A Malaysian “White Snake” in Beijing

Tee May Chin is introducing to audiences during a sharing.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

When I got my first glimpse of Tee May Chin , she was demonstrating to 12 mothers, in fluent Chinese and with a warm smile, how to deal with a baby’s respiratory tract infection using traditional Chinese medicine.

Tee came to Beijing in 2009, because she wanted to learn Chinese medicine at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and now she is an intern in the Department of Pediatrics at Dongzhimen Hospital.

“I was born in 1989, the Year of the Snake, and people born in that year are thought to be harmful and evil,” Tee said, remembering how years ago she felt very sad when others told her this. So she turned to her mother and asked why. Her mother told her,“The snake is evil, but you are a white snake, and a white snake will save people.”

From that moment on, Tee realized her special mission and decided to do some special things.“But what can I do to save people?” Tee thought about this question very seriously when she was a little girl.

“My mom was very weak and couldn’t pregnant with me until she took a lot of a type of medicine called ‘wujibaifengwan.’ It seems that I took a lot of medicine when I was in my mother’s belly.I I was born with medicine and I really like the taste of medicine,” Tee said. The experience of birth made her ideal to be a doctor.

At 17, Tee got a part time job in a private clinic in Malaysia. At that time, she didn’t know it was a Chinese medical center. “I just thought it was unique and responsible, each patient could get his or her own unique prescription. Sometimes you can recover with just a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) medicine. I regard it as a miracle,” she said. The experience caught her attention and she hoped to learn TCM once she had chance.

Tee told her parents she wanted to go to China to learn TCM at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and enrolled in an STPM course, a foundation course before university.

However, she was assigned to learn nutriology by the Ministry of Education of Malaysia. At the very start, her parents expected her stay in the local school and she nearly gave up. “It was really a tough chose, but my mom encouraged me and said I may regret it all my life if I gave up learning TCM,” she said.

In 2009, when Tee finally fulfilled her dream to study TCM in Beijing, she felt happy as well as lost.

“At the beginning time in Beijing , I didn’t like the relationship between people at all. It seems that people just saw themselves, without seeing others, being very cold, just like the cold winter in Beijing,”Meijun said.

On occasion, Meijun took part in a public benefit activity organized by Tzu Chi in Beijing. She went to a village in Hebei province with her teammate. They helped old people put Vaseline on their hands.“I am impressed that a grandma rubbed my hands together to keep me feeling warm. I am very touched,”she said.

Back in Beijing from Hebei, Tee went to some hutongs, where she discovered the milk of human kindness in Beijing .

”I think people are not really cold in Beijing, they just pack their goodwill and passion, but when doing public welfare, all walls were torn down,” she said.

As Tee found she enjoyed doing public good, in 2012 she joined the Sanlitun Volunteer Team. During the next four years, she did a lot of voluntary work with the residents of Sanlitun. She volunteers at least once a month.

“May Chin is the person who commits to volunteer work best. Whether offering medical care, cooking delicious food or teaching computer operation, she is willing to share whatever she knows and help others as well as she can,”said Fan Hua, administrator of the Sanlitun Volunteer Team.

Tee May Chin shares Malaysian cooking techniques with community residents.

Some community residents Tee has helped like to call her “Yang Leifeng”, which shows praise for her actions. But in Tee’s opinion, she prefers to treat it as just a name. “To tell the truth, I am very sensitive, or sometimes disgusted, with some words like, ‘public good’, ‘great love’ or ‘charity.’ In my mind, volunteer work is not about sacrifice, but about giving warmth to each other, ” she said, adding she is just happy to do this and it enriches her life.

In 2014, serious floods assailed Malaysia. Tee gathered some people to collect money to help the victims.“We raised a sum of money and bought 331 electric rice cookers, then donated them. A rice cooker is basic to living. Whatever happens, where there is a rice cooker, there is warmth. I was very careful and serious when I made the donation, for it related to money. If I did it badly, it would cause bad consequences,” she said. May Chin often tells her friends this and to treat volunteer work very carefully.

Now, May Chin enjoys her life in Beijing and wants to be a pediatrician in a private hospital in Beijing.

“Children teach me happiness，TCM teaches me the law of nature and how to be a good person. I just want to enjoy these forever.” Tee said, with a big and satisfied smile.