“In July 2024, I boarded a plane to New Haven for the first time, carrying with me a deep passion for nursing informatics and elderly care. From the moment I arrived at Yale, language became my first real challenge. I started from the very basics — practicing daily greetings, learning how to craft an elevator speech, working through sentence structures and paragraph writing in class, and spending long hours in the library sharpening my listening and speaking skills. Slowly, English stopped feeling like a barrier and became something more — a window through which I could truly feel and understand this new world around me. Every conversation, every lecture, every debate quietly expanded the boundaries of who I was. And through it all, the Yale-China Association made sure I never felt alone. It was through the Association that I found myself hiking through hills blazing with autumn color alongside friends from across the globe, sitting in a chapel letting the resonance of a pipe organ wash over me, and laughing around a dinner table, telling stories of home in my still-imperfect English. These moments may have seemed small, but they were the quiet strength that carried me through my time far from home.”

“Inside the classrooms of Yale School of Nursing, something shifted in me. I audited courses in quantitative research methods and healthcare innovation, attended lectures on NIH grant writing and case analysis, and sat alongside scholars from around the world to discuss how digital health could genuinely serve the needs of older adults. Every discussion felt like a beam of light falling on the question I cared about most deeply — how could technology be made gentle enough to truly understand the lives of elderly people, and how could frontline healthcare workers be given tools that were both intuitive and precise? It was here at Yale that I saw, more clearly than ever before, the vast and promising intersection between nursing informatics and elderly care. The memory of morning sunlight streaming through the nursing school windows, falling across a desk full of lecture notes, still lives clearly in my mind — a reminder of why I had come, and what I had found.”

“When I returned home, I carried that clarity with me. The research I had been developing — a graphical assessment tool for evaluating the capabilities of community-dwelling elderly — moved forward with renewed purpose, nourished by the methods and insights I had gathered at Yale. Then in September 2024, I took what felt like the most meaningful step of my professional life: I formally began my doctoral studies in nursing, committing myself to the deep integration of elderly care and nursing informatics as my academic mission for the years ahead. On the late nights when the research is hard and exhaustion sets in, I find myself thinking of the warmth the Yale-China Association showed me, of the generosity of my teachers at Yale, of the trust Xiangya Hospital placed in me when they let me go, and of my family, waiting quietly for me on the other side of the world. Gratitude, to me, is not something you simply say — it is something you earn, slowly, through every honest step you take forward. One hundred and twenty-five years ago, the Yale-China Association planted a seed of connection across oceans and cultures. One hundred and twenty-five years later, that seed is still growing, still blooming, in the stories of people like me. I am so grateful to be even a small leaf on that tree. May this bond endure, and may it continue to bring warmth to all whose lives it touches.”

— LI Jing, Chia Health Fellow (Yale, 2024-’25)

Li Jing is a supervising nurse at Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, specializing in nursing informatics and elderly care. She visited Yale School of Nursing from July to December 2024.

“In 1984, a young woman named Nina McPherson walked into a classroom at Central China Normal University in Wuhan.

At the time, none of us knew that she represented an organization with a history already stretching back more than eight decades. Nor did we understand that her presence in that classroom was part of a much larger story connecting New Haven and China, Yale and Yali, two cultures separated by oceans and political systems but joined by a quiet belief in the power of education.

To us, she was simply Nina.”

A photo of the author taken by Nina Mcpherson in 1985

“Fresh out of Yale University, blonde, energetic, and not much older than many of the students she taught, she became the first foreigner most of us had ever met. China in the mid-1980s was only beginning to open to the world. For many of us who had grown up in small towns and rural villages, the outside world was something we knew only through books, newspapers, and imagination.

Then Nina appeared.

The first thing she gave us was not grammar or vocabulary. It was a name.

On the first day of class, she assigned English names to each student, offering several choices and encouraging us to select one we liked. I chose Tim simply because the first letter of my last name is also T. At the time it seemed like a small classroom exercise. Forty years later, I realize it was much more than that.

That name traveled with me from Wuhan to Beijing, from Frankfurt to Zurich, from Paris to New York. It appeared on business cards, conference badges, and countless introductions. Through it, a young man from rural western Hunan gradually learned to move through an international world.

The name was a gift. But the greater gift was confidence.

Nina made foreignness feel ordinary.

She showed us that people from different countries were not mysterious or frightening. They laughed, made mistakes, shared meals, worried about life, and cared about their students. Through her, many of us began to trust people beyond our own culture. In later decades, Americans, Germans, French, Swiss, Indians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Nigerians would become colleagues, partners, and friends. Looking back, I can trace that openness to a young Yale graduate standing in front of a classroom in Wuhan.

Photographs from those years preserve moments that memory alone cannot.”

“In one picture, Nina stands among a group of young men leaning over a balcony railing. Behind them rises a massive red column of the university building, occupying the center of the frame. The students wear expressions that only youth can produce—half confidence, half uncertainty, entirely hopeful. Looking at the photograph today, the red pillar seems almost symbolic. It stands like a bridge between worlds, connecting students who had barely seen beyond China with a visitor who had crossed the Pacific to teach them.

In another photograph, Nina stands among a row of female students. Behind them is a large mural of a young woman’s face, painted in soft yellow tones and decorated with sparkling stars. The image captures the aspirations of an era. China was beginning to imagine possibilities beyond old limitations, and those students, like the figure in the painting, looked toward a future that seemed both distant and luminous.

A third photograph shows the entire class gathered around Nina. Behind them hangs a political slogan familiar to every Chinese student of that generation. Yet what catches the eye today is not the slogan but the people. The future professors, teachers, scholars, businesspeople, and professionals stand together around a teacher who, without knowing it, would become part of their life stories.

Nina’s influence extended far beyond language instruction.

She introduced us to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. For many students, it was the first time seeing Western art. Some still remember their first encounter with nude paintings in a university library under Nina’s guidance. Others remember learning about Monet, Van Gogh, and Cézanne. Several classmates later became university professors and would eventually teach those same ideas to new generations of students.

