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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story originally written by my dad in Chinese. For more of my dad’s narrative see the category marked Fifteen Years in America. If you can read Chinese you can read the original at my dad’s Yahoo blog. He has just finished Chapter 8. Enjoy!

Continued from Part 1 

On this day I finished my classes at noon and ran to the student cafeteria as quickly as I could.  When I stepped into the office, I looked for a director named Jane per the instructions of the advertisement.  When I walked in, I saw a white woman a bit over 40 sitting behind a desk and staring at a computer screen.

I asked her, “Who is Jane?”

She looked up and checked me out from head to toe and said, “I am, do you have a question?”

I said, “I saw your advertisement for a student worker at the cafeteria.  I am here for that job.”

She asked me, “Do you have any kitchen experience?”

At that time, I thought to myself,  America really requires experience for everything.  My readers might remember that when I went to Duke’s Lane   to find a sales job my boss Peter’s first question to me was a “do you have sales experience?”.   They don’t seem to realize that if everyone needs experience, then someone without experience must be given the chance to learn and gain experience.  If no one without experience is given an opportunity, then everyone without experience will never gain experience.

However, America is just a society that forces you to gain work and social experience from contact with the world starting at a young age.  It is commonly said that, “what you learn in school on books is rarely applied”.  In America, we need to add a line and say, “you can never have too much experience when you try to find a job.”

When it comes to the kitchen, I actually have many years of experience.  When the Cultural Revolution began, I was just eleven years old.  My dad was jailed in a cow pen since he  was accused as being a descendant of a landlord and later sent to the countryside to be “reeducated” and “recreated”.  He was sent to the cafeteria as an accountant.  I often went to that cafeteria and watched Chef Zhang cook.  At that time there wasn’t that much great food to eat.  However, my dad always tried to ask the chef to do the best he could.  Chef Zhang supposedly was the stable boy for General He Long during World War II, and did not have a lot of education, and so he received a job in the reeducation camp as a chef.  Later on, I don’t remember for what reason, he almost committed suicide and died, but my dad somehow saved him.  This happened a very very long time ago.

After I finish writing about these fifteen years, I may write about the previous forty years and slowly tell these tales.

Anyway, I was familiar with a kitchen in a cafeteria because I encountered it at a young age.  Truthfully, I really love the art of Chinese cuisine.

The reasons I love Chinese cuisine include the following:

First, “the people worship food as they worship the sky”.  I really love to eat.  When I was young, everything was rationed.  We could only cook food differently to satisfy the four values of Chinese food: “color, scent, taste, and shape”.

Second, I had two neighbors who were experts in Chinese cooking.  One was my dad’s old friend.  After the Cultural Revolution, he researched the history of Chinese cooking and published many books.  When I was teaching in the university he would always give me a free copy of his book whenever he publishes one.  I would follow the ancient recipes he collected and cook the Weiyang style of Chinese cuisine.  Another one of my cooking teachers is an experience chef.  He grew up with me and went to a famous cooking school at the age of fourteen, and later served as a chef at the banquet halls of the Central  government.  Later on he went to Japan as a chef in a great restaurant.  Every year he would come home for the Spring Festival and teach me a few techniques.  Some of the famous Weiyang dishes I have learned are “Yangzhou Lion’s Head“, “Great Boiled Tofu Strings”, “Yangzhou Fried Rice”, and “General Crossing the Bridge”.  Could you say that I have no cooking experience?

To be continued!

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story originally written by my dad in Chinese. For more of my dad’s narrative see the category marked Fifteen Years in America. If you can read Chinese you can read the original at my dad’s Yahoo blog. He has just finished Chapter 8. Enjoy!

When I meet students from China these days, most of them are financed by their families, and almost none of them work in restaurants now. Near my house there is a Chinese restaurant that I visit quite often. In the end of the last century I could still meet a few students from China working there, but lately there are no longer any Chinese students. Instead, all the workers are either Mexican or Chinese immigrants not here for school. When I think about this I think Chinese parents should learn from the Americans and let their children work in addition to going to school. My daughter started a blog a month after reading my blog. Her main goal is to educate her generation and popularize the idea of living beneath one’s means. In about two months she wrote about sixty blog posts and one particular post is titled, How I Saved Over $30,000 While in College and What I Did With the Money. Those of you young people who can read English might as well head over and read her post.

