A story of struggling in Poverty

By: Kenny Chong

A story of struggling in Poverty--- TatKeong Chong

In 1971, my dad, TatKeong Chong, was only twelve years old and started to earn money for his family. He is form China, Guangzhou with a small village which was very poor and dirty. His family was very poor. He had two brothers and three sisters. He tells me, “I am the fourth between my brothers and sisters.”

The family did not have enough food to eat so the children needed to work to earn money to buy food. My father worked on the farm every day. He needed to plant the plants and water them. The buckets were so heavy. Sometime he would go to pick up the garbage and sell it for money; other times he had to move a lot of broken glass. They were jobs made his back hurt and sometimes his back would be bleed. He felt upset to do these jobs because no one would like to pick up the smelly garbage and the broken glass to hurt the back. Everyone would like to have education and play games with friends but he could not. He always wished he was born into a rich family so he would have a better education but he knew he could not choose his family. On the other hand, he did not feel upset to do work because he thought this was a good experience for surviving in a bad environment. It helped him to struggle his life and he knew how hard it was. He knew what poverty was because he experienced it every day. In his words, poverty is that when you are poor and no one would like to help you. You need to struggle by yourself anytime. If you did not work hard, you would not have any food to eat. Even it would kill you. To face with poverty, my father felt helpless because no one would like to help him except his family’s member. Poverty is like a rabbit in the forest with a lot lions. In the forest, the lions want to eat the rabbit. One hand you need to find food to eat. On the other hand you need to escape of the lions. If you do not pay attention, you will be eaten by the lions but if you only pay attention to escape the lions, you will be very hungry. Eventually the rabbit will be died. So poverty is very terrible.

In his childhood, his family and him ate difference food every day. It did not represent that they were rich and could choose what food to eat. It represented they may only had a sweet potato for the whole family or a few of gruel for a few days. Their food was controlled by their work. If they worked hard, they can have more food. He thought his childhood was very challenge because he had a lot of experience that ordinary people did not have. One day, his father was calling him to go the mountain and got some firewood but he got lost in the mountain for a night. There was very dark and he only could see by the moonlight. It was so cold and he felt helpless at that moment. Finally he saw the light in the village and found the exit and got back to home. And he had been punished by his mum for a whole day. But it was an exciting journey.

Although his family was so poor but his parent knew that the education is very important for their children. When he was thirteen years old he could go to school now. But the school was so disgusting; it only had a few of teachers for hundreds of students. He did not study for a long time because he had to work with his family. Only the rich families could have a good education. In 1966 - 1977, the Chinese government issued a new policy, the Cultural Revolution, which is the worst idea of China. The policies encouraged the students to not study anymore and to only go to the factory to work. It caused the education and the economy to stop for ten years. A lot of intellectual and citizens were killed. Teachers and students were in opposition. That means if you still studied or taught, you would be arrested or killed by the government. They did not have any freedom. They just could work more and more. All of the national were being scared. Additionally a lot of Chinese heritages were destroyed such as YuanMingYuan and Cemetery of Confucius. After the revolution, my father continued to finish the high school and he graduated in the high school but after that, he did not study anymore because he had gone to Macau and started his new life.

He went to Macau when he was 22 years old. He went to Macau for two reasons. One was his sister was in Macau and she called him to come live with her,. Another reason was he heard Macau and Hong Kong was a great city. Everywhere was gold. Even though they were the colony of the others countries, they were better than China. He did not go to Macau form a normal method. He means he was an illegal immigration. He swam over the river between china and Macau. The river was not very long. It was only two kilometers. But between Macau and Guangzhou is about a hundred and twenty kilometers. And he took about 1-2 weeks to arrive to Macau. During he went to Macau, he was very worried because he needed to face a new place and new things. He went alone to Macau and it was very dangerous because there were many bandits. He thought he could have a better life in Macau because he could have a better job and he did not need to care about the revolution in Macau. He thought the biggest difference between Macau and China was Macau has a lot of freedom. It was kind of the democracy. For example in China, you need to speak carefully and you cannot punish the government but in Macau you can do it. He has done two different jobs; one as an electrician, another one as cook. He has been a cook for thirty years and today he still is a cook. He found his love in Macau and they have a family. It is a wonderful family. Again now he and his family have immigrated. He decided to immigrate to the United States because he wanted his children have a better education. And now they have been the United States for eight months. They have a new life in the United States.