Her writing classes were equally memorable. She corrected essays with extraordinary care, evaluating vocabulary, sentence quality, content, grammar, and rhetoric separately. She selected excellent phrases from student papers, typed them on a typewriter, and distributed them for discussion. Long before “student-centered learning” became a fashionable term, Nina practiced it naturally.

She taught us how to write. More importantly, she taught us how to think.

Outside the classroom, she embodied generosity.

She lent students her camera for a budget trip to Lushan Mountain. She shared books. She brought chocolates sent by her mother from America—tiny treasures in a China where few students had ever tasted chocolate. She invited students to meals and encouraged conversations that continued long after class ended.

Years later, classmates would remember details that seemed insignificant at the time: a lunch of hot dry noodles, an evening conversation outside her apartment, advice about writing to the university president or the city mayor, encouragement to speak English without fear.

What remains remarkable is not any single memory, but the consistency of them all.

Again and again, people remember kindness.

Again and again, they remember curiosity.

Again and again, they remember respect.

Only later did many of us learn that Nina was part of a much larger story.

She had come to China through Yale-China Association, known in Chinese as the Yali Xiehui.

Founded in 1901, Yale-China has spent more than a century building relationships between China and the United States through education, medicine, public health, and cultural exchange. Its impact can be measured in institutions, schools, hospitals, and programs. Yet perhaps its deepest influence cannot be measured statistically.

Its true legacy lives in human relationships.

History often records organizations through budgets, buildings, and official achievements. But organizations ultimately shape history through people. The influence of Yale-China was carried not only by presidents, scholars, and administrators. It was also carried by individuals like Nina, who entered classrooms, shared knowledge, listened carefully, and built trust one conversation at a time.

One young teacher influenced dozens of students.

Those students became professors, educators, researchers, entrepreneurs, and professionals.

They taught thousands of students of their own.

The circle expanded.

This is how influence moves across generations.

This is how history works.”

The author visited Yale-China Association in April 2026

“When I visited Yale-China’s headquarters at Yale University in 2026, more than forty years after Nina first walked into our classroom, I found myself thinking less about institutions and more about people.

Organizations create opportunities.
People create memories.

Organizations build bridges.

People cross them.

For 125 years, Yale-China has connected two nations not primarily through policies, but through relationships. It has done so through countless individuals whose names may never appear in history books, yet whose quiet actions altered lives.

For our class, one of those people was Nina McPherson.

We remember her not because she represented an institution.

We remember her because she made the institution human.

And perhaps that is the most enduring achievement of Yale-China over the past century and a quarter: transforming distant nations into familiar faces, and turning strangers into lifelong friends.”

— Tim Tang, Ph.D.

“A Spark That Finds Its Ground — For Yale-China’s 125th Anniversary

My name is Wu Yujiao, from the People’s Hospital of Huayuan County—a remote corner of western Hunan. When I was named a 2026 Western Hunan Chia Fellow, I left my hometown with a pounding heart. The truth is, I was terrified. On my first day at the Third Xiangya Hospital, my colleague Peng Qian and I walked into Professor Xie Jianfei’s research group. We didn’t know what to expect. Then we saw the cake. “Welcome to Sweety Town,” the theme read. In that small, warm ritual, I felt something I had not dared to hope for: You belong here. The fear did not disappear all at once, but it began to loosen. Days turned into weeks—graduate courses, research design, clinical shifts. Then came March 14th: the 120th anniversary of Xiangya Hospital and the 24th Chia Fellowship Annual Conference. I listened to leading experts and past Chia Fellows. My heart swelled. But the moment that broke me was Professor Xie’s own speech: “Our story is a testament to how small lights ignite a prairie fire. I carry forward Mr. Chia Peiyuan’s love—across mountains and oceans. I choose to be a spark, burning on Chinese soil, generation after generation.” And then she wept—out of gratitude, not sorrow. In the audience, I wept with her.Today is my 66th day here. I am no longer the timid nurse who arrived from a faraway county. I feel lucky. More than luck, I feel rooted. I now know that I can become a spark too—one that will travel back to western Hunan, to the people waiting for care. Let me become light. Let us pass this light on, unbroken and undimmed. That is how we remember. That is how we love.”

— WU Yujiao, Chia Health Fellow (Xinagya, 2025-'26)

“A Precious Journal at Yale

In 2019, I was fortunate to participate in a visiting program at Yale University sponsored by the Yale China Association. This precious journey left me with countless warm memories and profound inspiration. This photo perfectly captures a joyful moment from our gathering and certification ceremony. During my time at Yale, I immersed myself in an open and inclusive academic environment, exchanged ideas with outstanding scholars and kind-hearted friends from diverse backgrounds, and gained valuable insights far beyond textbooks. Every conversation, discussion, and shared experience broadened my horizons, reshaped my perspectives, and filled my heart with warmth and joy. I am deeply grateful to the Yale China Association for this extraordinary opportunity, which allowed me to step onto the world-renowned campus, connect with wonderful people, and grow both academically and personally. I also cherish all the sincere friendships I made there. This meaningful experience has become a precious treasure in my life, encouraging me to keep learning, exploring, and moving forward with a broader vision.”

— ZHENG Feng, Chia Health Fellow (Yale 2019-'20)

“王 思文

回望过去，作为雅礼协会的贾氏学者已经10年了。虽然因为个人原因，离开了原单位。但时至今日，我都能够很骄傲的说：我是一名贾氏学者。当初年仅25岁的我，有幸成为贾氏学者，开展的课题是《脑卒中患者的早期康复护理》，在湘雅学习阶段，我的导师陈华给了我很多帮助，她总是那么温柔体贴、Lucy杨老师也会经常关心我们，因为深知走出大山不容易、学习到新的知识不容易，所以我倍加珍惜，我学习了专业的知识，提升了专业的技能。当我带着所学知识回到原单位时，创建了康复专科，使更多的脑卒中患者能够回归社会，回归家庭，重拾自信，减轻家庭负担。那时候的我，连晚上做梦都会梦见这个病人手可以抬起来了、这个病人可以走路了等等。到目前为止，我一直以我是雅礼协会的贾氏学者为傲，当今年刚好面临换工作，面试官问我贾氏学者是什么？我依然可以很骄傲的说出贾氏学者的由来。我想，没有雅礼协会，就没有现在的自己，很感谢有这个机会，让我去学习本不可能接触的专业知识，愿雅礼。协会发展的越来越好，愿人类永远健康 。”

— WANG Siwen, Chia Health Fellow (Xiangya 2014-'15)

“In September of 1984, as a new student in Class 8403 in the English Department of Central China Normal Institute (now Central China Normal University) in Wuhan, Hubei, life was full of happy surprises and possibilities. We welcomed Ms. Nina McPherson as our first foreign teacher, who touched our lives, made huge influence on us during the two years she taught us English.

