My Stories--Li Meiqian

There is a big cultural difference between China and America. I lived in China for more than 17 years. The Chinese culture is a part of my life. A big change took place after I moved to America. Now I am starting a new life in America.

When I was on the plane before arriving in America, I felt very excited and happy.
After I arrived in America, I felt that it was very hard for this new beginning.
At first, since I am still at school age, I need to look for a school. This is the most important thing for me in America. I found several schools and they all said that I was overaged. They cannot accept me. I felt scared in this new world. I thought "Is there no more chance for me to go on my study? My life will become very boring." I did not want that to happen. Luckily, I found a school that I could go to. This is a school for immigrants--Lower East Side Prep. High School. There are a lot of students in the same situation like me in the school.

Time flys day by day. I learn more and more culture and customs in America. New York is a place where many immigrants live in. Though, people in America said "No prejudice and racial discrimination", but I can see it happening in many many places.
I remember when I came here almost a year ago and my second auntie comes here less then half year ago. One time, my auntie and my old and worn down grandmother went into a subway station. My auntie forgot my grandmother who could use her metro card by herself and my auntie could not help her. Since they did not know any English word, not even a world like help, they used body language to ask for help. Nobody looked at them. Suddenly, a young teenager rubbed their metro cards and ran away quickly. My auntie and grandmother shout loudly “help” in Chinese. Unfortunately nobody paid attention to them. My auntie felt very upset. Her metro card was a monthly pass that she just bought. When I heard that, I felt raged and helpless. How come nobody could help them. I know language is very important. That is what we need if we live in here.
Another story was in a winter morning. Everyone was in hurry to catch buses or subways to go to work or school. I was lucky; I caught the bus on time. The bus moved, I saw a Spanish woman running to the bus and signaled to stop. The driver did not stop the bus. At the next station, a similar situation, the difference was a white man running to the bus. The driver stopped and smiled at him. I felt unfair. Why could this happen here? How could the driver do that?
Whatever, I know one person can not change the society. But I understand that I must study hard, speak the language and may be I won’t be the next victim. Sometimes this society is ruthless.

Questions we have

Here are a few questions we have:

1.We know prejudice and racial discrimiation exist everywhere. What can people do fight against them?
2. How can new immigrants involve themselves into new environment?
3. Do you think that undertanding of different cultures is important? If so, how can we promote different cultures in our society?
4. Do you know any Chinese who lives in Sweden? How do they adjust the life to the system in Sweden?

Why do we come to America?

I assigned a survey, having students to find out the purposes of immigrating to America. The findings are very interesting. I will have students complete the survey and publish it.

My feelings toward arriving in America--Chen, Dongmei

America, a country where everyone has freedom, a place where everyone thinks of as heaven, an area where everyone has always dreamt of to live in. But if you ask me: Is America really that perfect? My answer is negative.
Before I have stepped into America, I was full of imaginations of this country, full of expectations. But once I have arrived in America, all of my imaginations and expectations have disappeared - vanished. In fact, I realized that America is a country without any personal connections. Although America is said as a country that rules under democracy and allows no discrimination, I still think that we are being discriminated especially us, the new immigrants. Even us, the Chinese, "old overseas Chinese" discriminates us, the new immigrants. For example, if you're looking for a job and the boss knows you're a new immigrant, your wage/paycheck will be less than the others.
Of course, America has its good sides as well. The elders and the children here are mostly supported by the Government. Also, low waged people has Medicare and so on.
Although I'm not living very happily, I believe that America is a country that offers many opportunities. If this is not so, people from around the world wouldn't think of all ways to immigrate to America!

My Experience in America--Weng, Boxiong

I have been here for almost 4 years.
I remember when I just came here, I felt so lonely and foreign to everything. It was almost unbearable. I had no friends here. I only thought about how I could get back to China sooner. I recalled all the hometown food, friends etc. That did not help. I could nothing. After a while, I reminded myself: once arrived here, try to make it here. It took time to adjust myself to live in states. I also remember the first summer. I did not go to summer school. My brother and I stayed at home all long, watching TV and eating food. We did nothing at home. We were kind scared to go outside since we are not familiar with the city. We were very bored in this summer. After summer, we got into Seward Park High School. There were a lot of Chinese from Fujian Province. I could not speak Mandarin. I could not communicate with them. I had no classmates to talk to. This was my boing experience...

My Experience--Liang, Yongcong

I have lived in NYC for two years. NYC was a little bit different from what I expected when i first stepped on this land. I felt supprised that there are a lot of immigrants, and they come from all over the world. When I am in the subway, I can hear people speaking all kinds of languages.
Subway is also a special transportation tool for me. At the beginnig of the first few months, I was confused going to place far away by subway without a subway map. Recently, I know that there are almost five hundreds subway stops in NYC and nearly 30 lines. They cross over through four big boroughs of NYC. If you have a chance, I will go over all of them with you.
I am not satisfied with my living condition in the first few months. I had to live with my parents and grandparents in a tiny apartment that only has one sleeping room. I could smell the "perfume" of garbage every time I crossed by the aparment's entrance. I would accelerate my speed as fast as BMW race-car to pass the terrible hallway. Now, I am living only with my parents in another house which has 2 seperate sleeping room and a comfortable living room that I like most because I can enjoy chips, lying on side of my favor sofa.