She wrote about how she used different methods such as working at school, contracting, selling books, and entering sweepstakes to earn money. I am very glad that she inherited the Chinese traditions of diligence and frugality. At the same time she learned a lot from the Americans. For example, she donates a good amount of her income and volunteers. I thought to myself, when we were in Hawaii we experienced quite a bit from working in America, and the hardships of that time is quite worthwhile.

In January of 1993, I became a full time student at Kapiolani, so I no longer had time to work at Duke’s Lane. On my first day at school, I went to the library to borrow books and I passed by the student cafeteria. At the door of the cafeteria I saw a wanted ad that read, “The cafeteria needs three student workers to help the chefs prepare lunch. The pay is $6.75 per hour and lunch is free.”

When I saw this ad I was quite happy, because I figured that I can solve my problem of losing my job and spending money for tuition. This job has fairly flexible hours and I can work there for two hours after my morning classes and also get a free meal. I no longer needed to pack lunch, and this was awesome. Packing lunch may seem like a joke to modern day international students, but at that time I remember we would always spend three dollars to buy a 10 pound pack of chicken drumsticks. After we cook it with soy sauce, we would make chicken sandwiches with some bread and tomatoes. We ate like this for several years. After that, I didn’t want to touch chicken drumsticks anymore because I have eaten way too many of them.

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story originally written by my dad in Chinese. For more of my dad’s narrative see the category marked Fifteen Years in America. If you can read Chinese you can read the original at my dad’s Yahoo blog. He has just finished Chapter 8. Enjoy!

In addition to “Introduction to American Economics” and “Mathematics for Business”, I also chose “English” and “Basic Accounting”. At that time the college had an English requirement. Every student must pass “English 100″ to get a diploma. I’m not sure what level of English this is equivalent to in China, but at that time I only scored 540 on the TOEFL and I did not qualify for “English 100″, yet. Under “English 100″ there were “English 10″, “English 20″, and “English 25″. After I took a placement test, my student advisor suggested that I should take “English 25″, which is Basic English Writing.

The professor of Basic English Writing was a tall and slender British woman named Cary. She was a bit over 30 and spoke with a heavy British accent. When I learned English in China my professor had a Russian background, and did not speak with a standard accent. Additionally, my college class was the first class after the end of The Cultural Revolution, and we did not have a lot of great educational materials. Additionally, since my major was agricultural economics in college, I had to learn a lot of Marxist political and economic theory. At that time I bought a full set of “Das Kapital” and read it through, so I didn’t have time to learn English. After I moved to America, I realized that British English sounds different from American English. When I worked in Duke’s Lane, I could distinguish different English accents such as Australian, New Zealander, and Singaporean.

Cary is very strict with her students. Every time I received my papers back I would see her edits blooming like red flowers. Behind each paper she would write very detailed and helpful comments. I remember I wrote an essay titled “My Daughter Xin”. The essay chronicled how Xin started to learn Chinese at age two and how she was able to read at age three. When she was nine I brought her to America, and when she just came she did not know any English so we let her stay back one grade in school and repeat fourth grade. After half a year, she managed to catch up to her classmates. Additionally I wrote about her hobbies such as collecting coins and stamps. Finally, I wrote that my wife and I wished that Xin would have a bright future. I think Cary was also a mother because she really loved this essay. After some edits, she sent my essay to the school’s English magazine and published it. Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of the magazine, but my wish for my daughter to have a bright future has been realized.

In a blog post I wrote on 7/27/07 titled “When can parents let go?” I wrote, “If someone asks me what the greatest benefit of leaving China is, I would say that we have found a place where children can freely develop.”

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Basic Accounting was a course that related to my future job. I had an excellent professor named Rose Kar. She was a little over 30, and already had an PhD in Accounting from the University of Texas. She taught at Kapiolani and also the business school of The University of Hawaii at Manoa. After my wife Helen switched to the business school she was also a student of Rose.

Rose Kar’s teaching style is very focused and logical. She also built upon the material like links upon links of a chain. Another thing I noticed is that she likes to save time. When you listen to her lectures, you must be very focused. From the beginning of the lecture to the end, she would start from the left side of the blackboard and work on one problem. After the lecture is done the entire board would be covered and the problem is done. When she is demonstrating a problem she would welcome questions from students. I remember that I liked to ask some weird questions. For example, in several different types of transactions, how would you balance several depreciation methods and find the best method?

A Chinese proverb says, “professionals watch for special techniques, and amateurs watch for entertainment”. Since I was a professor, I felt that I gained quite a bit from Rose Kar’s class. Her class definitely gave me a great foundation in accounting, and that helped me in my future job immensely. Rose Kar also liked a student like me who liked to ask questions and challenge the professor. After one semester, I received an A in the class, and she recommended that I should become a tutor at the student learning center and tutor other students in accounting.

