Growing up in East Java, That T. Ngo, known in Mandarin as Wu Da Ying, a Hakka Chinese Indonesian experiences blatant racial discrimination and also witnesses shocking human rights violations in his native country of Indonesia. His Chinese education was unacceptable for entry to any state-run university in Indonesia. His struggle to obtain a higher education in Canada, and his reverence to the True North are passionately and poignantly chronicled in this collection of poems and essays. Exposure to different cultures strengthens his belief that no culture is superior to another, they are simply different. His poems praise the beauty of Indonesia and her gentle but often exploited people. The poems also advocate forcefully for the oppressed and innocent. The poems show deep appreciation to his high schools and the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. The poems illustrate his appreciation to the mutually nurturing influences of his classmates, as well as his gratefulness to his teachers and professors. His cherished memories of his journey from Indonesia through Canada and finally to United States of America, of his family, colleagues and friends are vividly, generously, eloquently and elegantly expressed.
About the Author: That Tjien Ngo, also known as Wu Da Ying in Mandarin, was born in East Java, Indonesia, into a Hakka Chinese-Indonesian family. He attended Chinese schools in East Java. The racially-motivated and hateful government regulations against Chinese-Indonesians made his high school education unacceptable for entry to any state-run university. In 1966 he reluctantly left Indonesia and began his undergraduate studies at the University of Saskatchewan, in Canada. He graduated in 1970 with honors degree in Biochemistry and completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1973. He did his post-doctoral training at the University of Ottawa, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Clinical Research Institute of Montreal. He was elected as Fellow of the American Institute of Chemists (1991), the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (2005) and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (2006). His career in biochemistry began in academia and continued in biotechnology industry where he also took on leadership positions in both research and corporate management. He has published numerous scientific articles and books, and held several patents. He served on the editorial board of several chemical journals. He was a frequent speaker and consultant in the biomedical and biotechnology industry. Since retiring from biochemical research, he has written four cookbooks and a candid memoir published in English and Indonesian, and began writing poems and essays in Chinese.