Luck and the World Smile Upon Her

AS MANY EXHAUSTED SENIORS will attest, a thesis is usually a labor of love. Only rarely in any monetary reward attached to its completion.

But for Visual and Environmental Studies concentrator Lana Wong '91, her thesis' first showing brought a purchase offer--from the director of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts.

"He approached me on Friday to say he wanted to buy it for the Harvard collection," says Wong. "I'm really thrilled to be able to leave my mark on Harvard in a very visual way."

Wong's thesis is a quilt depicting the pressure that media images place on women to conform to "an impossible ideal," she says. "It's mainly dealing with the media creation of ideals of feminine perfection."

"Often, attempts to live up live up to those ideals of beauty result in eating disorders," says Wong. "All women have their own personal neuroses with food and eating habits."

For her thesis, Wong combined pictures from fashion magazines with photographs of herself simulating a bulemic episode. She printed the images on pieces of fabric and sewed them together. She displays the quilt like a tablecloth, laid out on a table and set with china and glasses.

"Ever since high school I've had experiences with close women friends involved with eating disorders," she says. "It's just been like this subtext plague that everyone knows about and no one really wants to deal with."

FRIENDS SAY THAT THE BLEND of artistic ability and personal commitment evident in Wong's thesis appears in all her activities.

Indeed, people wax lyrical when they talk about Wong. They laud her talent and creativity. And then they move on to what many regard as her outstanding quality: Wong's ability to charm almost everyone she meets. The Harvard social scene is eclectic and scattered. But Wong seems to know everyone in the senior class.

"Her friendly outgoingness is what people notice at first. It's hard not to notice it," says Heather J. Friedman '91-'92. "She's very friendly, she knows everyone, and everyone knows her."

After four years here, Wong has made Cambridge her own, and walking the streets with her is like serving as involuntary president of a large fan club.

"I once tried to go to lunch with her," recalls Daniel E. Mufson '91, a fellow Opportune. But the two were mobbed by acquaintances, and it took them a half hour to walk from Eliot to the Garage.

Wong seems to lead a charmed life, says Mufson, recalling a birthday party held for her last year at a local restaurant with a jazz band.

Lana requested "My Funny Valentine," and the band leader asked if anyone wanted to sing along.

"Everyone shouts 'Lana!' and does a semi-coercion routine to get her on stage," recalls Mufson. "Lana goes up there, kind of reluctantly. She starts out, she's a little bit nervous, but then she completely gets into it, and dazzles the restaurant."

"You've got a future!" the band leader told her, and asked her to sing with them at a concert at Brandeis. "Things like that seems to happen to her, and she deserves it," says Mufson. "Luck and the world seem to smile upon her."

WHILE OTHER STUDENTS TRUDGE between classes, libraries and dining halls, Wong leaves myth and legend in her wake. (Like Brother Blue and the Dial-A-Menu Man, she is some-thing of a campus folk hero, dashing around on her fluorescent bike.) Even during reading period, while most people hibernate in Lamont and Hilles, she manages to create excitement.

"One day last year during winter exam period Lana said, 'Todd, let's go to Cancun,'" recalls Todd J. Fletcher '91. "I said, 'No, we can't go to Cancun.' She convinced me to go, and two days later we were in Cancun."

It was after Fletcher's first exam and before his last two, he says. But they swam and sunned, and returned relaxed and hearty to a campus of rheumatic test-takers.

"It was great," says Fletcher, "and I did very well on my final exams, too."

Convincing a friend to go to Cancun, even during exam period, may not be too difficult. But Wong can win over anyone, her friends say.

"I got an invitation from Leonard Bernstein to attend one of the performances of Composition Mass at the Boston Opera House," says Fletcher. "I Invited Lana to go with me, and she completely charmed him. There was a reception afterward and, when we left, he said, 'Todd, she's beautiful. Don't let her get away.'"

"Lana appeals to a wide variety of people," says Elizabeth A. Graham '91, one of Wong's Eliot House roommates. And she can always be relied upon to provide some visual flair.

She rides a "violent fluorescent bike," says Eliza Rosenbluth '91. She wore a green blow-up snake to the Graduate School of Design Halloween Ball. And even on a daily basis, she has a vivid and individualistic presence.

"I think especially in Eliot House, no one dresses like Lana," says Norma Jean Johnson '91, one of Wong's roommates. "She's really known for her black cowboy boots and her completely outrageous stockings--stripes, all designs, tie-dye, polka dots, all kinds of lace stockings--green, red, white, cream."

"Her wardrobe is like none other," agrees Fletcher. "One day she was wearing this very interesting outfit and I said, 'Wow, Lana, those are weird shoes.' She said, 'No, not weird, funky.'"

"She's a really interesting combination of Southern warmth, Northern liberalness, and her own spunk," says Rosenbluth. "She's a real hodgepodge of things."

Wong says she's been influenced by a blend of cultures. Born in Queens, she grew up in Winston-Salem, NC, as one of the few Asian-Americans in a large public high school. Harvard was an exciting new world, she says.

"Some people think I've mellowed out. Freshman and sophomore year I would run around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to cram it all in," she says. "It's like being in a candy store--you have all these sweets and tidbits you want to try--and then you get full."

Wong sang with the Opportunes for three years, worked as an intern for the Bunting Institute, participated in a Phillips Brooks House tutoring program, taught in CityStep, and acted in several musicals.

"She's exceptionally creative in almost everything she does," says Graham. "She can sing, she's an excellent photographer, a wonderful person, and just really warm."

In addition to being stretched by extracurricular commitments, Wong at times is strained by personal ones. "At points it's been difficult because the people who really are close to me think, 'She's friends with a lot of people, where do I fit in?'" says Wong. Periodically, she makes attempts to cut down on her commitments.

NEXT YEAR, she will be at the Royal Conservatory of Art in London on a Rotary scholarship. She's excited to study art full time, but the switch to a less social atmosphere will be strange, she says.

"My tutor says that the classes are really selective and very small so, he said, 'You'll probably be lonely.'"

College life, by contrast, provides ceaseless personal contact: passion, pathos, strange and marvelous personal stories. Wong explains her network of friends by her willingness to listen to people's inner dramas. "People really are like onions, with wonderful layers," she says.

"People here love to talk about themselves and when you talk to her, it strikes you that all she's interested in is you," says Graham. "That's really refreshing."

Wong says that in the garden patch of life, she's glad to have spent so much time peeling onions. "In the working world, you don't have that luxury to share with people on late night runs to IHOP. We'll all be fine--the bottom line is that we'll all be fine--but it'll never be the same."