Entries Tagged 'Fifteen Years in America' ↓

This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous posts they are all in this category here:

Fifteen Years in America

Enjoy!

The next day, I arrived at Peter’s shop before 4pm. Peter introduced me to Meilan. Meilan is a Vietnamese born Chinese woman around 30 years old. She spoke both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently. She arrived in Hawaii in the mid 1970s with her parents as a refugee and worked with Peter for more than three years.

Peter told Meilan, “Please teach this man how to sell things here, and especially teach him how to price things and do solid business. Additionally you should teach him how to lock down the store at night. I have to go now. A few friends are waiting for me at a game of Mahjong.”

After Peter left, I learned a bit more about the marketplace from Meilan, and especially the skills involved in selling trinkets. Meilan told me that in these Waikiki stores generally the face price is ten times that of the wholesale price. If the item is a luxury item such as fine silver or gold jewelry then the markup is even higher. So even if a customer haggles, we could still sell it. However, we can’t sell our wares for too low of a price because our competitors sell similar things. People generally buy what is easy to sell, and if one store cuts the profit margin too low then the other stores would be quite angry. Additionally, Meilan told me a little bit about Peter. He was an international student from Taiwan. When he just arrived he worked at restaurants and went to school at the same time. After he got his degree, he bought this little shop in the international market place and became an entrepreneur. He and his wife also has an import and export company. In the few years prior to the recession their business was doing extremely well and they earned quite a good sum of money. Now business was not as profitable in Hawaii as years past, and Peter’s wife went back to Taiwan to find new opportunities. As a result Peter didn’t care about his little shop any longer, and he was glad to find me as a helper so he could go play Mahjong.

In the past I was just a professor of economics and only knew theoretic things about commerce. I didn’t know that in real life competition would be so fierce in a marketplace like this, and it really takes a good amount of work to be a good salesman.

To tell the truth, I manned the shop by myself on that first day, but after twelve hours of standing and hollering I did not even sell $100 worth of goods. After you take away my wage and rental fees from this bit of money, my boss Peter actually lost money. When he came to help me lock down the shop he checked out how much I sold. When he saw that I earned very little money he didn’t seem to disapprove. He said to me, “You just started! I really believe in you.”

That night, I felt a little depressed when I went home. If I couldn’t make a profit for Peter, how could I take his money? I had my heart set on being the best salesman in the entire marketplace.

When I set my heart on something, I always try to do my best. Thus I started studying other salespeople before and after my shifts. After a period of observations and experimentation, I discovered my own rules for being a good salesman. The following are some of my discoveries.

You must be direct and cordial, and call out to the customers first. The following is something I say often in Japanese, “Please take a look! We are having an 80 percent off sale right now!”

When two young Japanese ladies heard that there is an 80% off sale, they stopped in front of my shop. I really didn’t think that the little bit of Japanese I learned a long time ago could be so useful. However, if you want me to speak a lot of Japanese I would fail miserably. When the ladies came over I started to show them a selection of silver jewelry and other Hawaiian themed products.

“It is real silver, please try it on.” I picked out a silver dolphin ring and put it on one of the lady’s hands. Then I pointed to the dolphin and asked, “What do you call this in Japanese?”

The young lady looked at my sincere face and said, “Kore wa, nihongo de, iruka desu.” (This in Japanese is “iruka”) As she said this she lifted up her hand and admired the ring in the distance.

I stood behind her and started praising her, “Kawaii ne, anata wa hontoni kawaii.” (Very cute, you are really cute.)

Then I repeated what she taught me, “iruka, iruka”, and said “You are my Japanese teacher, and I am your student!”

The girl started to chuckle and said, “korewa, ikuradesuka?” (How much is this?)

Now I took the ring off her finger and checked the pricetag. It said $30, but I knew that the wholesale price was $2. So I plugged the price into my calculator and showed the lady that I took $24 dollars off, and sold it to her for $6. She was extremely excited that she got such a great deal, but actually the store still made a 200% profit. What is more important is that besides the small item she bought, she and her friend also bought some perfumes totaling over $150. My performance really surprised the Korean salesgirl across the way.

To be continued… More of my dad’s sales techniques in the next section! Stay tuned and subscribe to The Baglady if you don’t want to miss a thing.

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous 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)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (End)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 2: The Professor of Duke’s Lane (Part 1)
Enjoy!

When I saw that most of the salespeople nearby were young females I became a little disheartened.  I was afraid that I went there for nothing and wasted a whole $0.75 for the bus.  After I walked past eight or nine stores I saw a middle aged man standing in front of a shop.  I figured out that he is Korean from his face shape.  So I went up to him and muttered in broken English, “Do you need a salesman?”

