Gao finds family in Homewood

The young man sitting across from Barb and John Woychak looked forlorn.

As they waited on their flight from Detroit to Birmingham, the couple struck up conversation with him.

“I was missing home already and had had a terrible and long flight from Shanghai,” Gary Gao now recalls.

As it turned out, Gary was on his way to enroll at Samford University, just streets over from the Woychacks’ home. At 17, he had left his home in Nanjing, China, for a campus and a city he’d only seen in photos online. During their time in the airport, the Woychaks offered Gary a ride to campus on their way home and the next day gave him a proper introduction to Birmingham. 

The day started with biscuits and gravy and grits at Salem’s Diner, fare to which Gary took an immediate liking and now partially credits for having gained a healthy 30 pounds since arriving. Between the food and the football photos on the wall, Gary described the diner as feeling like “country life.”

He had lived on the 11th floor of a high-rise in Nanjing, a city of 8 million people, so Birmingham’s trees and sky were a new thing to him — something he found beautiful.

Later in the day, the Woychaks took him to their grandson’s basketball game and to stock up on supplies at Walmart.

Since that day in January 2012, Gary will tell you the Woychaks have become his family here. Today he is one of 142 students at Samford who are from China and 177 total international students, according to Samford’s international and graduate student coordinator Kyle Bailey.

Gary and John had initially bonded by talking about basketball, a sport John played in college. At a Samford football game during parents’ weekend, Gary introduced John as his dad. Barb gave Gary his first taste of meatloaf and sends him home with cookies and gooey bars when he comes to their house for dinner (and oftentimes, a nap).

At the same time, their relationship works two ways. Gary invited Woychacks to a Chinese New Year celebration at Samford and ordered in Chinese for them at Red Pearl, and they took him to a barber at The Hair Group and to Homewood staples Steel City Pops and Saw’s Barbecue.

 “Sharing the simple joys of whatever we do is a big deal for him,” John said. “Ice cream at Edgewood Creamery was the most wonderful treat he thought he’d ever received. It’s fun to see him be joyful all the time.”

The trio had lunch at Brio before Gary left for an internship in New York City last summer, and he promised that he’d treat them to a meal at Brio when he got back.

Barb said his English has skyrocketed since moving here, and Gary notes that he has recently started thinking and dreaming in English.

In recent months, the Woychaks haven’t seen as much of Gary as he now stays busy on campus, has a driver’s license and car, and visits friends’ families on many holidays. John emphasizes the number of friends Gary has on campus, recalling how a table full of football players all knew him when they saw him at Mugshots recently.

“It gives you a lot of faith in young kids when they are ambitious. He stuck to it and studied very hard,” John said. 

Since coming to Samford, Gary has become a Christian. He now attends the Church at Brook Hills and plays guitar on worship team for Reformed University Fellowship (RUF).

When Gary visited Nanjing last year, he took his guitar home to play a mix of country and worship songs in the city and made a point to talk to his mom about Christianity. And he returned to Birmingham with gifts for the Woychaks.

This summer Gary is headed to work at JH Ranch in California. When he gets back, he knows he’ll have “parents” to welcome him home. 

“They give me the feeling of family here, and I treat them as my parents,” Gary said.

Gary plans to graduate with a math major and physics minor in 2015 and hopes to stay in the U.S. to run a summer camp or small business in the future — and to bring his parents from China to his new home to live.