Despite being born in the U.S., Mei Ling spent her earliest years in a Chinese settlement deep in the Kwangtung province. Influenced by numerous fighter plane pilot movies of the 1980’s she became increasingly interesting in an Air Force career, moving to the us to participate in the ROTC (Army Reserve Officer Training Corps) program at MIT and became and officer. Unfortunately for Mei Ling she dropped out of the program due to a lack of self confidence, difficulty in attaining high standards for the training and poor eyesight (she wears contact lenses). Her blurred vision lead her to develop an inferiority complex, but it also increased her desire to develop a new radar system that would assist vision and thinking capabilities. Her researches lead to a military interest and she was hired for her expertise in image a data processing. She worked together with technicians at NOR (in Fort Mead, a Cold Weather Training Facility), and associates at ENPIC, specializing in image processing and electronic and communicative espionage with the use of spy satellites.
Mei Ling now works in unison with Commander Campbell and the rest of the crew at the submarine headquarters, her role being the managing and transferral of communicative data processing from homebase to espionage agent (in this case Solid Snake), and the transcription of the field operative’s incoming messages. She also developed the new communication equipment and radar system implemented by Solid Snake in this mission, the most important of which is the Codec. Mei Ling however is shy and finds it difficult to interact with people and previous operatives, covering her reticence with enthusiastic but unimportant conversations, as well as Chinese sayings to suit the situation. Her affinity for Solid Snake leads her to take another role: to create a relaxed and friendly voice and lessen the stress of the battlefield environment. In return, Commander Campbell has hinted that Solid Snake will attempt to teach her what “real espionage” and “communication with people” actually mean.
