T.T. (China, Age 15): English 533

1999, winter, a 30-year-old woman was sent into an operating room. She was laying on the operating table and quietly waiting for the most important moment of her life. The operating-lamp lightened on the top of the room, it was bright. She could see the scalpels and other operating equipments were placed neatly next to her, they looked as ice-cold as the weather, they were as sharp as the teeth of a beast and reminded her the deepest fears. Along with the strong and pungent smell of disinfectant, she heard her heart was beating like a drum, rapidly, loudly, and heavily. It seemed the whole world was shaking and swallowing her. She knew the process would not be easy. Blood came out and turned the white bed sheet into red. She was nervous. She was scared. But she had to be brave and no way to give up. She felt the pain, it was extremely strong, just like every single bone of hers was breaking, and even more than that. That made her feel like dying. The doctors kept encouraging her. She shouted and roared. She used all of her strength, her whole body was hurt and completely exhausted.

Outside of the operating room, there was an empty hallway. Some seats were placed at one side, a man sat alone. He curled up his body and buried his face with his hands. The light was gloomy and somber. He stared at the shadow which reflected on the ground, and also reflected his loneliness. It was the late night, the hospital was in deadly and ghastly silence. The “Tic- Tac” sound sent out slowly, the hands of the clock moved like a dull turtle. He heard his rapid breath, and also his heavy heartbeat. After a while, he looked up to the operating room, still, the door was closed. The sight of  “operation in progress” was still on. He had been waited for a long long time. This long waiting expended his patience, the eager was like a ball rolling on snow, and it grew bigger and bigger. It became as huge as it was going to bury him under the silence and the darkness. He wanted to know how was his wife going on inside the room. However, nothing went out.

Finally, a baby crying broke the silence of hospital, even the whole world seemed stop for that joyful moment! “ Congratulation! It is a beautiful girl!” A nurse carefully held the little baby in her arms and announced the news with her exciting voice. That baby was me. After struggling for several hours, my mom brought me to this wonderful world. When my umbilical cord separated with my mom, I started my first step to the journey of life. Then, a story began to happen, a story about love, a story with happiness, with enlightenment, with struggle, and with growth. It is a long long story.

This story began on 11 January 1999, which was the date that I was bron. Like the others, I am an ordinary Chinese girl, with black hair, small eyes, and yellow skin. My life is ordinary, nothing special. I guess one thing that makes me different from other people is I grew up in a kind of single-parent family. My dad moved to the United State when I was only two years old. My mom had to grow me up by herself. Without my dad’s accompany, life was not easy to my mom, especially she had to work and grow me up at the same time. My mom is a strong and independent woman. Even life was difficult, she never complained. I never met my dad when I was a child, I only talked to him by phone. I didn’t know much about him. The only thing that I knew was he worked hard in the United State to make money and support the family. My mom told me lots of things about my dad, she said my dad is tall, kind, and honest. My mom liked to tell me her story between my dad, I knew how my mom met my dad and fell in love with him. At the end, we became a family.

I feel thankful for my city. Without my city, my parents would not meet each other and I would not be born. My city is meaningful to me, it is like a teacher, it taught me a lot of principles about life. I lived there for 14 years and learned a lot of stuff. I love my city, as much as I love China. I am proud of  that I was born in China, in this diversified land. It uses its bountiful mind to accommodate us. China is not only a hometown to me, but also a great and beautiful mother to me. China is beautiful, because of its diversification. China has a long long history of over five thousand years, it is the oldest country with ancient civilizations. On this mystical nation, ancient people used their wisdom to created lots of treasures like the 13 dynasties and the thousands of Chinese characters. The language, culture, customs, traditions, and other characteristic things are all the glories of China. They came together to build this charming and abundant land. They develope a lot of indispensable contributions and influence the whole world. China is powerful. But it also had came through a dark history. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, China’s status started to decline. Then, there were many wars happened and China became backward. After fighting for a long time, China finally won the victory of the wars. The first president named the country “People’s Republic of China.” The people began to chase for a bright future and China developed a lot with a rapid speed. Now, you can see a lot of tall buildings and busy traffics in the big cities of China. However, my city doesn’t have a lot of tall buildings. It’s just a tiny city which locates in the South-East part of China and it is in the middle of Guang Dong State. It is called “HeShan,” it stands for the mountain of cranes in Chinese.

I lived in the central town of my city. There are other towns in my city, my dad’s hometown is in one of the towns. The central town has more tall buildings than the other towns. Most of them have a triangular roof on the top and the walls were made by tiles. When you walk on the streets, you can see many different traffic tools like tracks, cars, motorcycles, buses, and bicycles. They travel around my city on the roads everyday, and make a special view. You may hear the loud engines of cars and motorcycles “run” like someone shoots a gun. The people walk on the sidewalk, the streets are so crowded. When you walk on the streets, you can see so many different faces, them look excited, sad, busy, or angry. When I was a child, I thought my city was so huge, there were so many people. As I grew up, I changed my thought. I didn’t think my city looked huge anymore, I realized there would be a bigger world for me to explore.