She was a new Yale University graduate and taught us Conversational English in the first school year and then English Composition in the second year. Even after more than 4 decades, I still remember how she came across as a foreign teacher, just a few years our senior, confident, energetic, versatile, enthusiastic, and passionate about her job.

In the two years, she brought numerous first experiences to us. She asked us to call her Nina, not the usual way we addressed our teachers from primary school to university. Surprise, happy surprise!

After two or three weeks, she helped us to find an English name for ourselves for the first time. She sat with each of us and learned how we pronounced our Chinese name and she wrote down a handful of English names that sounded like or close to our Chinese names and asked us to select one that we wanted to be our own names. It was surely a fun and warm assignment. We happily selected a name we liked, enjoyed a naming right that usually belongs to parents and stick to that name ever after.

Mid eighties was a time when China just opened its door to the outside world. She was our very first foreign teacher and brought native English to our classroom. Most of us did not hear native English speakers, let alone of having real contact with a foreigner. She filled our first imagination of the America, a far away country across the Pacific Ocean and its people with a positive note.

The English we learned from our textbooks was quite different from the real-world English spoken by native English speakers. For most of us, that was the first time we heard real-life English spoken by a native speaker. The American English that came out of her mouth so naturally and effortlessly was music to our ears.

Nina also brought color photos to our lives for the first time. The color group photographs she took for us brought back fond memories of those university years. It was rare for average Chinese to have cameras for color photos back then. It was extremely hard to find a shop that could develop color photography in the first year.

Nina had a passion towards her job and went extra miles to help us to learn and grow our English. She committed a ton of her spare time helping us to speak and write what we intended so we got our ideas out clearly and naturally. She authored some short funny English dramas from her own experience in learning and using Chinese language and directed her students to perform them, like the confusion of “me” and Chinese last name “Mi”, “who” and last name of “Hu” , which helped some of us found the acting talent that they did not know they had.

It is safe to say that she was the first person that introduced us to western paintings. We were shocked and excited when we opened those hard copy books of western paintings in the classroom. I believe she used her status as a foreign teacher and her wonderful persuasion skills to borrow those books from the university library for us. We were very shy to see those paintings of naked men and women, had no clue on how to appreciate those paintings. She asked us to tell what it was in the painting using our own words and what the artist wanted to convey. Bit by bit, we developed the sense and skill to appreciate Western paintings. Personally, I nurtured a love of impressionist paintings from those classes. The sweet memory of those classes came back each time when I stand in front of an impressionist painting in the museums and galleries I visited in many countries over the years. Each time I am grateful that I had the opportunity to see those great paintings in the classroom and had developed the skills to appreciate the beauty of Western painting.

During the second year when she taught us English composition, Nina taught us how to write an essay with an introduction, supporting paragraphs and a conclusion. She showed us with well-written essays how to construct a paragraph with a topic sentence with supporting details, make connection and transition from one paragraph to another and end the essay with a reinforcement statement. She scheduled time with each of us to go through our essay individually and went paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence on how to improve our writing. Each of us benefited enormously from those one-on-one conversations. These basic writing skills have proved practical and handy in our future life and career no matter what we do for a living.

Just as she put her whole heart into her teaching role, Nina strove to excel in everything she did. When she first went to China, she was armed with little English. While she stayed in China, she seized every opportunity to speak and improve her Chinese. By the end of her second year in China, she could speak very fluent Chinese you could hardly believe.

The way Nina committed to her teaching job and interacted with her students made her an unforgettable teacher for many of us and left a lasting mark on our lives in the years to come. I hope that young people from China and the US today can benefit from the open minds both countries demonstrated during that time and Yale-China could find people from both countries that are ready to open their minds and embrace a journey to understand people who speak different languages and learn from each other just like Ms. Nina McPherson.”

— Julia Liu

“I really appreciate the Yale-China Association!”

— ZHANG Haiyan, Chia Health Fellow (Yale 2010)

“For me, the two years I spent living and teaching at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1991-1993) transformed my world view. I grew up in a suburb of Rochester, New York, and had only traveled overseas to Italy and England. As a white woman and native English speaker, I was accustomed to being in the majority and easily navigating the world. In Hong Kong I was exposed to an entirely new language, culture, and community. As I navigated the subway system and restaurants, I struggled to communicate. And in the New Territories, which had a much smaller international population than Hong Kong Island, I was a minority for the first time in my life. This experience was humbling and taught me to be curious and ask questions. I loved my students and my tenure launched me on a path as an educator. Upon my return to the United States, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program in American Studies and then had a 25-year-long career as a high school Social Studies teacher at Bullis School. I recently stepped away from full-time teaching but have returned to my ESL roots. I now volunteer with adult immigrants, teaching English and helping people prepare for the citizenship exam.Lastly, I used Hong Kong as a ‘home base’ to explore much of Southeast Asia. Over two years I traveled to Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and mainland China. I am forever grateful for this opportunity to see the world and experience new cultures first hand. My love of travel continued long after Yale-China: at Bullis School, I led student trips to Argentina, Cambodia (3 times!) and Germany. And just recently, I traveled solo to Korea and Japan.I am forever appreciative that the Yale-China Association selected me as a teaching fellow back in April, 1991. It truly transformed my life.”

