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So, today is Sunday April 14th, 2019. We’re here interviewing Dr. Samuel Wu for the Houston Asian American Archive. My name is Priscilla Li.

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I’m Steven Loyd. Okay, so Dr. Wu, the first question we have is where and when you were born. Okay, I was born in Beijing, China. And, long time ago, it’s 1948,

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July the 7th. So I’m–I’m 70 years old. Okay. And can you describe your childhood? Okay, my childhood, of course, I spent my first 14 years in Beijing, China, okay.

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And that was of course, already after the Communist rule. Alright, so, I went to the elementary school there, and one year of the middle school, before I move to Hong Kong with my, with my family.

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Um, when I was in Beijing, of course I was one of the six children in my family. Uh, so I have a large family, and at that time,

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I think the-the materials, or the food, and clothes, they’re pretty poor in a way. Because of the––under the government, there’s not a lot of food, not a lot of

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things to, to enjoy, basically. But that was okay, I think I-I didn’t feel too–too much as a kid, just like all the other kids there.

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And so I was an okay student at that time, and I kind of like to sing, and I was even in one of these choral groups over there, singing a lot of songs, and then I enjoy school.

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So basically, I’ve a pretty reasonable—although the material-wise, was pretty, pretty poor at that time––child–childhood. So then

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in 1962, my family move to-to Hong Kong, so that of course—then I spent the next seven years in Hong Kong as a middle—middle-school student.

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Middle school in, in Asia is a combination of junior high and senior high. Okay, so there, there’s six years so I went to a pretty good school there. It’s called the Pui-Ching Middle School.

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Okay. Then I, I think in the––from the food, the materials, and everything, the—Hong Kong was much, much better than in mainland China. So— but a lot of food, lot of you

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know. But then, then I-I enjoy my, my high school very well, and then I was—I-I did reasonably well, okay. And then, so I graduated from school in—see, I was there seven years. But the first year, I didn’t go to

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formal school, because I have to catch up my English. I didn’t know a word of English from China. And Cantonese, okay, because Mandarin was the language we, we spoke in Beijing.

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But in Hong Kong, it’s totally different dialect. So I was in Hong Kong for one year, I tutor myself with all this, and then I went to school, went to the middle school, for, for six years.

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And came to the United States as an undergrad. Uh, first, as I told you that, I went to Wisconsin, the University at Wisconsin at Madison, for half a year. But then I think the weather was a little cold

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there, and then also, I think I was interested in kind of high-energy physics at that time. So Berkeley has a very strong team.

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They’re with six Nobel Prize winners there, in, you know. So anyway, so I transferred to Berkeley after the first semester, that’s the spring of 1970.

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And then I graduate from UC Berkeley with, with a physics and biophysics double major in 1973. So I’m going through all—all of my—and then after that I

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went to Harvard. I went to Harvard University as a graduate student in bio—biophysics. So I learned molecular biology, biochemistry, and also neuroscience.

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And that’s where I end up with— I think I consider myself as a neuroscientist, but happen to be working in, in the eye, the retina. Retina is part of the, the-the brain.

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We still—when you’re—during development, it develop coming out of the brain, and become in—part of—in, in the eyes, so that’s why we use the retina as a model system to kind of start—to, to study the entire brain, how the brain works.

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That’s what I’ve been doing all these years, okay. And so, and then after getting my PhD in biophysics from, from Harvard, I went back to Berkeley as a postdoctoral fellow for three years.

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And then here—there I also learn some neurobiology, the, the retinal electrophysiology, and so forth and so on. And then, in ‘82, I finished my postdoc at Berkeley, and

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then joined the faculty here at Baylor as, the junior, faculty, the assistant professor in ophthalmology, neuroscience, and physiology. So that’s ‘82.

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So that, that was my first job, and it end up to be my only job. Okay. So, so I think, so I’ve been here living—kind of you know promoted from associate

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professor to professor, and then in 2003, they, they would give me an endowed chair. As the Hankamer Chair in Ophthalmology.

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And so I run a reasonably big, big lab in-in ophthalmology department, although all the students, coming from neuroscience, and I teach neuroscience courses, so I interact with

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neuroscience much more, because I’m not an MD. I’m not an ophthalmologist, but I’m a basic scientist working in the ophthalmology department. But I run the lab with many students, through the years, the

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post-docs, and then publish a lot of papers, and publish some, some textbooks too, okay. Uh, the textbooks, one textbook was in cellular neurophysiology, which I taught here at, at Rice, okay,

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that was almost ten years ago. Then the psychology department at Rice asked the Baylor faculty to— faculty to te—help them to teach some of the neurosciences courses.

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So Dr. Dan Johnston, one of my colleagues in neuroscience, and I, we have been teaching the cellular physiology courses at Baylor for many years. That’s why we kind of wrote the book, the textbook.

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And then the psychology department asked us to, to teach the courses for a few years at Sewall Hall. Okay, Sewall, right, so…so I came here

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and then teach the course with the, mostly the Rice seniors and juniors, the undergrads, and some of the graduate students too. But also the Baylor students had to walk over to take our course

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at, at Rice. So then I, you know, teach another course, it’s called physiology of the visual system, too, okay, at Baylor. And now kind of now-a-days, they

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make those two courses, not as a required course, as a, as a, as an e-e-e- elections. The elective courses. And that’s why sometimes, I teach one course one year, another

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course, another year, right there. But in the, in the, in the—in terms from the, re—the research end, like I said, we’re interested in how the, how the brain works, okay.

