In the Beginning

I had an awesome childhood. Although I was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, we quickly moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan where my father, Pei-Rin Wu, got his PhD from University of Michigan.  My memories of Rapid City are limited; I remember wearing a warm, white rabbit-fur had with ties that ended in pompoms.  We posed for a family photo; my mother, Susan, told me to look at the camera, and as she was speaking to me I looked at her face and heard the camera click as I turned. The photo shows a white blur where my face should be.

Ann Arbor houses more memories for me.  We lived in graduate student housing, a brick apartment building that had black metal staircases going downstairs to the playground. The sand of the sandbox was warm against my tights. I played in the sand for hours.  I also would swing on the swings or sit on the metal staircase with my baby doll that had the bottle of disappearing milk.

One time a boy told a bunch of us to sit on the ground in front of him.  He then held up a ride-able plastic train over his head, said, "This won't hurt a bit" and then slammed the train on our heads.  It hurt.  I cried.  I ran to our apartment.  My parents extracted the round plastic ponytail bead from my head since it had been pressed into my head.  My sense of trust was shattered that day.  I always ask myself if I am being tricked. But my temperament is to automatically trust others.  So it is always good to trust with ones eyes wide open.

Sometimes we can learn from our childhood experiences. They always leave an impression. From this experience when I was maybe three years old, I learned that not everybody can be trusted.