: So, you have studied literature. Now in New Mexico. Did you continue to study literature or did you move to computer programming?
Fu: I couldn't study literature because my English was too poor. I didn't have formal K-12 educations so I didn't know what to study. Somebody told me to check out computer science which was a new field in the early 80s. I asked, what's that? The person said, it's man-made language that makes stuff. I thought, great! I am good at language and I know how to make stuff. That's what I am gonna study. So I ended up studying computer science which is a great field.
Lopate: How did you get involved with the Mosaic browser?
Fu: I was at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. I hired this student whose name is Marc Andreessen. We were doing supercomputing applications at the time. Marc and some other younger programmers came to me with this idea of writing a browser. I supported them to do that.
Lopate: How did the browser work?
Fu: At that time, we actually tried to write a browser that helps us to manage the public domain software so we don't have to type in the network address all the time. That was also hard-coded. Then we found gopher and WWW from Switzerland so we decided to make it more smart. Marc came up with this idea of what is called inline imaging which can be configured to take you somewhere. That is what made the browser much more popular.
Lopate: That led to some degree the Internet boom, didn't it? It made it easier for a lot of people like me to be able to use the Internet.
Fu: Right. We worked on a lot of Internet technology like telnet, imaging software, and collaboration software. Browser is what made it really popular. In fact, the browser brought down the entire university network one day because a lot of people were trying to access our site and at that time the Internet couldn't handle that kind of volume. That's when we knew that something really, truly remarkable is in hour hand.
Lopate: It's always a problem of doing something like this and making money from it. You were probably tempted to make it a lot more expensive than it turned out to be.
Fu: We gave Mosaic out for free because we were a federal center. Everything that we developed was put into the public domain. Marc left the university after graduation to start the Netscape with Jim Clark who was a big sponsor for our center. I stayed behind, went to Hong Kong to help them build a mini-supercomputer center.
Lopate: Were there other research teams at the time developing browsers?
Fu: There wasn't any other team developing graphic-based browser. We did have licensee. So like Microsoft licensed Mosaic into the Internet Explorer.
Lopate: So you say you went back to China?
Fu: I went to Hong Kong.
Lopate: At that time still under the control of Britain or had it already been given back to China?
Fu: That was right before Hong Kong went back to China so they are still not being controlled by the export policy. They can still do supercomputing center in Hong Kong.
Lopate: Did it feel odd that you are kind of in both worlds?
Fu: Yeah, going back to Hong Kong is kind of my way of half way of getting back to my roots. I still wasn't comfortable to go back to China. Hong Kong is a neighbor to China so it's trying to go back to my lineage.
Lopate: At this point you were working with groups but what led you to be come an entrepreneur?
Fu: I call myself a reluctant entrepreneur. When I came back from Hong Kong, Netscape went public. University went crazy. They wanted to find the next killer app so we had a lot of people talking about starting a company but nobody started one. My boss Joe Harding said, "I am so sick of all the talk, no actions." I raised my hand and said I will start one.
Lopate: That's what led to Geomagic?
Fu: That's what led to Geomagic. When I first went out to start a business I did not know what I should do. There was an Internet high. I was wanting to do something that has value. I think it's kind of natural for me to try to combine the Internet technology which I was writing sick of it with manufacturing which was how I grew up. I just combined the two and started Geomagic.
Lopate: But I would think you would face challenges other people may not face. First of all, that field was much feeling like a boys club. On top of all you are also an immigrant. So, did that make it harder? Or, in some ways did it make somewhat easier?
Fu: It was hard in the beginning and I made a fatal mistake because of that. I went to an investment conference, walked in with all these men with black suits. I felt very out of the place. So my decision was to hire a CEO to help me run the company rather than me running it. That was more of a woman not having the confidence at the beginning  And being an immigrant and don't have the experience. I should have just run it myself but I didn't know it at the time.
Lopate: Well, your co-founder of Geomagic was your husband Herbert.
Fu: Yes. He decided to stay in the university as a professor right after we started the business.
Lopate: So, he could have joined you in the business but he didn't?
Fu: He didn't want to. He is a really a mathematician.
Lopate: At the time when you started Geomagic, your daughter Xixi was only 3. So, on top of everything you were starting this company and being the mother of a very young child.