He looked at me as if he were startled, and then shook his head and said, “No, I don’t need a salesman.  I need a salesgirl.”

I didn’t give up, and continued to walk forward.  I asked a few more Korean managers if they wanted help, and all the responses were “NO”.  Finally I was at the middle of the lane, and I saw a 30 something storekeeper who looked Chinese.  I looked at his products, and they were mostly crystal baubles like pineapples, dolphins, volcanoes, and coconut trees.  Besides crystal products, he sells  some perfume and Hawaiian print bags.  Additionally he had some Chinese imports such as exercise balls and other random knick knacks.

When I was in front of his shop, I heard the storekeep speaking to a teenage looking salegirl in the Chinese I am familiar with, “Ah-Mei, today the business is very light!”

The girl named Ah-Mei replied, “It sure is, until now I still haven’t sold anything.  Peter, how about you?”

Peter said, “I only sold a bottle of perfume. The business is so light that I don’t want to continue working.  However Meilan just had a child and only works four and a half shifts a week now.  My wife also returned to Taiwan so I have no choice but to work here.”

When I heard their dialog, I felt that it was my chance.  Because they spoke Chinese I didn’t feel shy.

I walked up to Peter and said, “Sir, do you need help?”

Peter said to me, “Oh, do you have experience in selling things?”  This was my third day in America, and of course I didn’t have any sales experience.

I had a sudden flash of inspiration and pulled out a business card from my university.  I told Peter that in China  I was the assistant department head of the Economics department, and I was also a professor.  I told him that of course I had sales experience, because that is a skill I teach my students.  Actually, this is a half truth because even though I have students that became businessmen, I really haven’t had actual experience outside of the school.  In school everything is theory in books, and I have never actually sold a single thing before.

Peter picked up my business card and read the titles I had printed in both Chinese and English.  Then he looked at me from head to toe and saw that I was clean cut and quite energetic.  He didn’t reject me right away like all the Koreans, and seemed a little bit interested.  At this moment a Caucasian couple walked to the store and started to peruse the goods.  Peter started to talk to the customers right away.  The woman seemed interested in the perfumes, and Peter immediately brought two bottles from his shelf for the customer.  The man didn’t seem to have any interest in buying things, and looked at the various products in the store.

When Peter was working on selling to the woman, I targeted the man.  When I saw that he seemed to be curious about a pair of exercise balls with a dragon design, I walked up and picked up the balls and started to roll them in my hand.  The exercise balls had tiny bells in their centers and when you played with them they would make ringing sounds.  My performance piqued the interest of this man.

“What is this?” He asked.

“These two balls are good for your health.” I told him.

“Really?”  He seemed a bit surprised.

It seems that the man was really interested, but I didn’t know much English.  However, I have been a professor for many years and I was used to giving a performance.  So I rolled the balls in my hands more quickly and more loudly.  When I saw this man was quite mesmerized by my performance I stopped playing with them and asked him, “could you turn around?”

He turned around and I started to roll the balls on his back, and as I rolled them I asked, “very comfortable?”

He nodded his head and said, “Oh, it’s massage, good, fast, faster!”

Finally he was conquered by my performance, and asked, “How much?”

Peter was negotiating with the woman, but he was also paying attention to what I was doing.  When he saw that the man was asking for a price, he said to me in Chinese, “just give it to him for ten dollars, if he haggles, you can give him a little discount.”

Now I remembered the rule about setting prices that I learned at school.  The idea is that you should “wear a three feet tall hat and let them take a cut.”  So I said to that man, “fifteen dollars a pair, and you also get a very nice box.”

That man must have known that in a street market haggling is normal.  So he said to me, “how about eight dollars?”

I replied, “eight dollars is a little bit too low, how about ten dollars?”

That man replied, “Ok, ten dollars.”

At the same time, Peter reached an agreement with the woman, and sold a bottle of perfume for 50 dollars.  That woman told her man to pay, and the man pulled out an one hundred dollar bill and said to Peter, “the total is sixty dollars, just give me back forty.”

Peter was quite happy, and as he got change he said to them, “you guys got a very good deal.  Thanks and come back again!”

When this couple left, Peter said to me, “come back here for a moment, I have something to say to you.”  Peter didn’t want Ah-Mei from the other shop to hear what we were discussing.  At that moment I knew there was hope that I found a job.  He said to me, “how about this, you come to work at 4pm, and I will have Meilan call you.  To begin I will give you the minimum wage, and after a month I will give you an additional 3% sales commission.  The more you sell the more you will get.”

