Grandfather Immigration's Story

by Stephanie Zheng

I interview my grandfather’s immigration story. My grandfather named Benjamin; he is 77years old right now. When he came to United States, he was 56 year old. He moved from China to San Francisco on November 24, 1994. He has five children. In last century 80s-90s, his brothers and sister all moved to here, except him. But later, his sister became his applicant to apply he came to United States. Finally, he came here with his wife who he loves and important to him.

            His story can separated to two parts about his life in china and his life in United States. He bore in a poor family in china. He worked in his own small farm with his children. They all have different jobs. Every day, he needs to water the crop, feed the chicken, ducks and pigs after he wake up. At the end of the year, they sell the vegetables and fowl to get a little money. The children always hungry, because the family was poor, they don’t have enough foods. However the life was hard, but was happy. He told me that time he cannot forget forever.

When his sisters and brothers came here, wrote the letters back to him, told him how good was United States. He determined to bring his family to here, began a new life. Before he came here, he imaged all the good things have happened. When he took off the air plane, he got a shock. All the building and car were modern, he never see that at before. He lived in sunset neighborhood with his wife, his sister and his sister 3children where a dark, wet and small brunch. His sister was also very poor in here. My grandfather’s happy didn’t continue very long. He very needs to find another brunch to live with my grandmother. But rented a house was expensive to him because he cannot find any job. He doesn’t know English and how to use the modern machine. He became sad when the day past. Finally he got a job in the supermarket’s meat Shoppe. Every day began work in 8:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the evening. Stand whole day 14 hours to kill and clean the pigs, then packed the pork, sell to the customers. The job was very hard and dirty. The pork was heavy; so far, he got lots of rheumatism. The paid was very low, just enough to the rent. He told me, when he finishes the work, he always too sleeps to forget take off the bus. When he dreams, he always dreams he was killing the pigs.

Once, his boss escape, but didn’t paid to him. He started became crazy. The times goes by, my grandmother was worried him. When she walked on the way near the house, she found my grandfather who was looks messy and cried, sat in the floor. My grandmother told me, she also afraid because she didn’t know what happened. But she knows she needs to calm down. She sat down next to my grandfather, hug him. About one hour later, my grandfather felt better, he promise to my grandmother, no more cried by himself. They told me the house owner was nice, she allowed my grandparents paid the rent later and my grandfather find the new job soon.

The times goes by, they were became old, but love each other. When they told me this story, they laughing and smiling. At my eyes, this story was touched. Now, they come true their dream, they apply all the children to here. They always tell me how hard they lived in US at before, but always with the smile to tell me the experiences. Their immigration story affects me so much. Right now, I am a new immigrant, when I face the problems, I always will relate to my grandparent, they were brave and positive, never give up. Their attitude encourages me became a stronger person all the time… …

Long-Distance Love

By Jin Rong Huang

                Everyone must have a question:” what is love?” In my opinion, love is a person very care about another person. Give that person all of things you have. Your heart will always be another person’s. “My heart is, and always will be, yours.” This quote is from book, Sense and Sensibility. It describes the person who is in love. Love experience can make people’s lives fill with joys, happiness and surprises. “Talking to the moon, try to get to you.” These are the lyrics of talking to the moon. This song perfectly describes the meaning of love, but also, there are still lots of different views from other people, here is a “Chinese Romeo’s story.”

                My friend’s name is JJ. He had a funny love starter. When he first met his girlfriend, Hua,”Did you eat your breakfast?” he asked. These are the first words of their love story, as the love started. Did you ever see the movie, Titanic? JJ and Hua were like Rose and Jack who are the characters of Titanic. They fell in love at first sight, and also their first movie they saw together was Titanic. It is a very romantic movie. When they saw this movie, they were exited. They imagined themselves as the jack and rose for each part of scene. As they watched the movie, JJ had a desire to hold Hua’s hand. After a few seconds he dare to hold her hands, but Hua didn’t realized that JJ hold her hand as she was focusing on the movie, for the reason that it was very interesting.  After movie finished, they were still on their image, and then JJ did romantic kiss Hua. That scene was very sweet.

                They did the same things as common lovers did. For example: date, go shopping, go to beach, etc. JJ remembers his special first date. Even if you think his date was one of his most important days to commemorate. Through the first date is special, but every date has different feelings. One thing they did change is they love each other more and more. The person who is not in love, he might wonder 2 people stay together and do the same things as normal people do, why they feel happy? JJ had this question, too. Until he met Hua, now he gets the answer: when 2 people love each other, be with him or her is happiness, even though just 1 second. Every second is important to lovers. They cherish the time they were together. Also JJ wants to create more memories with Hua. He wants to go to ocean with Hua, then have a good Titanic’ picture as Jack and Rose do when they at ship’s bow. He also wants to ice skate with her and holds her hands, skate together. They want to sit in the middle of lake and tell each other everything that another person wants to know.