Fu: Yeah, at the beginning I thought I didn't want to start this business because I thought my daughter was too young. Now looking back I think I am blessed because I have a daughter. She was the only one that could take me away from work. So I didn't eat a lot of French fries and working into the middle of the night because I had to go home.
Lopate: So, doing this have led you into a lot of other things, consulting with the President for example. When did you decide that you want to write a memoir?
Fu: I thought about writing it in 2006. Then I stopped because I thought my daughter was too young to deal with that. I decided to write it when she turned 18, which is earlier this year.
Lopate: So you had more time on your hand. She went to school, I assume. You wrote with Meimei Fox. Did you talk in Mandarin or in English when you were working on the book?
Fu:  We talk in English. Meimei can speak Mandarin also. She was born in Hong Kong although she is American.
Lopate: Was it painful to recall some of the traumatic experiences in your early life when you were writing?
Fu: It was painful sometimes. Sometimes I just want to forget it. It certainly brings back all the memories I had already put away.
Lopate: Maybe some people who had been victims of sexual abuse don't talk about it. They just pass over that part of their lives because in many cultures they wind up becoming the blamed rather than the abusers, like what is being played out in India for example. Did anybody ever give you a hard time about it?
Fu: In China certainly that's considered to be shameful and considered something you will not want to talk about it. In America I think it's still a little taboo to talk about it. But I decided to tell my story.
Lopate: You described reading the journals of your grandfather after you took a trip to China in the 90s. Who gave them to you?
Fu: My Shanghai Papa gave it to me before he passed away. He wanted me to see my blood was red after all.
Lopate: Your Shanghai Papa is not your real father. He is the uncle who you lived with for a while?
Fu: He is the uncle who raised me from 11 days to 8 years old before I was taken away.
Lopate: How did reading the journals make you feel about your socalled family history which gave you black blood?
Fu: The journal was very interesting. In the journal there was a newspaper article about my grandfather from the father and mother side married their first children to raise money for their local school during the second world war. It's also a journey of their entrepreneurship in China in the 30s. But I didn't know any of those and they run such a parallel track of my current life it's very enlightening to read them.
[...]
Lopate: You wrote another book, didn't you, that was published in China in 1996 before this one? What was that one about?
Fu: When I was at Hong Kong I wrote a book about my first 10 years in United States and my experience as an immigrant and student.
Lopate: Is it only published in Hong Kong?
Fu: That was published in mainland China.
Lopate: Didn't you have a tense relationship with the government authorities at that time?
Fu: I did. But that book was strictly an immigrant and student experience story. There was nothing political so it was allowed to be published. Also I think in the early 90s China just started economic development, a lot of people want to read that material.
Lopate: Although were you honest when you wrote in that book "I will never be an entrepreneur because business people hate their jobs and love money. I love my job and hate money"? Did you really think like that?
Fu: At that time I did. That was two years before I started my business. That's amazing.
[...]

Fu Ping's Interview at Google Program

On January 7, 2013, Fu Ping attended the "Authors at Google" program hosted by Chade-meng Tan. In this interview, she and the host retold her life's story to some extend. Most notably, in this interview, Fu Ping described

1. How Deng Xiaoping personally intervened her case when she was "thrown in jail" after her research of female infanticide was made public.
2. How she never saw fractions before while attending a calculus class as a computer science graduate student. [She would have taken match exam for college entrance in China even if she somehow skipped GRE to get into the graduate school here.]

Also of interest is that, in this version, the only three English words she knew when she came to America were "hello", "help", and "thank you".

Below is a partial transcript of her interview. You can view the entire interview on Chade-meng Tan's blog here.

Tan: Well, my friends, thanks for being here. We are honored today to host somebody who I look up to: Ping Fu. Ping Fu is a 3D pioneer and a remarkably successful entrepreneur  As co-founder and CEO of Geomagic, she was named as Inc. magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005. Before co-founding Geomagic, she managed a team that created the NCSA Mosaic which later became the Netscape browser and which of course gave us the Internet boom. So, Ping was there, right at the beginning, of the Internet boom. With a name like "Ping", I thought it would be involved with the Internet. Sorry, engineer joke for those on the Youtube. Ping was also named an Outstanding American by Choice and she advises the White House on innovation and entrepreneurship  But more than her success and her talents, what I most admire about Ping is how she deals with adversity after adversity in her life with amazing resilience and more importantly with kindness and compassion. Her new book, her latest book  is her autobiography, Bend, Not Break, available in Google Play and all other major bookstores. In the next hour, Ping and I will talk about the exciting roles of 3D technology and Ping's fascinating life story. And with that, let's welcome Ping Fu.