When I heard this I was truly excited.  I told peter, “many thanks for giving this opportunity.  I know a little bit of Japanese also and I can sell thing to Japanese people.  I won’t let you down!”

Thus I started my first job in America.  I was a salesman!

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous 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)
Fifteen Years in America - Chapter 1: The Struggle Before the Reunion by Jian (End)
Enjoy!

After we moved to Popo’s house, I sent my daughter to the nearby Queen Liliuokalani Elementary for school. I walked into a Chinese restaurant because I have often heard in China that Chinese students worked in restaurants. Even if my English were poor I could still wash dishes and earn a bit of money for tuition.

When I walked into the restaurant I met a Chinese host. I asked him if they needed people to help with the dishwashing. He sized me up from head to toe and knew that I was probably a student from mainland China. He said that they did not need anyone at the moment, and if I were a student I would need a work permit from the school. I was disappointed and wallowed a bit at home. I thought to myself even though our family is reunited, I did not have a job or money for school. In fact, it is hard for me to get any job at all. What should I do?

Helen has a friend who works as a saleswoman at the world renowned International Marketplace in Waikiki. She suggested that I try my luck there. So on the third day of arriving in Hawaii, I took the bus to Waikiki. Waikiki means “spouting water”, and indicates that the rivers and waterfalls flow into the ocean. It is an extremely popular white sand beach that is more than one mile long. Along the beach there are many expensive hotels such as Hilton,Sheraton, and Hyatt.

Waikiki is also surrounded by a forest of restaurants and shops. In the center of it all there is a massive attraction called the International Marketplace. This place has many small shops where tourists can buy souvenirs. Additionally there is a food court where people can taste foods from all around the world. In this marketplace there is a small lane that is approximately 150 meters, and it is known as “Duke’s Lane”. On both sides of the lane there are small shops that sold souvenirs. These souvenirs included gold and silver jewelry, crystal, wood carvings, and other random knick knacks associated with Hawaii. For example, there are little toy hula girls. Additionally there are shops that sell exclusively T-shirts or beach towels. Basically it is a market full of small time entrepreneurs.

Because Duke’s Lane is directly in the path from several large hotels to the beach, the business from tourists is usually red hot. In this lane most of the shop owners are Korean. Korean women are very diligent and outgoing and many of them spoke Japanese because Japan occupied them for a fairly long time. Besides Korean people, about 1/5 of the store owners were Chinese. Most of them were Vietnamese Chinese or Taiwanese with the exception of one mainland Chinese man who came to Hawaii in the early 80s as an international student.

I stepped off the bus and walked into this narrow lane. The Koreans on both sides thought that I was Japanese and started hollering in Japanese.

“Misetekudasai. Ima, 非常 yasui!” (Please take a look, right now it’s very cheap!) (Note: My dad wrote the Japanese part phonetically in Chinese. He took Japanese for a while in China so he understood these saleswomen. I only took Japanese for a year so I’m not sure if I transliterated it back correctly. Please correct us if you could. This is the original Chinese transliteration of the Japanese my dad wrote “米晒带,库达撒以. 以码,一持旁压始以!”)

“Umiyagi takusan arimasu” (There are a lot of souvenirs!)

These Korean girls would yell as they pulled you towards their stores. At that time I did not have the heart or money to buy any travel souvenirs. Even though I understood them I pretended that I didn’t, and kept on walking as I shook my head. A Korean girl still wanted me to go to her store, and I suddenly said in Chinese, “I don’t want to!” Now they knew that I was not a rich Japanese tourist, and stopped their yelling. That was in the early 90s, but now things have changed. Recently I heard from friends in Hawaii that now many Chinese people are spending fists full of money in Hawaii. Now I think perhaps these Korean women are learning Chinese.

To be continued!

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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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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)
Enjoy!

We did not receive our visa. I relayed the bad news to Helen via mail. She knew that the main reason we failed to be approved was her economic situation. The American Consulate did not believe that Helen could support an entire family in an expensive place like Hawaii with her part time job. Helen felt that she already put in a lot of effort but still failed, and she was disappointed, but she did not give up. She wrote to me and encouraged me to study English in the six months while she tries to get a better scholarship package. As I said before, there are not many grants given to humanities students and there is a small pool of money that is being eyed by many students. The competition is fierce and it is like a bunch of monks fighting for a little bit of porridge. In Helen’s department there are three full scholarships with stipend and they are all taken by other students. One of them was about to graduate and quite a few PhD candidates in the department were competing for this scholarship.