After one semester, I received an A in all four of my courses. In the second semester the school gave me the coveted Pacific Scholarship, and that waived all of my tuition. That was a great boost to my confidence and life.

Chapter 5 is coming up next. In the next chapter my dad learns how to make hamburgers. If you don’t want to miss a thing, feel free to subscribe!

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Today I read an  article on the New York Times titled “Lure of Big Paycheck Tugs at Graduates Considering Public Service“.  The basic gist of it is that top colleges are trying to encourage students to enter non-profit sectors and take jobs in public service, but many students are burdened with huge loans that they have to pay off so a secure job with a fat paycheck is the path they end up taking.  I am not surprised at this at all, but here are some of my thoughts in working in public service.

Most people are idealistic when they are young and then get disillusioned later, but I think I am the opposite.  In highschool I knew people that were truly believed that they could change the world for the better, but I wasn’t one of them.  I knew that after college I wanted a high paying job, and I wanted to be financially secure. I know that sounds selfish, but I figured that I am just practical. I also said to my friends that I would never work as a teacher or work for the government.  Now after graduating and working for three years at fairly well-paying corporate jobs, I think my thoughts on public service has changed quite a bit.

First of all, I think America really has a shortage of great teachers.  Most of my immediate family members have been teachers and professors in China at one time or another, and I think my dad enjoyed it more than most people. So I know that it can be a very personally fulfilling job. Anyway, I think one of the main problems with finding quality teachers is definitely financial.  The starting salary for highschool teachers in the Bay Area is around $30000 to $50000 depending on the school district and credentials, but the new teacher might have a buttload of student debt to pay off.  Couple that with the extremely high cost of living here in the Bay Area, I don’t see how we could get good public school teachers.  Good science and math teachers are especially hard to find because people who study science and math could get much more lucrative jobs. I went to Albany High School and I had a bunch of excellent science and math teachers who graduated from UC Berkeley.  They are mostly retired now, but any one of them could have taken up a more lucrative job as an engineer. I had a physics teacher that almost completed his electrical engineering PhD at UC Berkeley, but decided to be a high school teacher, and he was a great teacher.  If we don’t have more public school teachers like them, then the next generation of children will suffer as a whole.  Anyway, I know of one classmate who gave up her lucrative job at a large web retailer to apply for Teach for America, and I hope she is still teaching.

Next, I think many young people do not realize how much of their souls they have to give up for that big paycheck at that corporate job.  There are plenty of high profit businesses that have less than ethical practices.  Additionally, many highpaying jobs require you to work to your bone.  There is also corruption in public service, but for the most part I don’t believe it is encouraged.  Granted, there are plenty of great jobs in the private industry, too, but in the article I read a lot of these Harvard students are going to hedge funds, which I think are mostly shady businesses because they have very little regulation or disclosure. Of course, a public service job might also be terribly boring, but if it’s a job that helps people and fulfills you, then it might not be as bad.

Finally, there are lots of perks in public service and non-profit jobs, too.  For example, I think government employees still get pension for the most part, and my mom will get her healthcare covered after she retires.  Sure, the pay might be  lower, but a perpetual pension is worth quite a bit. Additionally, non-profit organizations  usually give more time off than for-profit corporations so that is worth something.  Also, I feel that there is a bit more job security in non-profit and public corporations.  Someone told me once that the government never fires anyone.  There is quite a bit of bureaucracy involved, and so people stay in a job forever.

Right now both of my parents work for non-profits.  My dad really thinks he is changing the world through his work, and I think that’s pretty cool.  My mom just started at a state university after working in a for profit company for all of her career in America.  She is trying to adjust to all the bureaucracy and a huge pay cut, but I think in the end she will reap the rewards of paid health care and a small pension. Now with that said, lately I have thought about getting a non-profit job sometime in the future because now I do want to change the world  for the better somehow.  However, I think I would be happier to do the job for free when I am financially independent.  As much as I have warmed up to the concept of public service, I am still practical and selfish by nature.  So I guess I will just have to spend a few more years as a well compensated corporate cube dweller.

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story originally written by my dad in Chinese. For more of my dad’s narrative see the category marked Fifteen Years in America. Enjoy!