                One day, Hua met a very big problem: she. As we know, in China, we need to stay in school for the whole semester, even is sleeping. They live in dormitory. JJ did not see Hua at school. He went to ask the neighbor of Hua. She said:” Hua went outside of the school, I did not know where she going?” JJ called Hua’s cellphone. And know she was in the hospital. He fled from school and went to hospital to take care of Hua. He met Hua’s father, but he very worried about Hua, he told her father that they are lovers, now I couldn’t talk with you, we could choose another time to community. He walked across her father and finally he saw Hua.  “What a pale face is this! Are you Ok, Hua. Did you feel comfortable now?” They had very long conversation. JJ did this day by day. And took care of Hua from his class over until 10 p.m. Her father saw all of these processes; he agreed Hua and JJ together because of JJ’s care. After he went back to school, the teacher got mad at him because he was late.

                Then a very big problem happened. JJ knew that he need to immigrate to United States from his mother. JJ did not tell Hua this. He wanted to have a good break with Hua until he went to United State. He seem this time as his most important time, he did everything that he could do with Hua. Leaving day was coming. JJ told this privacy to Hua, suddenly Hua embraced JJ and didn’t let him go. This embrace kept a long time until JJ’s mom called him. He promised that he would be back; he will not discontinue contact with Hua. Finally, they separated.

                But the story did not end. After he arrived at United States. He never discontinues the contact with Hua every day. Everyday is not very easy like we say. You know, sometimes you were tired or some bad things happened, you would what you doing, and relax. But JJ did not. He keeps doing this for these seven months. Every day he called Hua, to let her wake up, after her school done, he called again, and last call is when she prepares to sleep.

                Their love story do not stop even one second, they misses each other every second. Love is a n energy to support them to wait the day they meet each other again. They already thought their future, when JJ goes back to China, what they do and where they go. As Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie said, time is the longest distance between two places. It is a test for them; time is a most difficulty test for the lovers. If you overcome it, it may prove that your love is real. I trust them can do it as they trust each other, let’s hope they will be together one day. Let’s expect that day coming!  

Far Away Love

By Kelly Ou

Where there is great love, there are always miracles. Between China and the United States there is a beautiful love. Does time, distance affect their love? Can their love last forever? Nobody knows that, not even me! But I will try to answer these questions.

In the beautiful love, the characters are Li and Alice. I interviewed Li about their love. They both from China, but 1 year ago, Alice immigrated to the United States. Then they love each other and still now. He met her in middle school; in the first time, he thought she talked litter, never heard one bad word from her. And when she smiles, it’s like snowing, she has the purest white of teeth. So, he said he loves her smiles very much. I know that is like a sentence say: “love is blind, in love, and anything are beautiful.”

In love there are different types. They are love developed with time; he doesn’t believe falling in love at first sight. He thinks love is ‘never abandon and leave’. And he thinks when a boy meets a girl who merits loving and to expend, even have a distance, like her. But he thinks they almost can be together. He loves her more than her, he cannot be without her, and he just wants a plain boiled water of love.

Alice is his most important person in his life. Li meets her on the computer every day, he feels happy and wants to hug with her. He doesn’t like to hide anything for her; he doesn’t want one more lies between of them. He said that he remember an interesting was happened in the middle school, she was taller than him; but now, they are switch, he feels so happy about that. Even though, they cannot hand in hand with each other, but he didn’t complain about that. He tells himself they are like a husband and a wife. They are work on different place, but they both work for their future. Because he knows that they can hand in hand someday and can be hug with her. Even though between them have the Pacific Ocean, he never thinks about broke up with her and said that broke up are impossible forever! And he didn’t worry about another lover of her, he Is trust in her. And he said that if she has another lover, he will respect what she picks. So, because of her, he spend less time in the computer games, he wants to has a lot of time with her. In the future, he will work hard to get more money to buy a car for her, and he will be an exclusive driver for her to tour with her, and give her a warm house.      

Everything is not a problem for love. Li doesn’t worry about the time and distance. He think these questions are not a matter, the main points is on how to understand each other, the reason is that understand can help them to know what they want and feeling. And I had to talked about time with him, anything can change over time, but he just tell me that they are love develops with time; they will love each other more and more over time. They will help each other to face the any problem together, and they will use the trust, unremitting and wholehearted to keep their love. I think they can do it, the positive energy of love can support them, and this is the power of the great power of love!