— Sara Romeyn, Yale-China Fellow (Chinese University of Hong Kong 1991-'93)

“感恩此次美丽的遇见
冯胜十

四月十二日，我来长沙学习已经整整六周了。

日子过得真快。快得让我有些慌张，仿佛每天睁开眼，就有太多东西涌进来，脑子还没来得及装下，天就又黑了。第五周开始，身体就不太听话。起初以为是鼻炎犯了，脑子昏沉沉的，也没太在意。到了这周二，咳出浓痰来，自己加了抗生素，却一点用也没有。最折磨人的是夜里——气道像被什么东西掐住了，一咳起来就止不住，整片肺叶都恨不得震出来。有时咳得狠了，胃里的东西都呕出来了，可那口气还是缩在那里，不肯松开。昨晚只迷迷糊糊挨了一个小时，天就亮了。

天亮之后，我还是去了湘雅医院。今天是第十一届精益护理质量管理大会的分会场，我守的是第五会场——科研创新与精益管理，科教楼一楼一百零八室。地址我反复确认了好几遍，生怕走错了。一夜没怎么睡，人反倒有一种奇怪的清醒，像绷紧的弦，又像踩在棉花上。累是真的累，可我还是去了。

为什么呢？

我想，是因为心里那份想与科研创新再走近一步的决心吧。以前也零零散散地学过一些，尝到过一点点甜头，但始终是碎片，拼不成完整的图。没有系统，就不会融会贯通，做起来总是别扭的、吃力的。我知道自己进步得太慢了，可又偏偏心急；而静下来想，我做的努力，确实还太少。

会场上十堂课听下来，统计学那部分像一团浓雾，模模糊糊抓不住；临床试验流程，总觉得那是离我很远的、够不着的领域，听着听着就走了神。但剩下的八堂课，满满的都是干货。那些站在台上的专家，谈吐间自有一种光彩，是真正的人中龙凤。我坐在台下，心里生出一种朴素而强烈的情绪——崇拜。不是仰望，是那种想靠近、想成为的崇拜。

可今天这篇日记，我执意要取一个名字——“感恩此次美丽的遇见”。因为来长沙学习本身，就是我与贾氏基金会最美丽的遇见。这份遇见，让我看到了世界上多一面的美好，也让我那颗想进步的心，找到了最合适的摇篮。不管旁人从世俗的角度如何评说，我对自己与这份平台之间那份纯真的感情，始终抱有美好的期望。它像一位天使，引我走进一个更真、更善、更美的、热爱健康事业的女性群体。吴迪主任的倾心策划，蔺莹主席的悉心安排，吴疗芳老师的爱心执行——这些名字背后，是一个集体的温度，是人文关怀的具象。

我甚至开始浮想联翩：如果学好英语，能去美国长长见识，该多好啊。离那些优秀的人再近一步，该多值得啊。三十八岁的年纪，有人说“只有十几年就要退休了，还折腾什么呢？”可我还是觉得，只要活着，再晚也有追求进步的自由。

此次遇见，还有幸遇见了熠熠生辉的湘雅医院。正值建院一百二十周年，十二是一个圆满的数字，十个十二，便是十全十美。我站在这座巍峨的建筑面前，觉得“美好”这个词都不够用了。它的付出与伟大，是刻在岁月里的。“公勇勤慎”是大义，“诚爱谦廉”是大爱，“求真求确，必邃必专”是对医学极致的虔诚。它像医疗领域的定海神针，为人民的健康航船掌舵。

而更让我此生难忘的，是报到那天与导师们的初见。

吴疗芳老师领着我走进重症医学科。穿过熟悉的病房走廊，脚步匆匆的医护人员、此起彼伏的监测警报、那些随时可能跳动的危险数字——这一切我太熟悉了，却又觉得陌生，因为这一次，我是以学员的身份走进来。殷俊老师从忙碌中抽身，笑盈盈地迎过来，像一道光。那一刻我就知道，我找到了队伍。

推开护士长办公室的门，又是一番繁忙景象。王青霞护士长正在与人全神贯注地商讨着什么，像司令部的指挥。导师介绍我们相识，四目相对，自然而然地说起了家乡话。那种感觉——熟悉的、安心的、喜悦的、激动的——我找不到一个词能完全概括。只记得王青霞护士长亲切地交代了工作，最后说了一句：“有什么困难都可以来找我，就叫我青霞姐吧。”

我笑着点头，有些害羞。可心里翻涌着感动——感动于他乡遇故人的温暖，感慨于如此优秀的人竟这般平易近人。我甚至悄悄地把“能喊一声青霞姐”当作了一种骄傲。她身上那些优秀的品质，才是我该去耳濡目染的。我的导师，青霞姐。

再后来，接到了书写项目计划书的通知。短短几天，对我而言是莫大的挑战。没日没夜地琢磨，终于等到护理学院肖老师来指导。我鼓起勇气，把自己的项目书拿出来当“改错的范本”。肖老师看起来年龄不大，朴素，思维却像刀锋一样清晰。她讲的每一个点，我都努力记下来，那些理念像烙印一样打在心里——只是脑子偶尔会死机，得回去慢慢捋、慢慢嚼、慢慢咽，最后变成肚子里的墨水。她是美国贾氏学者，腹有诗书气自华，说的就是她吧。

座谈会上，护理部岳丽青主任、李丽副主任、吴疗芳老师细细询问我们的学习生活。我一时激动，脱口而出：“感觉自己像掉进了大米缸的老鼠，学也学不完。”大家笑了，事后我有点后悔这个比喻不够雅观。可那份真实的幸福感，已经种在了心里。

更大的惊喜在后头。导师通知我，曹岚老师会来指导我的项目书。曹岚老师——重症超声界的偶像，湖南的骄傲，护理人的骄傲。来之前我读过她许多文章，科研达人，产量骄子。能见到她，这次学习的价值已无法估算。见面时，她话不多，却字字真经，三下五除二就把我的项目书理得清清楚楚。顿悟，就是那一刻的感觉。