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The brain, because it’s the—we call them as the last frontiers in science, because no matter what you do, you’re, you’re a physicist, you’re a chemist, you have to use your brain to, to understand the things.

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Though whether the brain can understand itself, that’s not entirely, uh, clear, okay. And then, but, we-we use the retina as the model system, because retina is, is very, kind of stationed

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out of the brain, into the eye, you know, eyeball, it’s much easier to, to get to. You know, if you look at the hippocampus, you have to dig through the layers of the

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brain. The other thing with retina is that you can, can stimulate the retina with, with, with light. That is the natural––the… stimulation.

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Think about it, if you work on the cerebellum, and don’t know what is the natural input, what is signal, whether it’s a two-hertz spike train, or 200-hertz spike train. You’ve got no idea. But you have to artificially take a

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different few cases of spikes, and then stimulate them. But they may or may not be the way that, that cerebellum experience every day. Mm ok but retina is simple.

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Light, we know what is the colors of light, what is the intensity range of light, and what the frequency, all that. And the patterns and so forth, so on. So we use the natural stimulus to stimulate this part of the brain,

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which can give us a much more, I think, accurate, or maybe even meaningful type of responses. Okay, so, so that’s how I consider that the retina is

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one of the model system, best model system to understand the brain, because all the mechanisms in the brain, the synapses, and your transmitters, the, the genes, all there, there in the brain, you can find in

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our eyes, in-in the retina. So, so I think that almost summarized my, my whole entire career, and then my, my childhood, from until how I was educated here, and then I think what I’ve been

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doing in, in our, y-you know, in the field. But of course one of the, the things I, I could emphasize a little bit, is that I’m—the work we do is not just the

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basic neuroscience. Okay, to understand, of course the goal is to understand how the brain works, which is still pretty far, far away from, from our, from our understanding too at this point.

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But also we’re interested, how the synapses or neurons, retina, dysfunction when you have a problem, when you have a

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eye di—a disease, like glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and uh, retinitis pigmentosa. I’ve just mentioned a few, okay.

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So those are the eye diseases, and then of course, we want to see what––when the disease happens, or even before the disease happens, what happened to the retina synapses, the circuitry.

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And so I think the goal is try to identify the, the area of the site of dysfunction, in—associated with each one of these, these retinal problems, diseases and try to target them, to—for the gene

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therapy, for draw therapy, and even maybe to detect them at an early stage, so that you can diagnose a person who’s going

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to have glau—glaucoma, have likely to develop macular degeneration, and so forth. So at early stage, if you can catch them, then you will be able to prevent them or

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slow it down. Okay, so I think I’m, I’m just give you a long-winded answer to, to, to everything. Umm what are we doing, and then that is the—what I’ve been doing even right now.

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Oh, okay, that’s interesting. Umm, going back to when you were in China, um, what prompted your family to move to Hong Kong? Oh yeah, well, my father, okay was––was

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a businessman. Who…trading jade stones, you know, the jade stones, and so he had a little business from—in Beijing, and in Hong Kong. That’s even before the,

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the, the Communists took over, okay. So, but then, during the years, then he commute, basically, Hong Kong to Beijing. Because he, he left the family in Beijing, and then,

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then you know, then he come back and forth for, for many years, okay. And then I think then there was some kind of you know, as I told you

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in the late ‘50s—and there is a very bad famine in China, okay, and a lot of people, like I said, the materials, the food, are really, really bad, okay.

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And a lot of people get sick. I think according to the statistics, which I never actually—I never saw it myself, the people starve to die.

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So I think then my father felt, “Hmm, maybe it’s time to get the family out.” So then we apply, then we can legally apply. Because in those days, there were a lot of people in, in—from, from,

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from Canton or the Guangzhou province, they’re very close to Hong Kong, some of the people just swim. And then get a little boat to—went illegally to, to hide in Hong Kong, but—but they were so close.

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But Beijing was very far north, okay. We cannot swim to Hong Kong, right. So basically by then, we apply, we, we—my, my father planned it very well.

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I think he–he first get my, my—mother, who was a little sick at that time, and, and took her into Hong Kong first. Okay, and then, and also at that time, the policy of the

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Chinese government had changed a little bit so it’s kind of easier to apply, to go out. And then so they were–they allowed my, my mother to go to Hong Kong first. And then,

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and then in, in the summer of ‘62, my father said, “Okay, we would like you, you, you guys to come to Hong Kong too,” to, you know, see our mother, because she was sick. And then we said, “Okay, okay.”

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At that time, we had no idea that my father want us to stay. But we, we just thought, okay, it’s just a summer holiday. We just went to Hong Kong. Then after we arrive Hong Kong, our mother—my father

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said that, “I don’t think it’s good for you to return because of the, the political—political situation, and the materials, and the foods,” and then, “why don’t you stay in Hong Kong.” So we, so we stay.

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And so, but we didn’t—didn’t even know at that time, before we, we kind of left Beijing, we were gonna stay there, okay. But I think from, from, you know, from the hindsight, that was a tremendous, fantastic move.

