Bryant Young – 50th Reunion Essay

Bryant Young

39 Gramercy Park North, Apt. 2E

New York, NY 10010

paullik@aol.com

212-460-9341

Spouse(s): Rebecca Wong (1981)

Child(ren): Nicholas (1986), Paul (1980)

Education: Yale, BA English 1971; Harvard, M.Arch 1975; Columbia, MBA 1985

Career: Architecture: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Abramowitz, Harris Kingland, 10 years; Real Estate Management: Merrill Lynch Hubbard, HRE Properties, 21 Street LLC, 30 years

College: Silliman

First the broad arc of my life. I grew up in New York City, moved to the suburbs at age 10, attended a boarding school and then Yale, acquired a career, married a beautiful, wonderful woman to whom I remain devoted, raised a family of two sons, now grown and living in China (unmarried as yet but Becky and I remain hopeful), and, several years ago, retired. The career I chose was architecture, which I practiced for over a decade before joining a REIT to manage a national portfolio of development projects. Later, I used these experiences to start a company to design and build modular homes. In short, a life not much different from many of yours, I suspect—modest perhaps when compared to lives at the high-flying end of the class, but on the spectrum.

We all know now 50 years is a short time. It is also a very long time. Things change. Five minutes on the Yale campus today and you can’t help but be impressed with the changes from the all-male, uniformly white Yale we entered—changes for the better by and large (the intolerance that passes for discourse on campus today being another matter) and, speaking for Asians of a certain generation, changes that would have spared a lot of angst and eased many of the issues of assimilation. In those days, before the hyphenation created a category of cultural awareness, Chinese-Americans were Chinese who happened to be in America. I grew up in an introverted Chinese home, and adjustment to Yale was difficult. Still, the intensity of Yale—all that competitive, self-assured uniformity, all that striving—became grist to open vistas, develop competences, foster skepticism, curiosity, respect for knowledge, etc., that prepared me for the long slog that would follow. My room in Silliman sat above the paneled, book-lined office of William Wimsatt, the professor of English (my major) and giant of the department, and maybe his seriousness of purpose seeped through the floorboards to keep me focused.

These days, the hours fill with the usual staples of many retirees. We consume books, food, culture. We travel. We take courses and attend Yankee games. We regularly practice Tai Chi as much for the spiritual value as the exercise. I have become fascinated with the phenomenon of an emergent China, with its long history, with its struggles to come to terms with modernity and the West, and with the myriad ways that large historical events can affect individual lives. My father, who came here from China to study economics at Harvard, became stranded when China fell to Communism in 1949. But for that event I probably would have been raised in China, perhaps still studying at Yale but with an entirely different perspective. My children, born, raised, and educated in America, have elected to seek futures in China, closing a multigenerational circle. In a nod to our time, we stay connected to them via FaceTime or WeChat. History, as I say, fascinates.