Supporting Student Spaces and Campus Life
He remembers arriving on campus. Now, Peter H. is helping create the welcoming spaces and sense of community he once needed as a student far from home.
Peter has been defying predictions, probabilities, and assumptions his entire life. That he wound up in the United States, a student at CCAD at the age of 29, in the 1970s, was the result of a serendipitous alignment of factors. He has never taken it for granted and, after a self-made career, is expressing thanks by giving back.
A student commuter lounge in the forthcoming Center for Creative Collaboration will be named for Peter, in gratitude for his financial support of CCAD. A renovation of existing Battelle Hall, the center will serve as a making hub and gathering space where all students can feel at home—something Peter sought when coming to CCAD.
Peter thrived at CCAD, especially after he earned enough money to buy himself a Volkswagen van, which allowed him to be more independent.
“I’m very good at problem solving. My motto is, I use the least of the resource to get the most out, to complete the design, to solve the design problem. And when I use material, I try to preserve it without cutting it up or breaking it up so that I can reverse it and have the material as it was before it’s used.”
This economic approach has served Peter in every corner of his life since arriving in the United States. From Columbus, he completed graduate studies in industrial design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He tried consulting but was uncomfortable with its feast-or-famine rhythm. So, he struck out on his own and eventually landed steady work marketing Hong Kong factories’ products at wholesale trade shows in the United States. The sales he won at those trade shows grew factories and companies. Peter saved, lived frugally, and has lived on the northwest side of Chicago with his partner, Ken, for decades.
Peter was born in 1944 in mainland China. His grandparents were wealthy landowners until communists overtook the Chinese government. The family fled to Hong Kong to avoid political persecution during the Great Leap Forward. Peter had been working at Hong Kong Bank for 10 years after high school, and still living with his family, when he decided to enroll for a 3-year art and design degree at the University of Hong Kong. He entered college with little confidence. “I was raised by abusive parents, and they were always yelling, [saying] I’m stupid and worthless. And that was what I felt. Until I took the art classes, and I met some friends and we worked together.”
Through a connection between a Hong Kong artist and former CCAD President Joseph Canzani, CCAD accepted several students from Hong Kong on full-ride scholarships in the mid-1970s. Peter found a required sponsor in the United States and arrived in Columbus, barred from legally working, with about $1,000 to live on.
His second semester, he got an under-the-table job washing dishes at a chop suey restaurant. “When I finished doing the dishes, the manager said, ‘Peter, go clean the toilet.’ I realized this is a wonderful learning experience. It humbles you. It makes you learn to respect other people’s jobs.”
His gift to CCAD is given in the spirit of a Chinese proverb he likes to repeat: A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers. Giving back to the place that launched his American Dream helps students just like him, finding their way around campus for the first time. And it makes him feel great, too.
WHY I GIVE
Without CCAD, I never would have imagined I could come to America, not in my wildest dreams. It’s changed my life completely. That’s why I am so appreciative.
Read more about the Here For Change campaign. Or give to CCAD to fuel the next generation of creators.