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That was very—because if we didn’t come out in ‘62, the Cultural Revolution was going to come in in ‘65, then we’re all probably would have a big trouble. Because at that time, if you have parents in Hong Kong,

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that is big, big sin there, it’s a big negative. Okay, so we may be purged, we may be sent to the countryside. So definitely will not have any chance to go to college. Yeah, but anyway, so that is—but to

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answer your question, is we didn’t even purposely know that we were going to move, to-to-to-to Hong Kong. But I think from hindsight, that was a fortunate move. Okay, but that’s how I could stay in Hong

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Kong and came to, to U.S. at the-, in 1969. That time, that was still at the peak of the Cultural—the Cultural Revolution in China.

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You know, we stay in China, there’s no way we could come out. Um, so what kind of principles did your parents raise you on? Hm? Principles, like what kind of lessons did they teach you? Well, they, they basically, I think they both want us to,

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to go, to go to college. To kind of study, to have a good education, as much as we, we could. They, they never say, “I want you to get a PhD, I want

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you to get an MD.” They just say, “Do whatever you want.” But they do want us to have a education. So that is probably the most important thing they have told, told us.

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Okay, so—and also they send us all to America. My one sister, she went to the U.K.…so England. The other four, my

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elder si—sister, me, younger brother, younger sister, all came to, to the U.S. My elder brother stay in Hong Kong because my father passed away very early

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in…when I was in freshman in college, at—at Berkeley. All of a sudden, he had a heart, a heart problem. And so my elder brother stay in Hong Kong with my

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mom to continue our— my father’s business, and support us. You know, because there are five of us, we were all in college. Okay, and we’re—in college, and in high school, my younger sister, she’s in high school.

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So he, he support us, he’s like a father almost. But, so the family is—I think it’s very tight, we are, we are the—are the, the relationship among the siblings are very, very good.

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We all kind of care about each other very much. Uh, my—of course my father and mother want us to be good, okay, to have the education, and to go. So I think that’s the expectation, there was

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not—there was never, never an expectation, like us to be a—want us to be billionaire or something like that. Which of course, we probably couldn’t do it anyway. Um, so can you describe how you, like, got interested in the

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science—in sciences and like…? Right, right, sure. I think, like I said, since I was in high school in Hong Kong, I was interested in physical science. Physics

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was my—my, the-the––is my…uh, passion, for almost—for-for a while. That’s why I went to, to, to-to Berkeley, UC Berkeley, as a-a physics major. I learn a lot of good

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physics. I was even interested in some theoretical physics general relativity, all those things. And then I, then in my senior year, I found, yes, those are interesting, but I’m

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not sure, compared with some other of my colleagues, or schoolmates in Berkeley. I was not at the top notch, in terms of theories, in terms of, of

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some of the mathematics. And the math, if you work in differential geom—you have to know differential geometry in order to go into general—general relativity.

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So there’s a lot of math, very solid math requirements. I said, “Well, okay, maybe that’s not for me.” And but then, in terms of experimental physics, I found in Berkeley, at that time their high-energy physics was

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very good, you have the Bevatrons, the accelerators of the particles. And I-I tried to get into a team, as an undergrad, okay, but

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then those teams are like 200 people only. There’s some senior faculty, some junior faculty, postdocs, graduate students. So as an undergrad, I’m on the lowest tier. I remember my job was try to punch the

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computer cards all the time. So with—without being able to involve at, at that stage, uh how, how the experiments was run, why you do those experiments, that kind of thing.

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So I feel a little bit discouraged by that. So then I went to—the senior year, I went to do biophysics. Biophysics is the biological system, it’s much smaller scale.

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You don’t have to have a 200-people team to run for the experiment. So I then became interested in neurophysiology. Because they would talk a—they involve a lot of electricity. The, the electric current flows in your neurons, in synapses.

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So I foundthat’s becoming interesting, okay. So that’s why, why I applied for my graduate school. I went to the Harvard biophysics program, I didn’t apply for the, for the theoretical-physics program or anything like

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that. So I went to biophysics, and then at that time, Harvard was very strong in, in neurobiology, neuroscience. Because they, the group in Harvard— Harvard Medical School, that group is…turn out to be

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the founding group of neuroscience in, in the U.S. Those people went to all over the place, California, uh, UCSF, Stanford, I mean, U San Diego, and then,

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and then some of them stay in Berk—in Harvard. And then that group at that time was so strong, they got the Nobel Prize afterwards that they . So I, I, I took courses from, from, from them, I learned a

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lot of that from them, and also in—I end up with my PhD thesis advisor is John Dowling. He is at the campus side of the Harvard campus. The Harvard biology department is in Cambridge Medical School, so

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so-so Boston, okay, but I go travel back and forth in two places. And I end up working with John Dowling, who’s also the student

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of, of the dean, the a Nobel Prize winner, George Wald. Okay, they work on the eyes, the vitamin A deficiency. And so, so I think at Harvard, you know, though I

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was there for five and a half years, that really give me tr—the…so, the inside story about how neuroscience was all about. So I learn a lot, okay, so that’s why I’m still interested in neuroscience and how the brain works.

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How the retina as a model system tell us how the entire brain works. Okay. Um, can you describe your uh, journey like, to the U.S. and like, how you thought of the U.S.