I used to study in a regular high school which has huge bunch of students and it was chaotic and fighting acted like daily shows. I was satisfied that transforming to LESP. Though it has small numbers of students and tiny place, I dont have to worry about disorder and rushing to next period. In fact, I was eventually getting used to NYC's school life. Now, I am preparing for SAT and college stuff. I think most of immigrant teenage being in U.S. would like to enter college for a higher education, and also for their futures.

So far, I like my community which is 8 Ave. It is peaceful and most of people are nice and friendly. However, as it is a immigrant-assembled area, it has a lot of immigrant, old or new. They have all kinds of different cultures. Even in Chinese group, people come from different places with totally varied backgroud that might affect their their lives. I have spent a long time to understand their living and working places. Later on, I will try to show some pictures of their working places if available.

If you're going to ask me what's the different bewteen China and U.S, I would say they're two worlds but crossing over. You can see Chinese immigrant involved with all part of U.S like medicine, education, economy and so on. They can intermingle with each other, especially working and living with various people, and they are. That means you take here's culture which is a mixed one, you will be one of NYers. I was a little bit upset when I first being here. Because my previous living place is a big and proserous city of a south province in China. Comparing with NYC, its cosumption level is much lower. But it is a modern city with huge number of people with same custom. Nevertheless, as I living in NYC for a certain time, I realized here is also lively place. It's called the capital of world. Then you can figure out how the culture and entertainment and all kinds of things mixed in here. I think I can get better chances and livings here.

My Experience--Struggling in High School

Huang, Caizhong

I am a Chinese and I am from china. I am 19 years old and I am supposed to be in college now. But, I think I am not ready yet or I need a little more confidence for myself.

A 20 years old Chinese guy still stays in high school. It is quite common here and I have no strange feeling to ask my friend "how old are you?". However, I usually don't tell people about my age because it’s embarrassing. Therefore, my omnipotent announcement came out when the first time I got into classes: I must graduate from high school fast! Because I am not belonged to here!

After getting here, in order to face the challenges of my new life here, I make up my mind, nothing else is important but English. I deeply understand that if I am lack of English, I won't be able to do anything in this country. So, I begin English learning from ESL3, reading books and reciting vocabularies become a routine for me. Spending more time in study, less in sleeping, watching English TV news and listening English music through radio, I even taking notes while they are reporting and singing. I concentrate on nothing else but English. I believe if I keep on studying hard, my dream will come true. I will be able to speak English in no time. Then, by the time of my graduation, I will be so cool to stand at the stage, shouting in front of the whole world “ English, it’s not a big deal to me!”

Hopefully, the time finally came. I successfully request to study in regular English classes instead of Chinese-English classes. That is the first time I feel proud of myself, I tell myself that I will pass the class with my excellent class works and perfect scores, which was another promise formyself. This is a regents preparation class of U.S. Government, I am full of confident at the first place, but it doesn’t last too long until I figure out the truth. In a presentation, I fail. Nobody know what the heck I am talking about, not even a word. The teacher has headache after my noisy “performance”, and two of my classmates just got stomachache, their tear drop painfully and heavily, and so do I. I eventually taste the awful bitter reality. I want to give up but it’s too late, there is no more program change. After the classes, I become frustrated and irritated, I feel nervous to speak English. I lost myself because I can’t get rid of the laughing. Indeed, the experience haunts me that I become reticent and speak barely in the class--I am in war now.

Ironically, the UGovernment regent exam pulled me out of the dark, I got 97, which is the highest score of our school. With this unbreakable proof of my learning, I run to tell my historical teacher at once. I tell him that I deserve to have a higher average on my history class because the exam prove me is the best of the best at school. But he let me down again. He says: “ I can’t because I don’t understand you in class, I mean your English…” then, a pretty long explanation is fellow, telling me I am good student…and so on. At that time, I don’t really pay attention on him. I move on because I have learned a precious lesson from the experience that accept everything and always want to get out.

In the future, I tell myself that no matter how hard, how terrible, awful the situation is, I will accept, and I will try my best to get out of the situation fast. Meaning that I will keep on practicing my English no matter how people think of me, I will accept and then move on. Also, I will not feel embarrassed of my age anymore; I know I need to prepare myself in high school, but, I will not be here long because I desire to get out to see the outside of the world.

More thoughts

I just have some more thoughts before the school starts.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the projects can be published online. So we can make them as web projects. One of the features is to involve more students in our projects as audience, writers, commentators, etc. We can also expand our projects in different subject areas, such as Social Studies, Economics, Geography, Literature, Arts, Science and math, etc. Next year, we can submit our projects to thinkquest NYC web design contest (ThinkQuest NY site).

Oracle ThinkQuest Contest

Here is the link:
http://www.thinkquest.org/

Browse the site to find info on student projects.