Because Helen was extremely diligent in her studies, her professors all liked her very much. Her graduate adviser is an Asian Theatre professor who has performed as Concubine Yang (Yang Guifei) in Beijing Operas in China. She definitely wanted Helen to get the scholarship and offered her support. Another important fact is that this particular scholarship was set up for the Kennedy Theatre’s costumes and stage department, where Helen happens to be working. Because of this, Helen had support from her professors and coworkers, and when the scholarship committee convened to bestow the last scholarship, Helen received the most votes. After the decision was made, Helen went to work as usual after attending class. Her boss Linda, also the director of the costume shop told Helen that she has been granted the department’s last full scholarship and stipend package. Later Helen wrote to me that she didn’t know whether she was excited or joyous, but she hugged Linda and cried out loud. With this grant, our family can be reunited! How difficult it was for Helen!

With the grant we had a chance of getting our visas. However, the stipend was only $1050 per month. Using the standards of Americans, this bit of money is barely enough for one person. Additionally, rent and other necessities in Hawaii are all more expensive than the mainland. Helen felt that once we arrive in America the living expenses may be suffocating.

Thus she started to look in the paper for a possible live in situation where a family would exchange rent for some household chores. Finally she found an advertisement for a live in situation with a handicapped woman. The deal is that the family of the handicapped woman is willing to provide a room free of charge, but Helen must live there and take care of the woman at night. Helen wanted to save rent money and thought that if she had to endure some hardship it doesn’t matter much. She thought that if she could save some money maybe I could go to school once I am in America. She went to the family for an interview and the family was delighted and hired her. So Helen said goodbye to Lory and Dane. Lory and Dane were hesitant to let her go because Dane loved spending time with Helen on Friday nights when she told stories and played games with him. Lory told Helen that it is very difficult to take care of a handicapped senior citizen, and if Helen can’t take it anymore then just give Lory a call.

Helen moved to the home of the handicapped lady. In the day time she would go to school and return home to take care of the lady at night. Since Helen has never taken care of a handicapped person before she did not know how hard it is. When Helen gets home she needed to help the lady clean her body. Then later at night the lady would incessantly call Helen to help her get water and go to the bathroom. When she gets her feces and urine all over her bed, Helen needed to clean it up. After two nights, Helen was exhausted, and did not have energy for school. Helen thought about the situation and figured that she couldn’t handle it any longer. So she called Lory and asked to be taken back. After this incident, everytime Helen thinks about it she would get a bit emotional.

Because of Helen’s tireless efforts, we got our visa and we were able to leave the country. At that time, the policy allowed us to keep our jobs for a while and visit our relatives in another country. However, the leaders of the university I worked for were qutie heartless, and believed that I should give up my position and apartment to visit my wife. (Our apartment was supplied by the school).I thought about how I started working at a steel factory at age 15, and then spent more than 10 years teaching in the university. I practically spent my entire life for the building of my country. Now I, a person who has been educated by the Communists and used to eating the “big pot of rice”* was forced to give up my job. I did not have any other skills and I was going to a country where I didn’t know the language. I was extremely angry. However, if I did not quit my job and give up the apartment, my employer was not willing to give approval for me and my daughter to leave the country. For Chinese people of this day and age, quitting a job is not a big deal, but at that time it was an end to everything I had. A common proverb says, ” a man’s tears should not be shed carelessly”. However, right before I left I really cried. I’m not sure the sadness in my tears was towards the helplessness I felt towards giving up everything, or towards the fear of an unknown world. The feelings I felt at that moment are really hard to describe with words.

For the reunion of our family, I resigned to my fate, and signed my name on the form to quit my job and give up our apartment. Now when I think about it, if the university didn’t cut off my job as my fallback plan, perhaps I wouldn’t have had the courage to survive in America and endure all the hardships. My situation reminded me of the battle technique described by Sima Qian in The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) where troops sank their own ships once they reached enemy territory so that they have no choice but to fight and “live after they are in the land of death”. Another quote I have read is that “hardship is the ladder to the improvement of life”. After I have had this experience, I truly understood what these writers meant.

To be continued…

Translator’s note: “big pot of rice” is a moniker given to how Chinese workers were paid regardless of how much work they did under the Communist government. Before we left China practically everyone was employed by the government and there was very little private industry. So basically everyone was eating the “big pot of rice”. China is no longer like this and a lot of people wish the “big pot of rice” could come back.

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