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before and then after you came here? Like any…? Yeah, that’s a, that’s a good question. I think I came to U.S., I think for the science, basically. In

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Hong Kong, I learn a lot of who had done what. I think a lot of them—at, at that time, I was interested in, in theoretical physics, so the physicist, the top-notch physicists, were all in the, the U.S.

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In Princeton, Harvard, and also UC Berkeley, Stanford. They’re all that kind of thing. I think at that time, I was a little naïve on myself.

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You know, say, “Oh, just go to U.S., you will become a top-notch physicist.” Later, so so later on, so that’s, that’s I think the major drive I come to—I, I, why I came here.

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Of course I think I-I learned a lot of physics, and later on I switched to neuroscience, which is not bad, okay. So, but I, like I

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say, I enjoy the United States. Mostly on the academia side, okay, you know, from, from UC Berkeley to, to Harvard, MIT, then I interact with the, the Stanford people.

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So the science community is fantastic, okay, and also the support for all these years I got support from, from the National Science, no, the National Institute of Health, NIH, for all these years. So I got, I don’t

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know, mi—millions of dollars through all these years from, from them. I got a renewal—I got support for 37 years, okay. So each year is about half a million dollars,

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you know, think about that. It’s––and also there’s a, the- there’s private foundation here. Like the Retina Research Foundation, that is––that is––it’s found in Houston.

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Uh, so the president was a, was an ophthalmologist named Dr. Alice McPherson, and she, she’s very good. She, she was a good retinal surgeon herself, but then she raised

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money to, to support basic scientists like me to give us equipment and so forth and so on. So I think the academia or research environment here––here in the United States, is

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the…what trapped me here first and then made me stay, okay. I think other than the academia, there are some pros and cons in living in the U.S. Okay, but I

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think––mostly I think since I’m a scientist, I think I really feel this is the place for me to, to, to be. Um, did you feel any like, discrimination when you came? Well, I think yes or no.

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Always, okay. I think um, I’ve been kind of fortunate to be able to go to those almost the top of the places, like Berkeley, kinda…and

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also Harvard. In the academic environment, there’s a lot of Asians, okay, you know, especially in science. So I never feel that I’m-I’m-I’m the only one, I’m-I’m being kind of, kind of isolated.

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But also the scientific community, even the, the American, scientific community respect us and treat us reasonably fairly. They don’t think, “Oh, because you are

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Chinese from China, I will give you some, some trouble.” I, I never feel from the scientific community like that. But from the social point of view, of course, you know, they, they can look at you, and if, if you

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go to a supermarket or something, they, they will try to sell you some, some, some of the Asian foods, right. Or they, I think in the, the social environment I can feel there was something, they, they know the

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A—the, the Asians, they are either nerds, they-they just—or they, they don’t—they are socially odd, sometimes, and they do feel that way.

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But I-I can try to ignore those things. Okay, I think basically, I never experience too much of the discriminative remarks in my, in my life here.

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But I think I could—I can still feel they, they think I’m different. Which is probably true. I am different.

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Um, let’s see…how did you meet your wife? Oh, uh, I was at—we, we, we met at MIT Student Center. She was an MIT undergrad I was a

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Harvard graduate student. So I also, I, at that time I joined the Chinese Choral Society, the singing group. And we, we had practice in MIT Student Center every Sunday in

00:34:51.920 - 00:35:06.600

the afternoon. And then I just met her there, she was not even a member, but she-she’d come in, you know was a student, MIT Student Center, she always stayed there, so. That’s how, how we met.

00:35:07.600 - 00:35:23.390

And then, then afterwards we were apart for a while, because she went to McGill as a, a medical student. I went to UC Berkeley as a postdoc. So-so pretty far apart.

00:35:24.150 - 00:35:40.170

And then, then I think, then we still com—kinda see each other travel. Either I went to, to Montreal, and she went to Berkeley.

00:35:41.300 - 00:35:56.050

And then we finally got––I got a job here, and she came here and has, has a-a internship or residency around here. So then we got married here.

00:35:56.100 - 00:36:11.630

That was in ’82. Mhm. Um, were there any like, cultural differences, I guess, is-, since she’s from like, Taiwan? Mmm, well, she was—she came to this country when she

00:36:12.600 - 00:36:22.370

was 11 years old. Uh, yes, but we, we, she can still speak Mandarin very well. So we communicate in-in-in Chinese.

00:36:22.580 - 00:36:38.890

In, in Mandarin. Um, I don’t think that there’s too much. I think of course, my background was very unique from that point of view. Born in mainland China, went to Hong Kong,

00:36:39.320 - 00:36:58.550

came to United States, and she came from Taiwan, to-to Mississippi first. And from Mississippi, then because her father got a job there or something, and they went to Chicago and went to MIT, then he joined MIT,

00:36:59.100 - 00:37:15.490

but, but then I think she feels she was kind of a u—unique in some sense too because there was not that many people at her age come— came from Taiwan to, to the United States.