还有张春艳老师，带我入科培训，像朋友一样关心我，把自己的鞋柜分我一半；杨清老师，大家都叫她“清妈”，语气温柔，教学耐心；赵春光教授，查房时思路清晰，激情澎湃，随时随地拿起笔就在墙上画，把复杂的病理生理揉碎了讲，时不时幽默几句，和同学们俏皮互动。跟这样的老师学习，是快乐的。我感受过了。

时间啊，过得太快了。二十周的学习，余额只剩十四周。我只求它慢一点，让我在这美好的相遇时光里，多存一点故事，留给以后慢慢品尝。

感恩此次美丽的遇见——遇见贾氏，遇见湘雅，遇见青霞姐、殷俊老师、肖锦荣老师、曹岚老师及遇见每一位照亮我的师长。更感恩那个在咳嗽与疲惫中依然选择走进一百零八室的自己。

三十八岁，不是终点，甚至不是中点。只要还在路上，就永远有遇见的可能。

而每一次美丽的遇见，都是生命赠予勇者的回响。”

— FENG Shengshi, Chia Health Fellow (Xiangya 2025-'26)

Celebrating Halloween at Yale-China with Yale-China staff members Leslie (left) and Theresa (center)

“We truly appreciate the Yale-China Association for making my visit at Yale University so warm, welcoming, and enriching—both academically and personally. Thanks to their thoughtful support, we had wonderful opportunities to join in American holiday celebrations and connect more deeply with everyday life and culture in the U.S.”

— QIU Tieying, Chia Health Fellow (Yale 2024-'25)

“以微光赴山海，以医者暖乡野
凤凰县人民医院 李弦

百年雅礼薪火不息，相传，长期深耕湖湘基层医疗公益多年。我参与的事业。雅礼协会贾氏卫生奖学金项目，自2012年起扎根湘西，专注持续资助本土女性基层卫生工作者进修成长提升，为偏远山区培育留得住、用得上的本土医疗力量，让规范、优质的医疗服务真正扎根乡土、惠及乡民。

参与项目前，我的工作十分单一，只是机械执行医嘱，日常做做打针、量体温这类基础常规护理。那时的我以为，踏踏实实做好本职工作，就是职业生涯的全部。直到2014年，我有幸加入湘西贾氏学者卫生项目，获得了系统学习全新护理专业知识的宝贵机会。起初面对新知识、新理念，我满心茫然、无从下手，在持续的学习与实操中，慢慢熟练掌握各项专业技能。这个项目不止侧重理论教学，更注重落地实践，让我真正实现了专业上的蜕变与成长。在学习过程中有困难、有茫然、有不解最终在老师的帮助下

学成归来，我满怀收获与底气，将项目所学的专业理念与规范技术全面运用到日常临床工作中。为补齐县域伤口护理的短板，我率先在县级医院牵头成立压疮管理小组，把从项目中学到的标准化护理知识、实操技巧毫无保留地分享给同事，带动科室整体提升压疮预防与处置水平，让更多住院患者受益于规范、优质的护理服务。凭着持续的钻研与实践积累，三年后我成功牵头开设伤口造口护理门诊，这也是湘西地区县级医院中首个由护士独立开展的专科护理门诊。从此，本地伤口、造口患者无需辗转外地，在家门口就能得到专业、系统的护理诊疗服务，切实解决了群众就医难的问题。一晃十年过去，我始终坚守初心、深耕专科护理领域，持之以恒精进专业技术、优化服务质量。十年坚守、久久为功，如今我的护理门诊收获了无数患者的真诚锦旗与高度认可，也多次获得医院及上级部门的表扬肯定，在全县专科护理领域树立了良好标杆，推动了我县伤口造口专科护理规范化发展，在县域医疗服务体系中发挥了重要作用。与此同时，我始终牢记基层服务初心，坚持下沉一线开展入户随访、免费义诊与健康科普，用朴实的乡土语言普及伤口管理、伤口营养护理等健康知识，慢慢扭转了村民陈旧的健康观念。

于我而言，雅礼卫生项目带来的不仅是专业能力的提升，更有坚守基层的底气与信念。一批批湘西本土卫生工作者在项目赋能下成长起来，我们接续坚守、深耕乡土，把专业知识转化为惠民实效，持续完善乡村卫生服务，守护一方百姓健康。

从迷茫彷徨到坚定笃定，从被动履职到主动担当，我与雅礼协会卫生项目相伴同行，在山野间坚守初心、默默耕耘。未来，我也将带着这份馈赠继续前行，以微光护民生，以医者之力守护乡土安康。 ”

— LI Xian, Chia Health Fellow (Xiangya 2013-'14)

“I got involved two decades ago, in 2006… China had expressed interest in medical education and exchange because there was no residency training program there. They only had the “barefoot doctor” as well as minimal training… We began to have exchanges of delegations coming from Changsha, China to here, as well as we were going there. Over the ensuing years we shared with them our United States model of training… In 2014 they established the Chinese Residency Training Program and that’s nationwide. Over the ensuing years, they have trained over one million residents. You have one million residents and they’re seeing thousands of patients a day. You can only imagine the impact of that.”

— Barry Wu, Former Trustee and Yale-China Health Committee Chair

“There are moments when history ceases to be a collection of dates and becomes something you feel in your bones. For me, that moment arrives every time I step off the plane in Changsha. The humid air, the surge of the Xiang River, and the modern skyline stand as testament to a city reborn. Yet beneath that modernity, I walk in the footsteps of giants. As great-grandson of Dr. Edward Hicks Hume, founder of what would become the Xiangya Hospital system, my life has been a series of bridges between a distant family past and the living, breathing Chinese present. As Yale-China celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2026, I find myself reflecting on the invisible ties that bind a Yale graduate from 1897 to the bustling Changsha of today.

