Today is...
the 20th anniversary of a very special day. 20 years ago is when my family immigrated to the States. Yep. Back in '86. Kinda like an Eddy Murphy moment in the movie "Coming to America." I can't believe it but time has passed so fast. Traded in cantopop for hip hop. Cantonese for English. Fishball noodle soup for In-N-Out double double. Soccer for...well, still soccer. :)
The good thing is that in HK, NYC, LA, Vancouver, or SF, I can pretty much get my make-it-your-way blend of Chinese-ness and American-ness. Just don't try to mix them up too much, or you wound up getting something like a dinner at Ponzu. You see, there's good Asian Fusion mix, like The House in North Beach, and then there's bad Asian Fusion, like Ponzu. 10 bucks for dumplings or sweet and sour pork served on nice places? Bad. But I digress...
So anyway, when I first came here, it sucked. HK is a hyperactive metropolis so everyday you're getting sensory overload. There's a great transportation system and you can get around easily. We immigrated to the San Gabriel valley in LA, which pretty much means that if you don't have a car, you ain't going nowhere. At school, I was in ESL and it's kinda hard to make friends when they don't really understand you. And why doesn't anyone here play soccer??? Others had their friends eating hamburgers in the cafeteria. I had fried rice in a container that shows that I'm fobby. All I know when I was young was that, yep, I was different. Maybe my parents got it wrong, extracting us from a great place in HK, where you don't feel like you're an outsider, to a place that seems to not want you here. Why do I have to put up with people calling me chink, saying "ching chong ching chong" and pulling their eyes. This must be a mistake right?
Well, every immigrant group and immigrant must pay their dues. I suppose I got it easy because I came here relatively young. After a while a person adjusts to their new surroundings, try to meld in, and more often than not, do. Yeah, it sounds cheesy, but I'm glad to be in this country, to have opportunities here. The system will never be perfect, and I hate it when the legislators are so anti-immigration, as to forget that unless they have Native American ancestry, they immigrated here too. Maybe as the world become more globalized and people are crossing countries to work and live and borders fade, it'll matter less where you live. Maybe my kids will immigrate back to China for a better life. Who knows. But for today, I'm glad my family came here, and I can proudly cheer for my soccer team at the world cup. Go USA!
The good thing is that in HK, NYC, LA, Vancouver, or SF, I can pretty much get my make-it-your-way blend of Chinese-ness and American-ness. Just don't try to mix them up too much, or you wound up getting something like a dinner at Ponzu. You see, there's good Asian Fusion mix, like The House in North Beach, and then there's bad Asian Fusion, like Ponzu. 10 bucks for dumplings or sweet and sour pork served on nice places? Bad. But I digress...
So anyway, when I first came here, it sucked. HK is a hyperactive metropolis so everyday you're getting sensory overload. There's a great transportation system and you can get around easily. We immigrated to the San Gabriel valley in LA, which pretty much means that if you don't have a car, you ain't going nowhere. At school, I was in ESL and it's kinda hard to make friends when they don't really understand you. And why doesn't anyone here play soccer??? Others had their friends eating hamburgers in the cafeteria. I had fried rice in a container that shows that I'm fobby. All I know when I was young was that, yep, I was different. Maybe my parents got it wrong, extracting us from a great place in HK, where you don't feel like you're an outsider, to a place that seems to not want you here. Why do I have to put up with people calling me chink, saying "ching chong ching chong" and pulling their eyes. This must be a mistake right?
Well, every immigrant group and immigrant must pay their dues. I suppose I got it easy because I came here relatively young. After a while a person adjusts to their new surroundings, try to meld in, and more often than not, do. Yeah, it sounds cheesy, but I'm glad to be in this country, to have opportunities here. The system will never be perfect, and I hate it when the legislators are so anti-immigration, as to forget that unless they have Native American ancestry, they immigrated here too. Maybe as the world become more globalized and people are crossing countries to work and live and borders fade, it'll matter less where you live. Maybe my kids will immigrate back to China for a better life. Who knows. But for today, I'm glad my family came here, and I can proudly cheer for my soccer team at the world cup. Go USA!
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