00:37:16.580 - 00:37:32.030

Most of the Taiwanese people in U.S., they came after college, after university, as a graduate student and so forth and so on. But she came much earlier. So, so I

00:37:32.030 - 00:37:52.410

think, I think both my wife and I, we, we consider ourselves to be, to be kind of u—unique cases. We don’t feel—we, we, we…either one of us fell into the big crowd, like there’s a lot of people in, in

00:37:52.880 - 00:38:07.810

Hong Kong, came here, but they were born in Hong Kong, they were Cantonese. But I’m one of the foreign–– I’m one of the mainlanders, okay. Uh, and then she can find most of the Taiwanese friends, okay,

00:38:08.090 - 00:38:28.860

after college. And then she but she came much earlier. But between the two of us, we, I don’t think we have too many barriers in terms of––we both speak Chinese, and we try to,

00:38:29.710 - 00:38:45.600

to train—to teach our kids to-to learn Chinese, which was only not—only partially successful. Um, what kinds of celebration do you guys celebrate?

00:38:48.670 - 00:39:07.320

Well, we celebrate the American’s, the like, like Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving. And then we just––also the Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the birthdays, and…and

00:39:09.400 - 00:39:20.500

of course we also celebrate Chinese New Year, but you know, in a limited way. Because here, there was, there’s not even a holiday at Baylor, right, so I’ve got to work.

00:39:21.180 - 00:39:41.130

And my, my wife, after open up her own clinic, before that she, she work at MD Anderson, all these hospitals, she had no choice for give holiday. But after she had her own

00:39:41.210 - 00:39:55.710

clinic, she make the Chinese New Year day as her clinic holiday. That’s all. I think that’s all you can do. And…we celebrate, you

00:39:57.340 - 00:40:12.890

know––just I think people’s birthday like her mom, my wife’s mother has been living with us for 30 years. Because when, when my wife had

00:40:13.110 - 00:40:29.470

to do some of the out-of-town internship in residence, and then of course at that time we already have our first child––and then she––the—my, my mother-in-law came to, to help.

00:40:31.110 - 00:40:48.500

And she’s still with us, she’s almost ninety-some years old. And then, and so, tell her mother—so the celebration, we-we-we give her a banquet on her birthday, 80th birthday, 90th

00:40:48.630 - 00:41:07.650

birthday, 95 birthday. Okay, those are… because I think it’s a Chinese tradition, we respect the, the older people, okay, to give, give––so—oh yeah, and then for the first time my wife

00:41:07.850 - 00:41:17.390

give me a birthday party was when I was 70. That was last July. So you can see, this is still the Chinese tradition,

00:41:21.490 - 00:41:37.140

respect people with older age. Um, how do you balance, like, your research as well as like, spending time with your family? Yeah, that's usually, you know, I work very hard.

00:41:38.000 - 00:41:53.520

I thin––I-I usually go to my office around seven— seven days a week, okay. But sometimes maybe on the weekends, I didn’t go there until the afternoon, but uh still work.

00:41:53.730 - 00:42:10.360

And also, I stay late at home, writing my grants, writing my papers. So I think––but, the good thing about my research, or, or even the teaching part, is that I can control my own time,

00:42:12.720 - 00:42:31.730

okay. So it's not something you have to be there eight and then leave five, okay. It's something you can plan your own time. But of course, you end up with––I can even spend more time than just a regular 40 hours a

00:42:31.920 - 00:42:51.740

week thing. Uh, but––but that makes—make it easier for me to take care of the family––thing. And sometimes I have to go back home to-to cook dinner. But that's okay, because I just space the time.

00:42:52.910 - 00:43:09.460

I-I think because after dinner, and then I go-go back to work, okay. So when the kids were young, of course I, I have to take them to the, to—I have to, I

00:43:11.040 - 00:43:28.010

drove them to school every day and picked them up. But then after picking them up from school, then we go to––to some of these extracurricular activities. Uh, sports and––and kind of ice skating, dancing,

00:43:29.400 - 00:43:50.420

all that kind of thing. So I spend time doing that, but like I said, I can afford it because my, my hours is kind of, you know, I can control it by myself, so I can change it around. So I think my career is that

00:43:51.950 - 00:44:08.660

the type of job I'm doing, is––I-I can balance my time from—my time and the work, and take care of my family. Um, so

00:44:08.660 - 00:44:20.760

besides—and you said you like to sing? Are there any other activities you… Oh, activities, I-I like to read novels. I think of course I'm pretty biased,

00:44:21.440 - 00:44:40.350

right, 'cause I only read—I think most of the books or the novels and autobiographies, are, are in Chinese. Because––because I–I've known—in—when I was a student at UC Berkeley,

00:44:40.880 - 00:44:53.570

or as a–at—and also in Harvard as a graduate student, I met a number of scholars, those old generation Chinese scholars. They

00:44:53.630 - 00:45:13.820

were faculty at UC Berkeley, they were faculty at Harvard. And then I came to know them pretty well. And when I went, you know , I said, while I was at Harvard, I only, I only—I even lived in one

00:45:14.110 - 00:45:30.790

of the pro—you know, professor’s' house. Uh, the Chinese professor's house for three years. So it was free. So, so I think then I kind of knew them very well, and then I—so they told me lots of these

00:45:31.210 - 00:45:44.300

old stories. And in China, U.S., during the, during the '20s or '30s. And then I become very much

00:45:44.300 - 00:46:00.480

interested, and at, at––at Harvard, there's also one of these places that is called the Harvard Yen— Harvard-Yenching Institute.