When Dr. Hume arrived in Changsha in 1905, he walked into a world of suspicion and hostility. He later recounted his arrival in vivid detail in his memoir, Doctors East, Doctors West. At the dock, he faced stares and whispers, wondering whether the crowd was friendly or hostile. Passing through the city gates, he saw posters with anti-foreign slogans. Mothers hid their children from the “evil eye” of the foreigner, and he could hear the muttered epithet “Yang guizi” (洋鬼子)—“foreign devil.” His colleague Brownell Gage described the suffocating feeling of the walled city’s narrow streets, where hanging signs and straw awnings blocked out the sun entirely. Into that environment, in 1906, Dr. Hume founded a small 20-bed clinic in a former rice warehouse on West Pailou Street. They named it “Yali” (雅礼), a phonetic rendering of Yale that also conveyed the Confucian concept of “refined comportment.” That tiny clinic was a seed from which a mighty tree would grow.

My great-grandmother, Lotta Carswell Hume, managed a household that was a microcosm of cultural negotiation, navigating Chinese social hierarchies with humor and deep curiosity. She collected the stories she heard from neighbors and her children’s Chinese playmates, and years later shaped them into a cherished book, Favorite Children’s Stories from China and Tibet. Growing up, we were spellbound by those same tales. It was our first introduction to the land where my grandmother, Charlotte Elizabeth Hume, was born in 1906 in the mountain retreat of Kuling.

The real breakthrough came in 1914. The local Hunanese gentry, led by figures like Tan Yankai, desired a medical college to train Chinese physicians in modern science. An agreement between Yale-China and the Hunan Yuqun Association created the first cooperative educational venture of its kind in China. The new institution was named “Xiangya” (湘雅), combining the literary name for Hunan – “Xiang” – with “Ya” for Yale. A Chinese saying was born that endures to this day: “In the North, the Union; in the South, Xiangya,” placing the young institution on par with the Peking Union Medical College, established in Beijing around the same time by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Dr. Hume’s philosophy was ahead of its time. He insisted on the highest scientific standards while deeply respecting Chinese culture. “We are guests here,” he wrote. He actively recruited brilliant Chinese colleagues, most notably Dr. Yan Fuqing, the first Chinese graduate of Yale Medical School, who became Xiangya’s founding dean. In 1925, as Dr. Sun Yat-sen lay ill in Beijing, a group of Xiangya medical students requested a message from the dying revolutionary leader. He took up his brush and wrote four powerful characters: 学成致用 (Xue Cheng Zhi Yong)—“Learn, and then put it into practice.” It was a mandate from China’s founding father to an institution our great-grandfather had helped build.

The mid-1920s brought tremendous strain. As Chinese nationalism intensified, Dr. Hume proposed turning over administrative control of the college to Chinese leadership. When the trustees in New Haven rejected the proposal, he made the personally difficult decision to resign in 1927, a testament to his conviction that the work must be Chinese-led to endure. It did endure. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Xiangya’s staff packed their equipment and followed the Chinese government inland, treating casualties and refugees across a country at war. Our formal partnership was severed in the early 1950s with the Korean War, but the foundation was too strong to crumble.

In 2009, I had the privilege of retracing my great-grandfather’s steps. Standing before Xiangya’s iconic Red Building, completed in 1916, I felt the weight of a century. The welcome I received was extraordinary. Chinese colleagues speak of Dr. Hume not as an outsider, but as a friend, a founder, and a pioneer. Today, Xiangya performs over 100,000 operations a year and has sent medical teams to battle Ebola in Sierra Leone. In 2016, I stood before a portrait of my great-grandfather alongside Dr. Sun Hong, President of Xiangya Hospital. It was a moment of full circle.

The Chinese say: 前人栽树，后人乘凉—“The predecessors plant the trees, and the descendants enjoy the shade.” For over a century, I have enjoyed that shade. Now it is our turn to plant. Yale-China’s next 125 years call us to mutual trust, new science, and a shared responsibility for the world we hold in common. The work is not done. It has only just begun.”

— Nathan Shroyer, great-grandson of Dr. Edward Hicks Hume

“This photograph captures me at the 120th anniversary of Xiangya Hospital and the 24th Annual Conference of the Chia Fellowship Health Program, administered by the Yale-China Association and funded by the Chia Family Foundation. On the screen behind me, in quiet letters, is my deepest gratitude: “Thank you, my Chia project mentor, Professor Joanne Iennaco.”

But that moment was not merely a presentation on rural elderly care, nor the sharing of our digital innovations now reaching western Hunan (2024-2025). It was the living evidence of a journey that began more than a decade ago.

In the winter of 2013, I arrived in New Haven as a Chia Fellow, hosted by Yale-China. There, Mr. Chia Peiyuan gathered four of us and shared the founding vision of the Chia Health Program—a vision, born years earlier, of planting seeds of health and hope across China. I still remember the cold outside, and the warmth inside that room.

That seed grew into my first Chia project (2013-2014): systematically adapting behavioral activation for rural elders. Then came a China Medical Board project (2023-2025) on clinical education and community practice. And now, a second Chia project—bringing digital innovation and behavioral activation deep into the mountains of western Hunan.”

“Throughout these years, Professor Joanne Iennaco never stopped guiding me. Her mentorship did not end when my Chia project officially concluded; instead, it has continued across time and oceans—through every challenge, every new direction, every step forward. Along the way, I have moved from a clinical nurse to a doctoral advisor, a Chia program mentor here in western Hunan, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Two of my mentees, Wenling Yang and Yujiao Wu, chose to stay in western Hunan—now serving our rural elderly with their own hands. And my
master’s student, Gang Gan, has stepped into the very role I once held: a new Chia Fellow.

Together, we care for the mental health of older adults in China’s most remote regions. We carry with us not only clinical skills, but the memory of that winter in New Haven, and the bridges Yale-China has built across the Pacific—bridges of education, medicine, and public health.

So I offer this picture as a small flame. Not for myself, but for what it represents: a spark that was lit in 2013 and has never gone out. May it ignite others. May it travel across mountains and seas, from generation to generation. For I choose to be a spark of Yale-China—here on Chinese soil, burning on, and on.”