Tan: So, let me begin with a question. You have lived a fascinating life. If you would boil down your life story to a few sentences, how would you describe it?
Fu: My life is truly an American dream story. I would say that I have lived three lives (for the price of one). I lived in China during Cultural Revolution and then been exiled. I arrived at United States fresh off the boat, poor immigrant try to look for a new life. And I did go through all the new immigration story and later started a business and become an entrepreneur. That's why I said, there was three chapter of my life. But really it shows the human spirits of the adaptability to change and the power of resilience.
Tan: You are very modest. You describe your life as very normal but your life is extraordinary. And I will give you a sense of how extraordinary it is: when I read your book, the first few chapters made me wanting to cry. Your early life to me is horrendous. You were taken away from your parents at age of 8, and you had to fend for yourself and your baby sister, Hong, at the time, and you were gang-raped at 10. You were hungry, you were beaten, endured abuse for years. And then as an adult, you were put in prison for documenting female infanticide, and then exiled from your own country. And then, as if that is not bad enough, when you arrived at the United States, your first experience in the US was getting kidnapped. What I want to know is this. So, first I would like to invite you to tell us the audience your early life experience. More importantly, I want to know how you manage to preserve your goodness, your kindness, and your compassion despite such a horrible experience.
Fu: Thank you Meng. That is a very mindful question. So let me first bring you back to 1966. That was at the dawn of China's infamous Cultural Revolution. Mao decided to turn the country upside down so all schools were closed. I was 8 years old. I was raised by my aunt and uncle who I thought were my biological parents. I had 5 older siblings and I was the youngest one in the family. So, one day I heard noise in our courtyard. I already knew the country kind of turned upside down so I thought they came for my mother who was my aunt. But they came for me. That was the day the Red Guard came to my house and told me that my mother was not my mother. And I was screaming and crying and said, no no no. I tell my mother, you are lying. I am your child. Just weeks ago you told me I was your favorite. I wasn't even given a chance to give her a hug. I was ripped away from the only family I knew and put on a train from Shanghai South station to Nanjing which is where my biological parents lived. I arrived just a little bit too late. When I arrived in Nanjing, all I saw was big dusts down the street and thousands of people, chaos, you can smell blood. My biological parents were put on a truck being taken away, sent far far away in exile. My mother, at the back of the truck, screamed out my name, "Ping, please take care of your sister." A little bit later of that day I was putting into a dormitory, led to a second floor to a room. There I found my little sister, 4 years old. The room was dusty, full of garbage. It did not even have a bath. The only shining place was this concrete floor where she kicked her legs and polished that place. She was crying probably for hours. Her eyes were red shot. I thought she was going to go blind. That was my first day. I lost the parents who raised me. I lost the parents who born me. And I became surrogate mother to my little sister. Then, little did I know Cultural Revolution would last for 10 years. And I was in that ghetto, one room without washbasin, for the next 10 years. I gone through a lot of atrocities you will see in the book. When I was 10 years old, my sister was thrown into a water canal outside of the wall. I jumped in and tried to save her. I did save her but didn't spare myself. I was gang-raped by a group of teenagers, broken, cut up with a knife. I still had 40 stitches on my body. Almost died. But the physical injury was not the most hurtful thing. What was most hurtful was the emotional abuse that followed. At 10, I really did not understand anything. I just thought I was beaten badly. The rumor went around and I had a nickname "broken shoes," which means that you are so worn out nobody would want you. So, at 10 I was a ruined woman. I had no adults to turn to, no psychologists to talk to, no one to help me. Many times I thought about dying. I thought this life is not worth living. But I had this little sister that I have to take care of. I couldn't just die. I have responsibilities. I think, if I didn't have her, I would have treated my life much lighter.