00:46:01.610 - 00:46:14.690

They have a lot of Chinese books. I think it's probably the best collection, the biggest collection of Chinese books outside China, probably, you know. And then as a graduate student, I,

00:46:15.450 - 00:46:31.740

I was allowed to get into the library, so—inside the library, I can read all the kind of books I want, sometimes I just spent the whole, whole afternoon in the library flipping books.

00:46:32.600 - 00:46:47.320

All of the old books in there. So that, that kind of habit became a habit. And so I'm still, I-I—still in my house, I still have a lot of those books. And so I read,

00:46:48.140 - 00:47:05.200

and I think it's just became a-a hobby. It's nothing, nothing too much related to my work, okay, that doesn’t help neuroscience, okay, but I think it's just––it's just an outside kind of

00:47:05.200 - 00:47:20.490

hobby. Mmhm. What are your future plans? Well, I'm 70 years old. So I think one of the good things about Baylor is that they,

00:47:20.660 - 00:47:36.990

they don't have a retirement age, either. It's—our former chancellor, Dr. Michael DeBakey, you remember. Uh, he work until he was 99 years old.

00:47:39.550 - 00:47:53.080

Mhm. And then, then he—until he died at 99. Of course I don't have that plan, to—to go that far. But the thing is that I think as long as I can

00:47:53.640 - 00:48:10.090

generate, or I can apply for the NIH grants, which have the support from a lab, and part of my own salary come from NIH grants. I think––I can work as long as I can.

00:48:11.000 - 00:48:27.200

I think of course I-I feel there's some, some of the younger generation, some of the—they, they seem to be, to getting some more new techniques. New, new systems

00:48:27.330 - 00:48:41.280

to get the field. I feel there's a some kind of a-a kind of pressure from, from them. But I think on the other hand, I think––I think as a more senior person

00:48:41.710 - 00:48:57.390

in the field, and I-I have more experience. And I-I have a more balanced view to the whole field than this younger generation who is—they're very good in one or

00:48:59.040 - 00:49:17.400

two kind of special areas. Um, so I think uh I-I'm, in a way I feel I want to work with these younger scientists. And then I can, I can kinda contribute

00:49:18.520 - 00:49:41.010

my, my experience––my overall view in science. And at the same time, I can collaborate with them and try to, to get the advantage of hearing new approaches and

00:49:41.040 - 00:49:52.180

new–– new preparations, new…techniques. So I think I just feel, myself––not much of a, a––slowed- down mode yet.

00:49:53.690 - 00:50:09.260

I think—but I think––I-I feel that after…I don't know how many years, five years, ten years, I may think about slowing down and start to phasing out a little bit from the––from the day-to-day

00:50:10.010 - 00:50:27.150

lab work. But then I, I have a lot—I have two or three plans to, to write—write some books. Because I think that's something I always enjoy doing, which I told you that I—Ben

00:50:27.150 - 00:50:42.410

Johnson and I wrote a sort of new neurophysiology book that is a—a textbook. That 20 years, years ago, that's, that's the book I used to teach at Rice. So that textbook has been sold for about 10,000

00:50:44.290 - 00:50:58.240

co—copies. Uh, which I've been pretty well received. I think I want to write another book about the eye, about the retina, maybe about the brain.

00:50:58.320 - 00:51:09.650

And also I'm writing—I already started, but I'll finish—writing a book about myself. I have a—so I have a—kind of autobiography.

00:51:10.060 - 00:51:23.370

Actually, I first wrote, wrote them in Chinese, and then I translate them into, into English. Because my, my daughters would not be able to read Chinese. Yeah. So actually

00:51:23.370 - 00:51:36.820

that's part of the-the-the thing, I know I'm here , so that is the English translation. But English translation needs to be polished, because I need—I used the Google Translate, which is not very good.

00:51:37.480 - 00:51:52.170

But then I, though I polished them on top of Google Translate, but still not very, very good. So, but…that's the standard line. I think whatever time, I'm just writing a little bit down and document this, a

00:51:52.210 - 00:52:08.830

little bit of my experience in, in the…in China, in Hong Kong, also in the U.S. and in Houston. Actually I document—there's a couple things which has been

00:52:09.780 - 00:52:26.690

interesting in Houston, is that we…there was––30 years ago, we built our house in the Tanglewood area. And then afterward I would build a house there, then we found that the senior Bush, George H––Bush,

00:52:30.810 - 00:52:48.480

had land there, and a piece of lot there. But then after he was beaten by-by-by Bill Clinton, '92, he come move there, just on the same street, just about a few houses apart from our house, okay.

00:52:49.090 - 00:53:05.170

So, so we have been neighbor for the former president for all these years, until they unfortunately died just a––just last year, right. But then there was some interaction with them, it's kind of interesting.

00:53:05.410 - 00:53:18.650

You know, so-so I think yeah, so I remember, when the—the day when, when they came back to—from D. C. to-to-to here in '92.