— XIE Jianfei, Chia Health Fellow (Yale 2013-'14)

Professor Joanne Iennaco and her former Chia Fellow Xie Jianfei, stand together in the Century‑old History Museum of Xiangya School of Nursing — a shared moment within red walls, where our continued fellowship speaks across time

A blessing from two Chia hearts in Xiangya’s hundred-year-old hall,

Where nursing first heard her call,

This photo keeps our quiet trace—Your gentle steps, my warm embrace.

Dear Joanne, we stood in red-walled light,

A mentor's heart, a fellow’s might.

And in Yale’s library, time stands still—Two red-brick worlds, one shared will.

From Yuelu’s pines to East Rock’s height,

From Xiangjiang’s waves to Atlantic’s night,

One river learns the ocean’s name— Not waters changed, but love the same.

Medicine climbed the mountain road,

Public health shouldered a heavy load.

Education lit the darkest chart,

And nursing held the healing heart.

Red roofs still stand, no more apart,

They lean toward a modern start.

Step by step, through breeze and year,

We’ve come to heal, to hold, to cheer.

So light one more candle, steady and wise—One hundred and twenty-five autumns rise.

From Xiangjiang to ocean, from hill to hill,

Yale-China, we love you. Always will.

XIE Jianfei, Chia Health Fellow (Yale 2013-'14)

“The following incident stands unique among all my Yale-China experiences. It involves an interaction with a stranger. A stranger who did not approach me to practice speaking English. A stranger who did not stare at me, jaw hanging, because of my foreign face. A stranger who asked an everyday question, and taught me a lesson for a lifetime. One day in Changsha, I was going about my business on a city street. An older woman approached me, and asked if I knew where a certain street was. “Ha, ha,” I said to myself, “I’m lucky I know where I am and where I am going, much less where anything outside my normal routine might be.” “No,” I replied out loud, “I am not from here, and I am sorry I cannot help.” She looked puzzled. She asked me where I was from. I told her I was from America. Instead of eliciting the usual wide eyes, or the knowing look of someone who expected as much, she went on as if I’d said I were from Wuhan. “Oh, America, so did you travel here by train?” Why is this a lifelong memory? She possessed a complete ignorance of geography. At first, and for many years, I laughed. How could someone not know about the ocean that separates China and North America? Yet that laughter has always felt uncomfortable. I am privileged to have an education, to have had parents who had access to travel, to have been born in a country and to a family where both were possible. I am lucky to have been born when I was, so the opportunity to live in China was even available, after more than 30 years of isolation. This woman had a very different education and was born in a place and to a family and at a time where and when my opportunities were not available to her. Thus, she did not know, and she knew that she did not know, and was curious. She treated me like another human. She was lost. I was a fellow human who did not seem lost. Therefore, maybe I could help orient her. She ignored my foreignness. Indeed, she did not seem to notice my foreignness. Since that hardly seems plausible, I presume she chose to overlook it. Maybe, since she was lost yet I was not, I knew something she could learn. She, alone among the hundreds of people I met in China, behaved in this way. She educated me. She showed me that every person knows something I do not know. Therefore, I ought to approach each individual with an open mind, and be available to learn from him/her. She had the wisdom to suppress her assumptions, and so should I. Despite seeing with her own eyes that I did not look like most people she knew, she allowed room in our conversation for me to prove her right or wrong. She reminded me not to take my good fortune for granted and to appreciate each individual for their own unique experiences. Though I never ran into this woman again, she lives forever in my memory. I am forever grateful to her.”

— Jan Kleinman, Yale-China Fellow (Hunan Medical University 1983-'85)

Me with young middle school English teachers who are studying at Huazhong Normal University in 1985

Me with my second-year English language students at Huazhong Normal University

Photos submitted by Larry Grippo, Yale-China Fellow (Huazhong Normal University 1983-’85)

“My parents attended Yale-in-China in the late 1930s, during the turmoil of the Japanese invasion of China. That both families chose to enroll their offspring to a missionary-founded middle school and then to Hua Chung amid ongoing conflict and economic hardship speaks to the vision of both sets of my grandparents.”

Left: My maternal grandparents from Wuhan; Right: My paternal grandfather from ChunShan

“Soon after reporting for classes at Hua Chung, the administration, faculty and students trekked from Wuhan toward Yunnan to escape from the bombings. Classes and labs were held enroute. Irving Chang, one of the student leaders of Hua Chung, recalled the following experiences during the trek:

’Summer of 1938, Hua Chung University had relocated to Guilin, Guangxi, where the threat of war was ever-present. Yet the university pressed on. One day, mid-way through a physics class, the first air raid alarm sounded — but our instructor was determined to finish the chapter, so we stayed. For us, interrupted lessons were simply part of the rhythm of student life in wartime. Education would not wait, and neither would we.’

After earning their degrees in 1942, Mom and Dad became instructors of the university in Xizhou. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the college returned to its home campus. Just prior to the return trek, Bishop Gilman of Hua Chung married Ling Chin Yu and Xiong Ai Deh on May 5, 1945. Mom carried me in her tummy during the trek back to Wuchang, where I was born on August Moon Festival Day in 1946. ”

Left: Hsiung Ai-Deh (my mom) as an undergraduate; Right: Dad’s Yale-in-China graduation photo (1942)

Left: Mom and Dad’s Yale-in-China Class of 1942; Right: My parents’ wedding officiated by Bishop Gilman of Hua Chung (May 1945)

“The years at Hua Chung had a profound and long-lasting positive influence on my parents. The classmates maintained life-long friendships—well into their elderly years—even after emigrating to the States and Europe. Hua Chung alumni of the New York-New Jersey area held annual get-togethers at each other’s homes or at outings in scenic New York State parks.”

Mom and Dad at Silver Bay (Lake George, New York) during a Hua Chung alumni picnic, 1978

“Those alum gatherings gave several generations a real sense of the camaraderie, sustained over time and place from the 1930s into the 21st century. Both my parents continued their passion for the sciences throughout their careers. Mom worked in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Marshall Nirenburg at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Maryland), and Dad received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Missouri.

