Entries Tagged 'Love' ↓

It’s been a while since I translated a chapter of my dad’s story of how we immigrated to America and started a new life.  This is a bonus  story he wrote at the end of Chapter 3 that doesn’t have much to do with his new college life.  Anyway, it is an episode in our lives that is worth mentioning.  For more of my dad’s narrative see the category marked Fifteen Years in America. Enjoy!
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In the winter of 1992, I received an acceptance letter from Kap’iolani Community College.  Since I was an international student, I did not qualify for the inexpensive in state tuition.  The rate for international students was more than $1000 per semester.  Registration was due on 1/13 and classes started on 1/18.  When I was about to start school, two events happened.  One was a good thing, and the other was not.

First let me explain the joyous event.  When Helen was in college during the late 1970s she was a translator for a group of American educators that visited China.  Because of this she met an elementary teacher from Pensacola, Florida named Betty.  Betty’s husband was a retired military man of the United States Air Force.  At that time Betty was more than 60 years old but she was extremely interested in China.  After she met Helen she was quite interested in Helen’s education and life.  They became penpals for many years.  Even after we were married they kept on writing each other.  After Xin was born Betty was quite interested in Xin’s growth and education.  Everytime Xin had a birthday she would send some books and gifts.  When Helen arrived in Hawaii, the person that came to pick her up from the airport was Betty’s good friend.

After Xin and I came to America, Betty wrote us a letter saying that she is preparing a surprise for Xin.  Right before Christmas we received a letter from Los Angeles from a woman named Lynn.  In the envelope there were three roundtrip tickets from Hawaii to LA and three tickets to Disneyland worth 56 dollars each.  The letter said that we were invited as guests of the Presbyterian Church to a Christmas in Los Angeles.  Later we found out that this was the surprise Betty was talking about.

This was our first Christmas in America.  Lynn had a Ford, and she drove us from the Los Angeles Airport to her home.  Lynn is also a elementary school teacher, and her husband is a professor at UCLA.  They have two children, one boy and one girl.  The boy is the older child and his name is John.  He just graduated from college and his major was English.  However, he joined a fishing company and worked on the oceans as a fisherman.  I heard from Lynn that being a fisherman is hard and dangerous work and the pay was not spectacular, but John was  young and wanted to broaden his experience.  His parents thought that it was a good idea and did not protest.  At that time, I honestly didn’t understand the mindset of American parents.  I always thought that when children graduate from college they should go to graduate school and join academia, and I would never allow my child to do such hard and dangerous work.  However, after being in America for a while I understood more of the American educational system.  I think perhaps this type of hard labor is a lesson   American parents hope that their children could learn.  Perhaps in those dangerous waves, John could receive the inspiration Hemingway had when he wrote “The Old Man and the Sea”.

That week, Lynn’s church had a volunteer to drive us somewhere every single day.  We went to Disneyland and Xin was extremely excited and had a wonderful time.  Additionally,  we toured Hollywood and went to many different museums.  Nevertheless, that Christmas we were extremely happy.  I wanted to thank Lynn and her family for being such gracious hosts so I bought a chicken from the supermarket and made a Chinese style roast chicken.  I put many different ingredients and also sticky rice inside the stomach of the chicken and baked it for three hours until the skin was crispy and brown.  Lynn’s family tasted my chicken and praised it quite a bit, and said that I should visit them more often.

We could never forget that event and Betty’s love for our family.  A little over five years ago I and Helen visited Betty in Florida.  At that time, she was more than 80.  I cooked several Chinese dishes for her and when she heard that we both had great jobs and Xin was studying at UC Berkeley she felt very relieved.  Today, even though Betty already left us, her smiles and voice is still often remembered in our family.

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Addendum from Xin:  I still remember that Christmas really clearly even thought it has been more than fifteen  years because it was beautiful.  The funniest moment I remember was that Lynn’s family sat down to pray over the food, and my dad didn’t quite understand it.  So when they said something like, “Thank you for this food”, my dad blurted out something like “no problem!” because he cooked the chicken.  My mom was embarrassed and then explained it to him later.  It’s still pretty funny when I think of it.

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I just have one goal today: finish my  self evaluation for work.  It is really one of the things I hate to do, and that is why I am procrastinating.  It wasn’t so bad in my last company because they had a formal process of setting goals every quarter and I had a pretty supportive and communicative manager that told me what he thought of my work quite often. My manager in my current company is also pretty nice and easy to talk to, but the formal review process was just established this year and it is a bit confusing for everyone here.

The most annoying thing about self evaluations is when they give you a numbered scale asking you how you think you did.  Should you be modest here?  Or should you just be honest? Sometimes even when you are being honest your assessment of your work may not match up to what others think and you could come off as sounding arrogant.  I usually try to be honest and rate myself a bit above average, but is that how my peers see me? Sometimes the number ratings’ associated descriptions are pretty vague.  For example, why is “made excellent contributions” ranked 3 and “often exceeded expectations” ranked 4?  Does that mean excellent contributions don’t exceed expectations?  Basically, I hate how HR tries to make every rating sound nice and fine.

It is also a bit hard for me to fill this form out with a ton of achievements for the past year since I have only been here for four months.  So my list of accomplishments seem kind of pithy.  I don’t think that is a big problem because my manager should understand that I am still really new here.  I do have a good habit of writing down things I have accomplished in my notebook, but it is hard to summarize small day to day accomplishments such as “made this thing run again”.

Another crappy thing about this particular performance review is that I am pretty sure I will not get a raise because of the length of my service here.  I am okay with it considering that they just gave me a pretty nice hiring bonus a few months ago.  Hopefully next year I will get a bigger raise than usual.

There has been a ton of changes in every part of my company for reasons I will not state here.  I will say that I do believe in the direction the company is taking. I just hope they refine their performance review process a bit more so that it isn’t so annoying and time consuming to fill out these forms. Unfortunately, I guess I am amongst the first batch of guinea pigs to go through this at this company. So how about you?  Do you have any tips or rants about the self evaluation process of performance reviews?

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This morning as I drove to work I saw a cluster of pink and red balloons flying into a vast and endless blue sky. I laughed to myself in the car because I imagined a poor man somewhere on the other side of the street watching the $40 he just spent flying away. Anyway, my Valentine’s Day article is receiving a lot of views on Wise Bread today. My hubby read my article and he is going to cook for me!! I am so excited! He is preparing a sea scallop and mushroom risotto with some homemade mushroom and spinach ravioli. *drools*

Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day if you’re into it. Just remember that it’s a capitalistic conspiracy for you to pull out your wallets. Resist if you can!

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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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