00:53:19.730 - 00:53:29.630

So I was holding my second daughter, she was only eight, eight months old. To kind of wel—welcome back the president to Texas. And then when

00:53:30.920 - 00:53:51.610

my daughter saw, saw Bush, she cried, burst into—cried. And then Bush said, "She," you know, "she, she doesn't like me. She likes Bill." Bill Clinton, at that time. So that was kind of funny, and then, so

00:53:51.610 - 00:54:08.730

we have a lot of these interactions with them, they walk their dog through our—through our yard, and, and––and then we—yeah, so, so I think it has been a fun life here, you know, so it's––it's not sometimes a

00:54:08.730 - 00:54:24.200

very—kind of––there's some, some stressful moments, you know, to write a grant and take the-the kids go to college and apply for all the testing. But it's…basically fine.

00:54:27.150 - 00:54:48.270

Um, what would you consider are your greatest accomplishments so far? Well, I think I'm a reasonable neuroscientist, okay. I won't say…I won't say I'm the, the top-notch tiers, but I think––still

00:54:49.110 - 00:55:07.560

I think––I received quite a few awards, a few on my CV, some of them are worth a pretty––pretty pres—you know, they are pretty highly, highly regarded awards, so, I think I'm—I have a

00:55:07.560 - 00:55:23.590

reputation in the, in the field, which I'm a––I think I'm a good neuroscientist, okay. I––from the accomplishment, I think I published over 160 papers.

00:55:26.720 - 00:55:42.460

And not all of them will be remembered, but a few—but I think there are quite a few of them, it's going to have—to…have some kind of a long, long- term, you know kind of impacts to the, to the, to

00:55:42.950 - 00:55:59.370

the field. Mmm, I think I probably––my, the books I wrote, help—I think they help the people in the field.

00:55:59.470 - 00:56:19.720

I think hopefully the other books I'm going to write uh will, will––have some kind of a, a good, you know, influence to, to the students and the future

00:56:19.760 - 00:56:36.370

generations. That's my hope, okay. Did you have any questions, Steven? You've— Yeah, so you went to Berkeley for your undergraduate, that was in the '60s? Yeah. What was the atmosphere on campus at that time?

00:56:36.460 - 00:56:54.910

That's a very good question. Okay, I went there in…actually it's the early '70s, seven-zero. That was during the Vietnam War. That was actually the next—that spring is President

00:56:56.240 - 00:57:17.640

Nixon order to invasion of also Cambodia. So that spring term, the spring quarter at that time, the whole campus was on strike, okay. Okay. And then the, the good thing

00:57:20.050 - 00:57:31.980

about the, the strike is that everybody got an A. So I got four cheap A’s, in my, you know, that—but, okay, now

00:57:32.140 - 00:57:50.020

talking back to the campus. We have anti-war demonstrations, virtually every single day at that time. And the National Guards came to the campus. They, they—they walk on the campus every day.

00:57:52.510 - 00:58:06.430

Everybody has a wet towel. Even when you're walking on the campus. The tear gas is all over the place. You, you need a wet towel to get any closer.

00:58:06.540 - 00:58:24.060

And then, then I was even stopped one-one-one day—one night, I was…went to-to-to the library and come back, books , okay. And then a couple National Guard

00:58:24.060 - 00:58:40.990

people, "Where are you going?!" The way they interrogate you was to putting this stick on your forehead, back, "Where are you going?!" "I'm, you know, you know, so I'm going to the library, I'm

00:58:41.190 - 00:58:57.060

studying." Then I say, "Oh no I'm a foreign student." Mm, mm okay. So of course, most of foreign student, you know, won't be able—they, they didn't have to be drafted.

00:58:57.660 - 00:59:13.610

So the anti—the demonstrations, there were no-no-no foreign students, they're just the American students, okay. And then so, I was let go. So that was my-my-my closest encounter with, with the

00:59:13.610 - 00:59:28.520

National Guard, but they have, they––they're just big people there on the campus all the time. The other thing I found when I first semes—quarter I went to Berkeley, I come to live in a dorm.

00:59:31.030 - 00:59:50.400

My—so my roommate was American, white American student, pretty regular. And then I found, in the, on a window, he grow so many plants on, on the window, a little sun, I thought he must be a botany major.

00:59:51.910 - 01:00:07.130

And then it turned out to be all of them are-are-are the, the grass, those-those-those-those are the kind, you know, those are, some of them are the marijuana. The marijuana he grow, marijuana,

01:00:09.190 - 01:00:26.400

on the whole… on the whole window. So that's the atmosphere then during those days, and then—because, but then for the academia, like the physics department, all the students worked very hard, they were very

01:00:26.640 - 01:00:42.250

good students. But then just––anti-war movement because all the people got drafted, and then in the dorm there was two, two roommates, and they were—the draft number

01:00:42.910 - 01:00:57.720

equivalent to the birthday, from the birthday, they just randomly pick 365 days. And then my, that two roommates were draft number one and

01:00:58.260 - 01:01:13.000

number two. So they-they-they will have to, to be drafted, to be–– in Vietnam. But if you are 300, maybe you won't be able to kind of get drafted.

01:01:14.300 - 01:01:35.520

So there's a lot of kind of turm—turmoil, there was a lot of cannabis, they, they kind of, kind of smoke––some marijuana all the time. My roommate, I just saw

01:01:39.360 - 01:01:54.900

him rolling the marijuana, and then—but––but of course I ask him not to smoke in the room. Yeah. Yeah, but you know, it was very different. But then six years after, when I went back to Berkeley as a—as

01:01:55.060 - 01:02:08.600

a postdoc, that was '79. Everything changed. Yeah, because the, the draft already ended, Vietnam already ended and everything.