I spent my whole childhood with my mom, that was the greatest memory that I have in my life. My mom is a responsible mother, she takes care of me and gives me everything that other people can not give me. I enjoyed the time that when I sat on the back of my mom’s bicycle and she rode me to school. I sat at the small small  bicycle, watched the buildings and the views slip beside me. I could feel the sun were shining on the ground. When I looked up to the trees on the side of the streets, I saw the sunlight got through the gaps of the leaves, and the leaves veins shown clearly. They were like the symbols of life. The wind blew around me, I smelled the grass, the trees, and sometimes I smelled the food which came out from people’s kitchens. If it rains, you can smell the fresh air after the rain flushed the city and you can feel the moist air. The city is full of happiness and ease.

When I was six years old, I began my first year of elementary school. Before the school started, the parents needed to take their children to sign up. On the Sign Up Day, I got a chance to visit the school, and I could walk around to know about the school. It was like the “Open School Day” in the U.S.A. My school was surrounded by walls, and there were trees on the sides of the walls, they looked like the guardian angel of school. When I stepped into my school, I first saw a long passway, it was covered by cement. So the ground was hard and crude. I could feel some tiny sand and gravel under my shoes. When I walked there, I heard the “hissing” sound which came from the rub between my shoes and the ground. The sun shone on the whole school, it was full of energy. There were two five-floored buildings on the right side of the passway. The red and yellow bricks were pasted like the puzzles on the wall of the buildings. Inside of the buildings, there were many classrooms and they were placed next to each other. On the left side of the passway, I saw a small garden and a huge sport field, they brought a lot of fun to our school life. The garden had a pool in the center, the fish swam around under the water and the lotus sent their fragrance around. Next to the garden, many students were having gym class, they played around on the sport field. They ran, they played, they smiled, they showed their youth. Outside of the school, there was a busy and bustling street. There were many small stalls and many people walked around the whole day. Most of the stalls would hang their own  signboards, the signboards had the names of the stalls. When the night came, those signboards brightened up with different colors of lights and made the street colorful.

The first day of school was nervous, silly, and confused. I sat in the classroom, there were many strangers around me. I was nervous. I was like a little snail, I hided in my shell, and I was scared to stretch out my antenna to outside. I looked around carefully, the classroom had one big rectangular black board on the front wall and one at the back wall also. There was a wooden podium in the front of the classroom and placed next to the board. The teachers stood by the podium and introduced themselves to us. The floor of the classroom was covered by some ceramic tiles, the tiles used white as the background color and with many small black spots. On the left and right sides of our classroom, there were two windows with green curtains on each side. When I looked out from the windows, I saw the sport field and the garden, I also saw the other buildings which were around our school. I liked to look out from the windows, because I could see a lot. Sometimes I saw planes fly above our school and I heard their noises. Sometimes I saw the interesting shapes of clouds, they looked like the soft cotton floated on the sky. Sometimes I saw the birds fly around, they waved their wings to show their energy to the ground. I wished I could become a bird, as a brisk angle to chase my dream under the sky . “Birds have freedom, they can fly to anywhere they want.” I thought, I wanted to become like them, to have freedom, I didn’t want to go to school. In school, I had to seat in my seat, listened to the teachers, and finished my classwork. But I could many other things outside of the school, like drawing, singing, watching cartoon, and other things. I could do the things that I liked to do, I could do the things that I wanted to do. In school, no way! I think most of the students don’t like school because the school is like a bird case, it stops us from chasing freedom. Another reason that the students don’t like school is the teachers are strict. Yes, teachers are strict, especially in China. They give a lot of work, and you have to finish them all. You have to listen to them and you have to get a good grade. I think China has the strictest way of education. Because China has the most population in the world, if you want to be top, you have to study very hard. That is one reason why many Chinese people choose to move to another country. My mom said, “You are having the competition with billion of people, so you have to work extremely hard.” I felt like I was doing tons of work everyday, they were like the huge mountains stood in front of me. I got a lot of homework, class work, and exams. I slept late to finish my study.

Sixth grade was my hardest time in my elementary school. Sixth grade was also a turning point in my life. During that year, we had to take a final exam to get in a middle school. If you didn’t get a good grade, you could only go to a bad middle school. I was scared of going to a bad school, because the bad school was really bad. The teachers there were not good, they didn’t really care about your grade. So the students there were bad students, they smoked, they drank alcohol, they fought with each other, they would not get a good future. So the grade was the most important thing to us, without a good grade, your life would ruin. In China, people judge the students with their grades, and the students who get good grades are always the good students. The teachers like them the most.

