Fu-Ying Lee-Lam. The name makes an impression. Short sounds laced together by hyphens, by layers of life. The first part means “flower after the rain”, a traditional Cantonese name given to a petite, rose-cheeked girl, the eighth and last child of the Lee family. Lam came with marriage, 13 years ago. She met her soul mate as a fellow traveler for part of her three-month incursion through eight Asian countries in the early 90s.
Fu, as every body calls her now, was born in Hong-Kong and moved with her hole family, at age three, to “the ghetto”, as she describes the lower east side Manhattan. “We have the classic immigrant history,” she says while describing the journey to
Her family entrepreneur abilities moved them out of that situation. They all worked on the garment industry, “sweat shops, really,” she says. Until they bought a home in
Fu grew up liking volleyball and French language. “Although I am fluent in Cantonese, I do write in French much better,” she says in a shy voice as if her multiple talents require an apology. She had the chance to visit
She never though of a career choice until she worked in a neighborhood pharmacy store during high school. “I found a drug instruction book and, out of the blue, I quizzed the pharmacist. The fact that she knew all the medicines made an impression on me,” Fu explains. “I guess I wanted to be that knowledgeable about something too.”
And so she is. On medications and life. Fu is one of E1 pharmacists.
She bridged her way through two cultures, two American coasts, and millions of pharmacologic choices for stem cell recipients. She has three girls, two are twins, and a fun life with her husband that fully recovered from a “Christopher Rives-like horse back riding accident” six-month after their marriage. “It was more than a month in a hospital. It was very scary.” Yet she keeps insisting that her life is “not that interesting…what do I have to tell?” Our guess is that the secret is in the layers. On all those hyphens. Fu-Ying Lee-Lam. She makes even a bigger impression than her name does.