Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (End)

This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story. If you have missed the first three posts they are here:
Fifteen Years in America — An Introduction
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (Part 1)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (Part 2)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (Part 3)
Enjoy!

The plane landed at Tokyo International Airport for a transfer, and then flew directly to Honolulu International Airport. We left Shanghai on the morning of August 15th, but because of the time difference we landed in Honolulu in the afternoon of August 15th after flying for fourteen hours. The reunion of our family on August 15th has finally arrived! At the airport, we saw Helen, the person we have been missing day and night for over a year. She was wearing a sky blue dress decorated with large pink flowers that my old classmate An Lang’s wife made for her. Because Hawaii’s sun, she was tanned, and she seemed a bit slimmer than I last saw her, but she was quite energetic. When she saw us she hugged our daughter tight and repeated over and over, “Xin-head, mommy missed you so much! Mommy missed you so much! Do you miss mommy?” Xin nodded her head, but she was really thinking of her new Game Boy.

When we exited the airport, Helen’s landlady Lory drove our entire family onto the highway with her Mazda. For the first time I saw a highway several lanes wide with cars flying through it. It is a scene I have only seen in movies, and it finally hit me that I was in an unfamiliar country. Even though this was Hawaii, one of the famed scenic spots in the world, I did not have the appetite to enjoy the scenery. When we arrived at Lory’s home, Helen took us to a nearby McDonalds for a meal. It was Xin’s first time eating at McDonalds, and she enjoyed it very much, but I was not used to eating raw vegetables between bread. More importantly, I thought about how I had no way to go back, and I did not know what lies ahead, and I wondered how I was going to survive.

Now, I must give everyone a few basic facts about Hawaii. Hawaii is a group of islands including the four main islands of Hawaii (also known as the Big Island because it has the largest area), O’ahu, Maui, and Kauai. Additionally there are hundreds of smaller atolls and islands. Honolulu is the state capital of Hawaii, and it is on O’ahu. At that time Honolulu had over 800,000 inhabitants. Hawaii is the 50th state of the United States, and it is also the last state to enter the union in year 1959. Hawaii has three main industries in its economy: tourism, tropical agriculture, and the United States military.  When I arrived in Hawaii, it was in the midst of a serious recession.  Since the Cold War  just ended, America reduced its troops in Hawaii and that caused quite a bit of unemployment.  Additionally, because of the rising costs of agricultural wages in Hawaii and the increase supply of tropical fruits from South America, the competitiveness of Hawaiian agricultural products was drastically falling.  Even though at the beginning of the 90s Japan’s economy was weakening, the Japanese yen was still quite strong against the dollar.  Almost half of the tourists that came to Hawaii were Japanese, and thus most of Hawaii’s economy was supported by tourism.

Since our entire family arrived in Hawaii, we were not able to fit in Lory’s home.  However, a friend from school introduced Helen to another live in situation.  This time, we were to live with a 93 year old  Chinese lady.  We called her “popo”, which means grandma in Chinese.  She had a huge house near the foot of Diamond Head.  Popo came to Hawaii as a child bride in the early 1900s.  Her husband died quite early, and she worked as a housekeeper and raised five children by herself.  Two of her children are engineers, one is a shop keeper, one is a real estate agent, and another is a teacher.  Popo had a bad temper, and often yelled at her children.  Even though her children were very filial, they were also terrified by her.  Even though she had quite a full house of descendants, none of them wanted to live with her.  She gave our family a very large bedroom and did not charge us rent.  In exchange, we cleaned the house and maintained the yard.  When we cooked dinner we also shared food with her.  Thus we were able to settle down in Hawaii.

Stay tuned for chapter 2!!  

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