After the final exam of sixth grade, I took a long summer vacation without homework. That was the greatest summer vacation that I ever had. I didn’t need to do any homework because I graduated from my elementary school! Hurrah! But there was a sad thing, I had to say goodbye to my friends… On the day of graduation, all of the students came to the school and listened to the speech of our principal. Later, we got one hour to say goodbye with our classmates. We came back to our classroom, and chatted with each other. We wrote some words to each other for memory. Some of us gave a gift and some of us cried. All of us felt sad to leave. We spent six years to stay with each other, but then, we had to leave each other. It was such a sad thing, you just can’t describe this feeling by words. When I left the school, I looked at it again and again. In the first year, everything was so strange, but after six years, everything became familiar. I remembered everything, every teacher, and every classmate. This school was the witness of my growth, efforts, and friendship. There were too many experiences, the school accompanied me six years, it was my “second home”. I had the feeling of leaving my home, I cried. My mom comforted me, she said, “Everything will be okay, you will meet more friends. It doesn’t mean you can not see your friends anymore, you still can call them or hang out with them when you have time.” My mom’s comfort made me feel much better, but I was still sad. I thought, I would be fine, as the time past, I would not be sad anymore like this.

In 2012 September, it was my first day of middle school. My school was a boarding school, and it was very strict. The students had to live in school, we could only go home once a week. It was a good chance for me to learn how to become an independent person. The school was very strict, all the students had to cut their hair. We were not allowed to keep our hair, because the school thought the students would waste too many time on decorating their hair, then they would not pay attention to their teachers. My school ruled that the girls could not keep their hair longer than their ears and their bangs could not longer than eyebrows. So all the girls had very short hair, and we totally looked like a boy. The funny thing was my mom said she could not recognize me at all if all the girls stood together and turned their back on her, because we all had the same hair style. We could not keep our nail also. The school would send teachers to check our hair and nail every month. If you did not follow the rules, they could take off your score or the score of your class. Every month the school would calculate the scores of different classes and chose a best class of each grade. So if the class score went down because of you didn’t cut your hair or your nail, the class advisers would punish you. They could ask you to write a self-criticism and read it out loud to the whole class or you had to copy a paragraph from a textbook for 100 times or even more. There were many other rules like we had to cleaned our classrooms, cafeterias, stairs, hallways, bedrooms, and the playground. Every class took responsibilities to clean one part of school every week, after one week, your class would get another part to clean. If we didn’t clean well, the school could take off the score.

As a student of middle school, we learned a lot, we took a lot of responsibilities. We had to study hard. We learned to become a responsible young adult. I felt the middle school was much harder than the elementary school. In seventh grade, we had to study Chinese, Math, English, History, Biology, Geography, and Polity. In eighth grade, we added one more subject---Physics. In ninth grade, we had one more subject again---Chemistry. So we got nine subjects for total. We had to take exams every week and every month. After every exam, the teacher would make a list, it labeled all the grades of all students and the list shown who got the first place and the last place during the test. We knew about the grades of each other, we knew who was the smartest person and who often got the worst grade. We usually had the competitions with each other, if I got a higher grade, I could get a gift from my opponent. The gift could be a pencil, an eraser, or some candy. I liked the candy most.

When I was in the eighth grade, I got the message about I would move to the United State. When I first knew the message, I was shock. I never dreamed to come to America, even I knew I might go there someday because my dad is there. But I never knew that I would move to the United State this quick. My mom came to my school, she told me that I had to go, my family in the United State put a lot of efforts to help me move. This fact was like a hammer, it hit my brain hardly. My mind went blank. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to leave. I have lived in this land for 14 years, I couldn’t say goodbye easily. This land had so many memories, I remembered how I learn to write my first Chinese character, I remembered the stories that my mom told, I had the gifts that my friends gave me. In this land, I had so many things, why I had to move to another land to start from zero. I confused about why, I told my mom, I said I didn’t want to move. My mom cried, she barely cried. She said, “I didn’t want you to leave me too, but you need to go, your dad miss you. You should go there, your dad hope you to go there, he said the life is better in the United State.” I suddenly understood my mom. She had a lot of hopes on me, she must hoped that I got a chance to see the other parts of the world, she must hoped that I had a better life, she must hoped that I learned more things in the United State and became a better person. I cried with my mom, we both didn’t want to leave each other. I decided to go, because if I didn’t go, my family would feel disappointed. They strongly hoped I move to the United State, they thought the life would be much better in the United State. I didn’t know if that is true or not, I just knew that I had to struggle for my life and for my family’s hope.