Fu: So, let me fast-forward to end of Cultural Revolution, that was literally 12 years later. China reopened universities in 1977. I studied to try to pass the national exam to get into a college. I did pass and I did go into a college. I was known the girl whose lights are never turned off. My life turned around. China started to change. When I was in college, I studied Chinese literature. I actually wanted to be an astronaut but I didn't have a choice. During the last semester before I graduated, I thought I was going to go to a graduate school so I wanted to do a thesis. China was imposing the one-child policy. I heard there were wide-spread killing of girls in the countryside. So I decided to choose that as a topic. That research being aired in some of Chinese newspapers where Chinese government was calling to stop the killing. But that was the first documentation from China that admitted wide-spread killing was happening. That news being picked up by international newspaper and UN posed sanctions for human rights violation. So this was embarrassment for the new government. At the time, Deng Xiaoping has already taken over China. Cultural Revolution was over. So this was embarrassment for the new government and I got into trouble and was thrown in jail. But it was only 3 days. I was lucky that Deng Xiaoping has asked what happened to the reporter. They said, "Well, we threw her in jail." And he said, "Why? This is not Cultural Revolution any more." But he didn't give any other instructions so nobody knew what to do with me. I was let out. Two weeks later, I was given a passport and told to leave the country and never to come back again. Not to apply for political asylum because my parents and sister were in China. I applied many universities in many countries and I ended up in the United States.
Fu: So your question is how did I live a life like that and remain to be, to see good, to be kind, the preservation of goodness. So when I was little, my uncle, who I thought was my father, had taught me many of those human principles. He told me that you don't want to treat other people the way you don't want to be treated. He also told me that, if you are straight, you are not worried about that your shadow is not. Another thing he had me memorized is what's called three friends of winter. Bamboo is one of it, which is what I write in my book. He told me that, "Ping, you need to be bamboo, bending with the prevailing wind but never breaking." When I was going through Cultural Revolution, I know that, if I don't focus on goodness, then I couldn't live my day. So even in the darkest time, there are human kindness from different places. I would find food left out of my door. Even though people don't dare to be associated with us, people secretly tried to help us. There will be beauty always in ugliness if you want to seek for it. I also found that being good help me to survive. Because if you are good to others, it makes it very hard for others to be cruel to you. So I just continued to focus on that.
Tan: Thank you. So you came to America and survived a kidnapping. I remember reading that you came only knowing 3 words of English, which is "hello", "help", and "thank you".
Fu: [nodding] Very useful 3 words.
Tan: I would add "where is the toilet" [laugh] You came basically crippled in language. Then you went to graduate school and you switched over to computer science. What you say is because you realized mistakenly at the time or you were told that computer science is a different language. You think since I am crippled in English, with a new language I will be in a fair playing field. For those of you who are wondering how Chinese immigrants are such engineers... [pointing to his head]
Fu: [laugh] That's the reason.
Tan: What's even more fascinating is that, when you went to class for a master in computer science and you went to a class not knowing basic mathematic concepts like fractions. You wrote that you saw teacher writing on the blackbord with numbers and a line between them and you are like, what's that? How is like to be in that situation?
Fu: That's a very good question. Like Meng said, I came here and thought I was going to study comparative literature. Yet my English was too poor. I can't study science because I didn't go through K to 12 educations. I asked around. Somebody said, oh ya, there is a new field called computer science and I said, "What's that?" They said, it's a man-made language and you learn that to make stuff. I thought, oh great. I am good with language and I know how to make stuff. That's how I got into computer science. Because I didn't go to formal education or studying mathematics in classroom, when I went to study computer science, the first class I took was calculus. I was okay with new concepts when the professor was teaching. If it's new I can follow. But when he put fraction on the blackboard, I just never seen anything like that. When I asked the professor, he said go back to high school. I took it very literally. I went to get high school math and I couldn't find it. I went to middle school class and couldn't find it. I found it on second grade's math books. So I bought, actually I borrowed, the entire math textbook from first grade to high school. I studied that at night and studied calculus during the day... First semester I almost failed the math class, but by the second math class -- I think was multi-variable calculus, the professor thought I was the sister of an Olympic math champion. That's how I arrived.