This work is a story about a foreign student who strove to study biophysics under the guidance of renowned scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and then pursued postdoctoral training in neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Later, he worked on brain research as a faculty at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

It aims to make a belated yet respectful and heartfelt tribute to his revered and beloved mentors who have inspired and wisely guided the humble foreign student and his dear, kind friends who helped the alien stranger find a new home in this New World.

It is a retrospective reflection of long-past events late in the narrator’s life. It was primarily based on his fragmentary shorthand diaries, scribbled on small notepads. The letters from his mentors in biophysics, molecular biology, and neuroscience were quoted in the text as they were vital to overcoming the long hesitation in writing this reflection.