Forever? What is forever? He doesn’t believe in forever, he just is sure that insist is forever. And he thinks the forever is around of him, as long as to insist to love, the “Forever” is less than 1 cm forever. Li wants buy a ring for Alice, make her to be his wife, he thinks they will have a happiness life in future. I agree with him because of my eyes, I believe what I see. I know that they are so sweet, I saw them talked with phone and computer, and they are look so happy. But I know in somewhere of their heart have a place has a lonely, and the love and lonely are fighting at their heart. It is like the love is a angel, the lonely is a demon. Angel is a person who persuades him to insist, but the demon told him to give up their feelings. But I know “love” is a winner, I want to witness the miracle belongs to them in the future.

There are many kinds of love, it can be between relatives, friends, lovers, but they both are beautiful, great and powerful, love can makes us stronger. I believe that no one can change the love, only you can destroy your feelings, anything are control by yourself. Love doesn’t have to be together every day, as long as the heart has a space for each other. And I remember a sentence of a song say “You are always on my mind, in my dream and in my heart.” Love is not to hang around all day, is to use action to prove. I think love is the positive energy, love are support them to solve the problems. The people who falling in love, love is all the things, So I just want to say “All shall be well, Jack shall have Jill” for the lovers!           

Old Society in China

By Xuqing Liu

     The past can remind us not to make the same mistakes again and to cherish the life now. Do you know what Old Society is? Old Society is "landlord class" and "peasant class" for two society of the "agricultural society" or "countryside society" in China. Do you know or hear something about Old Society. My mom belonged to peasant class, now; I will talk about what my mom's life looked like in Old Society.

My mom was born in 1955. She grew up in a village of the mountain. There were some poor houses in the village. The floor of the house it had some holes: If outside it were purines, inside the house it would sprinkle. Around the house there were many mountains. The mountains had many bamboo and many fruit trees, but you couldn’t get the fruit from the tree because they belonged to the government or landlord. Also, the mountains had some path, but the path was not steep, it was very sinuate and hard to walk.

She lived with her father, mother and 5 brothers together. Three or four people lived in one small room and slept in one bed. It was very crowded. Every day they ate a little sweet potato or cassava or porridge and some salted fish or pickles, but the porridge just had a little rice. They could eat chicken and other meat except in New Year. Of course, they didn’t have oil when they cooked. They just used pork streak one time. All the food was sour and very insipid, but my mom still ate because she felt hunger and her family was poor, they didn’t have enough money to buy food to eat. They didn’t care about the food’s taste. They just wanted something to eat.

They also didn’t have money to buy new clothes. Everyone wore busted clothes. Nobody could see the original clothes because the clothes were patched so many times. In the New Year, the older brother or sisters away could get new clothes. The younger brother or sister only could wear the clothes from the older brothers or sisters. My mom was the youngest child in her family. And she only has brother. So she just could wear the old clothes from her brothers. She never wore the new clothes, including New Year when she was young.

Certainly, they didn’t have any transport in that time. Everyone just walked no matter how far. Some people’s feet were like carbon because they didn’t have shoes. Also, they didn’t have TV because there was no electricity. They only used kerosene oil lamps. When they had time, they couldn’t go to play, the only one thing they could do was housework.

She still remembers the Great Famine in 1958 because she was child and this event scared her. Many people died in that time just because they didn’t have food to eat. Some people died of edema because they didn’t have food to eat, they just could drank water to satisfy hunger. After that time, it had many tombstones over two sides of the path. When her brother went to school, they usually ran so fast because they need to pass the tombstone and they were scared. My mom was timid, young and her brother was away tell she how terror about the tombstone, so she never pass tombstone.

In 1965, she started going to school. The school was the old house and small that had two rooms and one hall. Inside the school had some tables and chair make by rotted wood. Also, they had a big blackboard in the wall. All the childes of the village was study in this school. They learned about the multiplication of math and some Chinese worlds before the Great Cultural Revolution. In 1966, the Great Cultural Revolution happened. The school only taught the “Three Constantly Red Articles”. Every student needed to put Mao Tus-tung’s picture on the table and writ down their loyal to Mao Tus-tung. However, if you didn’t do these things, that mean you needed to stay behind after class. My mom was the person who didn’t do these things because she didn’t’ know how to do it. So she stayed behind after class every day.

After half year, my mom stopped going to school because her family didn’t had money supply her go to school. Her mom wanted her to help make money, gathering firewood and carry in water of the family. When she was 14 year old, she worked in the production team, she helped farmland, and cut the rice.........she worked so hard in the production team because it can get more work-points. If you had more work-points then you can get more wages for each month.

      Times are changing all the time and becoming better. Now, we can get many things that we want; we have beautiful clothes, enough and different food to eat, and the transportation is more convenient-----we can go anywhere we want. Also, we have more freedom. We can choose anything we want to do. So, we need to cherish the life now and try to make it better.      

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