01:02:09.380 - 01:02:27.330

So most people from then on are pretty much you know, pretty much all changed. There's not too many anymore. But the first three years there, oh,

01:02:28.380 - 01:02:44.450

that was a fantastic adventure. But yeah, but yeah, that's what I thought, that was, that was America, just like this. Anyway, okay, so I think––is there any other things?

01:02:45.170 - 01:03:03.990

Um, I guess one last question is like, how would you identify yourself? Oh, I'm um, I think like I say, I'm a neuroscientist. Okay, I think probably––but of course I'm a––I'm also a Chinese American.

01:03:04.440 - 01:03:25.190

Okay, that's 'cause I was born in China, I have the Chinese background. And, but I'm more…like an American than Chinese from my pro—professional point of view. You know, there's some times, okay, yeah, I think your real question

01:03:25.350 - 01:03:37.030

is that—yes, occasionally, this––they––China invite me to some university, so Chinese academy invited me to give a seminar and teach a course there or something.

01:03:37.730 - 01:03:49.850

But I have to teach in the English language. So that tells, that because I don't know the Chinese terminologies and the names of the synaptic transmission or-or-or-or-or

01:03:51.750 - 01:04:04.500

the, the brain function, you know. So I have to teach them in English. So that's how I think, from the scientific point of view, I'm––I'm a hundred percent

01:04:05.980 - 01:04:23.380

American. But from the cultural, from that point of view, I'm Chinese American. I think that's how I'd put myself in, yeah.

01:04:23.380 - 01:04:39.210

Okay. Um, I guess one more last question is what advice would you have for like, student—students especially from like, Asia or like, China, who immigrate to the U.S. for their studies, what kind of advice would you give them? Oh, for the, for the, for the young—for the new ones,

01:04:39.550 - 01:04:56.310

right? No, I think …I, you know, first of all, I myself have a lot of Chinese students, and Chinese postdoctoral fellows, and some of the visiting scholars here are from China, so.

01:04:56.900 - 01:05:11.700

But at the same time, I have, you know, I have a lot of American students too. I think for the Chinese students I had, or maybe the, the newcomers––most of

01:05:11.770 - 01:05:27.360

them are very good in terms of doing, I mean, their-their-their skills. They can do very har—tough experiments. Some of the experiments I used to—so-called, the single-cell voltage clamps, you have to

01:05:27.460 - 01:05:46.700

put the electrodes in the very tiny cells and voltage clamp them for, for hours. And those exp—I found the Chinese, students from Chinese origin, they came mostly now from, from mainland China.

01:05:47.500 - 01:05:59.990

Because in the past there were some from Taiwan, there's some from, from Hong Kong. But now-a-days, the majority of them are from mainland. They are very good in skills.

01:06:00.220 - 01:06:18.010

There's sometimes, their skill or patience are even better than some of the, the American students. But their, their biggest problem is that their…they, their

01:06:18.210 - 01:06:33.130

written lang—written English and verbal English. Verbal English, you can train, even, you know, but you, but you just—when you can give a seminar, you can train, train a student, grill them. But the written,

01:06:33.130 - 01:06:51.580

you know, you have to write grants, you have to write papers. They seem to leave out a big problem. Mos—some of them, they, they overcome that problem, but a lot of them still have that problem. That will tell whether a student is going to be successful

01:06:52.580 - 01:07:08.260

in their, the career path. If somebody can write English very well, they usually have no big problems. But still I think I still have some people that I

01:07:08.470 - 01:07:24.810

know, they still have to—have struggle. They can do experiments, they can generate data. But then when they put them together, and to sell it to the journals, to get a grant, they have that problem, okay.

01:07:26.580 - 01:07:42.540

The other thing is that they need to be much more open-minded, and they are much more innovative, they're more daring. And those, the Asian students seem to be more conservative, you know, just say that, "I'm

01:07:43.120 - 01:07:55.540

going to play it safe. I'm going to play—play safe." Okay, that, that is good, in a way, of course, I whenever want to play safe to get the good data. But you also, you have to be much more imaginative.

01:07:58.460 - 01:08:12.950

So that's the two—two things. You have to open up your mind to be more imaginative, and then you have to make your written English as good as you can, you

01:08:16.000 - 01:08:29.070

can do. And then of course, then you have to learn, you have to work hard, all those things. Um, it's fine, I think most of the Asian students are pretty good at

01:08:29.370 - 01:08:44.170

that. But these two, two things, they really need. That's what I have been telling all the, all the, all the students. You know, the, the Asian students, they were trained as an undergrad student in China.

01:08:44.690 - 01:09:01.790

You just follow what your, your teacher, you know, told you. That, I told my students, you can challenge me all the time. Just say, if I say something, don't just take it

01:09:02.000 - 01:09:11.020

always at the face value, you have to question me. And, and challenge me. And then we can talk, okay. I may be right, I may be wrong.

01:09:12.770 - 01:09:27.300

But they, that's something they need to learn. Do you have any last questions? Nope. Okay. Well, thank you so much for allowing us to interview you, Dr.

01:09:27.440 - 01:09:38.150

Wu. No, I'm sorry I didn't—I haven't been—I'm just, getting old and getting long-winded all the time. No worries, thank you!