I told my friends that I would move to the United State. They didn’t want me to leave, but they respected my choice. My friends cried also, they said, “Take care yourself, the United State is beautiful, remembered to take photos and send them to us. If you have time, call us. We will always be with you.” I felt so thankful, I felt thankful because I had these friends. They had helped me go through many challenges. Friendship is the best gift from god. Yes, everyone needs a friend. I am glad that I have my friends and they always stand by my side.

On the last day of China, I said from my heart, “Goodbye, my hometown. Goodbye, my helpful friend. Goodbye, dear mom. Thank all the things that I have in my life, I will miss this land.”

Then, I started my journey to the United State. I took the airplane with my uncle. We would spent about 15 hours to fly to New York. It was not my first time to take the airplane, I had took the airplane to visit another city during my vacations. I usually felt happy when I took the plane, but only that time, I felt so sad. I looked at the airplane, it was white as the white pigeon. I thought it must included so many people’s dreams to the United State, it would bring them to that land. I didn’t feel excited. This airplane was like a tall wall, I stood inside of the wall, my mom stood outside. I felt like I was losing my mom, I could not hug her and see her. The plane took my freedom away, it was such a monster. I knew no one would have this feeling like me, maybe I was the only one who felt sad to come to the United State. During the time of flying, I didn’t sleep at all. I sat at the small seat and kept thinking about what my life would be. I didn’t know for sure if I could do well, I could understand English, I could adapt my new life quickly. The journey was not that enjoyable, I felt scared, worried, and lonely.

Finally, our plane got to New York. I looked out from the window. It was in the afternoon, the sky was bright and blue. The soft cloud floated in the sky, they looked like many little sheeps. I saw the whole city clearly. There are ranks of houses settled neatly in the city, the cars moved around on the road. They looked as small as the ants. It reminded me of my city, I missed home. I walked out from the airplane, there were many foreigners, they look totally different from the people in China. They have golden hair, big blue eyes, and aquiline nose. After we picked up our packets, we went home by a car.

The car ran on the road, I looked out from the window, it was a total strange view. I never visited New York, I couldn’t imagine the city looked like this. The road is wide, many cars ran around us. There are trees set next to the road, they had no leaves, I could only see their light brown curving branches. When the spring comes, the leaves would grow out. When our car was around Brooklyn, I saw the railway is above us. It connected to the whole city, and was painted green. When the subway runs, it makes very loud noise.

After one month, I studied in a middle school. The school life was so different from China. The first day of school, I was pretty nervous. Everyone spoke English around me, I was so confused. The teacher asked me that is my name, I used very little voice answer him, “T.T..” I didn’t speak loud, I was scared. I didn’t feel comfortable to speak English, even I learned English in China, I barely spoke. I took a seat, there were other classmates also. They all looked at me, this really embarrassed me. I stared at the white board, it was full of the letters that I was not familiar with. They were like the music notes jumping around and tried to make me swirl. I opened the textbook, when I read a paragraph, I didn’t understand anything. This made me feel like I was climbing a huge mountain, I tried hard to get to the top, but those words were like the rocks and they kept falling down at me to stop me from the top. I kept falling and falling, but I had to get up again to work hard. If my mom is here, she must will comfort me and encourage me. I missed my mom, and I missed my life in China. Even school was hard in China, at least I understood what I needed to do, I was the top student, and I got a lot of friends in school. But life was nothing like China in the United State, I didn’t have a close friend to talk. I couldn’t even communicate well in English. I had nowhere to complain. I didn’t even want to tell my family, I said I felt good with my school, but I didn’t really feel good. In China, I could always talk to my mom, but now, I can’t. This was my first time to feel like a loser, because I had no confidence. I was shy and coward. Especially in school, I didn’t feel respect. When I went to bathroom, some girls used wired sight to look at me. Some girls even laughed at me, they said, “Why you went to girl’s bathroom?” I knew I looked like a boy because I had short hair. Everyday I had to explain that I am not a boy when I went to the bathroom.

As time past, I slowly adapt the life in New York. During that year, I decided that I would study hard to learn English. I really did, I required myself to learn five words for each day and after I finished my homework, I would give a vocabulary quiz to myself. Now, I study in a high school, I love my high school. I don’t feel isolated in my high school, I made a lot of friends, and the teachers are very nice to every single student. I still struggle with my English and try to become a better person.

This is how my life. I had came a lot of challenges. I just want to said life is like a trip of exploration, you will meet many different things and you have to solve many problems, that is how the way is. Life may not be as perfect as you want, maybe life make you feel hurt, but no one should give up. Because life is beautiful, it is worth to struggle, to try. When I get older, I may think about all the memory and experiences someday, I must will be proud of myself, because I have such an excellent life trip!