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I remember that my first class was titled “Introduction to American Business”. The professor is a Japanese Hawaiian named John. He was about 40 years old, medium build, and spoke English with a distinct Hawaiian accent. For international students , and especially me, the greatest obstacle is really the language. The professor speaks quite fast, and at first I could only understand about 50 to 60%. So I bought a small tape recorder and taped every lecture. After I got home, I would listen to it again. The contents of the lessons are not that difficult to understand, but my vocabulary was lacking, and I needed to look up many things in the dictionary.

My major of accounting belonged to the business school, and the Introduction to American Business was one of the core introductory courses. It didn’t have much depth, but covered many subjects. After completing this course, students are supposed to understand the basics of American economy and the main channels America uses for production and trade. Additionally, the students should have a bit of knowledge about international trade. The textbook was simple to understand and had a lot of pictures. Additionally, John was a very good lecturer and included many examples that applied to everyday life. For example, when he talked about supply and demand, he used Hawaii’s real estate market as an example. At that time, Hawaii’s real estate markets was one of the most expensive markets in the entire country. The main reason is that many Japanese people snatched up real estate in Hawaii. The yen was extremely strong and traded 80 yen to 1 dollar, and the Japanese thought that everything was quite cheap in Hawaii. They bought all things large and small including toothpaste and real estate. Additionally, Hawaii is a chain of islands, and did not have that much land. Building materials and labor also had to be shipped from the mainland and that increased the cost to build. Thus, there was a small supply and a huge demand so the real estate market boomed. When John talked about Hawaii’s pineapple industry, he said that it was a different picture. In the beginning of this story I mentioned that Hawaii used to have three large industries, one is tropical agriculture. The pineapples grown in the volcanic soil of the islands are large and sweet, and they used to be very popular. However, in the beginning of the 90’s, America was in a recession, and the labor in Hawaii was expensive compared to other tropical regions in the world. So the demand for Hawaiian pineapples fell greatly, and they were quite cheap around the islands.

I felt that the most interesting thing about American education is that the professors intentionally create an entertaining and relaxed atmosphere for the student, and doesn’t just lecture monotonically.  It’s not like in China where the professors are supposed to talk, and the students are supposed to listen quietly and believe that whatever the professor said is true.  Students in China learn by memorizing formulas and definitions, and then recite it all during tests.  Here in America, the professors often put students in small groups so that they can debate amongst themselves and students are encouraged to have different opinions.  Additionally, on the written exams students do not necessarily have to agree with a professor’s opinion in essay questions.  As long as you have a great idea and great supporting points you could still score quite well.

At that time, the math classes I had to take were extremely easy.  I think they were at the level of 10th grade math in China so I had no problems.  However, I never expected that there is something in  these math courses that could be extremely difficult for me.

As I said previously, the community colleges are established to provide the community with capable workers.  So the math classes are not extremely difficult, but there are more hands on skills taught.  One particular class required us to learn to use something called a “Ten Key”, which is basically a calculator that prints out a calculation.  It is a pretty common tool used by most accounting departments.  I have never used a calculator such as this in China.  In fact, in China the accounting departments in my college years taught people to use the abacus.  In my department there was a professor famous for teaching the abacus.  He was always cheerful and unkempt and carried a giant abacus on his back.  Then he would hang the abacus on the blackboard and calculate with one hand while he taught.  I don’t know if the students learned anything from that guy or if  they still teach that course, but in Kapiolani the lesson of the ten key was extremely useful to me.

At that time everyone was assigned a ten key calculator.  The teacher told us to touch type and calculate results.  Additionally, the teacher would record everyone’s time and give a score.  Since I’ve never touched such a machine before I was extremely slow in the beginning.  In my first test I only typed about 50 numbers in a minute, and I still had calculation errors.  I was in the bottom three of the entire class even though my math scores were number one in another class.  However, if I couldn’t improve my score in the ten key class, my entire GPA would suffer.  My American classmates grew up with keyboards and they had no problems typing more than 100 numbers per minute, and I was extremely jealous.  In order to catch up, I used any extra time I had and went to the Student Learning Center to borrow a ten key machine and practice.  I practiced so  much that my fingers hurt to touch any object.  However, every bit of plowing brings an extra bit of harvest.  My final score was that I could enter more than 160 numbers per minute and my accuracy was above 98%.   So my final mathematics  score was number one in the class.  Many years later, when I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the world’s largest financial headhunting firms interviewed me and actually tested me on a ten key machine.  At that very moment it was clear to me  that my hard work was not wasted at all.

Stay tuned for more of my dad’s adventure in America! Feel free to subscribe to this feed if you don’t want to miss a single chapter.

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