It is a privilege to share this on the occasion of Yale-China’s 125th anniversary. Thank you.”

— Florence Ling Myers, Ph.D.

“While I have many great memories from my time as a Yale-China Fellow in Xiuning, I am still especially moved when I think about our musical performances at the Haiyang Theater. Watching the students give their all on stage, surrounded by the joy of their family and friends, gave me a deep sense of pride in the mission of the fellowship and in the camaraderie among my co-fellows. Months of planning and rehearsal gave way to a few evenings each year when it felt as if the entire local community had come together, with parents filling the seats and aisles to watch their children perform. I feel fortunate to have been a part of it. If I may say anything to future fellows, savor these moments and keep alive the tradition of the post-musical celebratory BBQ. And to my co-fellows, thank you for the memories.”

— Tyler Hayward, Yale-China Fellow (Xiuning 2022-'24)

“‘Edmund (Ed) Henry Worthy, Jr. – educator, non-profit leader, and museum executive – died on March 27, 2021 from metastatic cancer.’

This is the beginning of the obituary written by Mr. Worthy himself.”

---

“In the fall of 1963, at New Asia College, (part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong), I met Mr. Edmund H. Worthy, who assisted me to overcome my language challenges as a Freshman in the English Department. My encounter with Mr. Worthy not only changed my dismal outlook on my future study in the Department, but also inspired me with the meanings of volunteerism in everyone’s life.

We called the young, energetic American Yale-China Education Fellows “Yale Bachelors.” Since 1901, Yale-in-China ( Yale-China) Association has sent Yale graduates to teach in China and, after 1949, Hong Kong. Literally so, when they started teaching the Freshman and Sophomore English and Literature classes, they were holding a Bachelor’s degree; and all of them were unmarried.

The two-year service of the Yale Education Fellows greatly impacted and enriched the lives of their students and communities; and at the same time, their unique experiences promoted their individual understanding of the Chinese language and culture. In our Yale-China story, both Mr. Worthy and I have changed our lives for the better, nurtured our decades of friendship, and participated in carrying out the mission of such a special organization.”

Chart House, Alexandria, Virginia, April 2011

“It was not easy for me to address Mr. Worthy as “Ed “, at his insistence, some forty odd years later, when we met again in early April, 2011, in Washington DC. We went for lunch at Chart House along the banks of Potomac River. It was a cold and windy day, luckily dry, though. Mr. Worthy married his Mandarin teacher in Hong Kong in 1965. It was the first time for my husband to meet both of them. In no time, everyone had warmed up and was immersed in conversation, in fluent Mandarin and English. I took the opportunity to express my gratitude towards my respectable teacher, who had gone beyond his duty to help me in the study.”

“Mr. Worthy worked with me on a one-to-one basis once a week after class hours in my Freshman year. He assigned to me extra reading materials and writing assignments to boost up my English proficiency. I still remember the one assignment to read and analyze an American short story, “The Man Who Saw Through Heaven”, by Wilbur Daniel Steel. Exceptionally for one time, Mr. Worthy allowed me to write any topic on the story. Most part of the story has become obscure to me now, but the phrase “Father Witch” has stuck with me for almost half a century. Mr. Worthy playfully challenged me, “Show me. How do you know that Reverend Diana, called by the natives “Father Witch”, has returned to his old faith? “ I pointed vigorously at the page of the book, “He is praying ‘Our father which art in Heaven’ in Lord’s Prayer!” Mr. Worthy beamed and said approvingly, “Well done! Recently your writing style has also improved.” I was elated! That was how I gradually built up my confidence in my work, and my aptitude for language and literature helped me through the years. Without Mr. Worthy’s support, encouragement and sacrifice, I would have struggled miserably and shifted my direction towards a different field of study as my other eleven fellow freshmen did.”

“‘From 1971 to 1974, Mr. Worthy was director of the Yale-China program and lecturer in the Chinese University’s history department. He laid the groundwork for the establishment of the university’s International Asian Studies Program for overseas exchange students.’ ( Excerpts from Mr. Worthy’s obituary). I last saw Mr. and Mrs. Worthy in Hong Kong in June, 1972 at my farewell party before my departure for Michigan. Then in less than two years, Mr. Worthy and family also returned to the US so that he could complete his PhD program in Chinese History at Princeton University.

There was a long period of time when each of us was so fully occupied on our respective life paths that we did not keep up with our correspondence regularly. I now particularly appreciated reading his obituary and an excerpt from the 50th Reunion Class Book of the Yale 1962 graduates. From his own reflections on his varied challenges in life, in his own words, I have learned all the unknown gaps in his productive years and his contributions to the communities. Among them, volunteerism was one of his most impressive achievements.”

Pirates of Penzance, New Asia College, 1963-1964

“When Facebook kept reminding us to celebrate Ed Worthy’s 81st birthday on June 12, my heart ached as much as it did upon my reading his last letter of grave news about his cancer in January, 2021. In his enclosed family photo, surrounded by his loved ones, Mr. Worthy, wane and frail, looked at me with his familiar luminous and unflinching eyes in all smiles. I couldn’t help reminiscing about one photo of him in Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera, Pirates of Penzance. Mr. Worthy was dressed in a policeman’s costume, with a fake mustache and a pillow stuffed at his belly. He and a pirate classmate flanked Juni and me in a hallway. We all looked so youthful and buoyant at that moment of our life!”

— Shiu-Fong (Ng, née) Tse

“My story reflects on how Yale China has been a force for increasing American knowledge about China. As a Yale senior, I had a problem. I had developed an interest in Chinese history, and was thinking about graduate school. But I had never been to China. Yale China was the obvious solution. Not only did I get to China, I got to live there for 2 years, interact with many friends, students and colleagues, but I got a solid language foundation. To make a story short, I came back, went to graduate school, got a teaching position and, over the next 33 years taught about 5000 undergraduates, and about 15 Ph.D. students. I couldn’t be more grateful to Yale China.”

— R. Kent Guy, Yale-China Fellow (Chinese University of Hong Kong 1970-'72)