As a New Immigrant

I really thought about writing in Chinese, but I don't know why it seems harder and harder for me to come up with stuff to say when I'm trying to organize everything in Chinese. It is so pathetic. My English is still a mess, yet I'm losing my ability of writing in Chinese at the same time. It does remind me of a name of a movie, which is No Country For Old Men. Sometimes I feel confused about my standing, in bad days, the so-called "cross-cultural" will be worsened so much that it almost feels like ostracism. I don't know which country is more a home or a sense of security. In times like this, I will start wondering if it will be better for me to make a once-for-all change. Yet almost immediately, I will realize how stupid it is for me to attempt to change something purely psychological by swapping a passport. So I would just say "no country for Grace" under my breath, then chuckle quietly. 

In an nutshell, it is hard to be a new immigrant. There are so many variables coming with moving from a more familiar place to a new environment. If you move from a more developed and richer location to a less expensive and less developed area, you wouldn't be financially stressed out, but still you will be concerned about the sanitary standard, the food, and the local security, as you can tell, enough to create some mental stress. However, indisputably, there is going to be way more stress the other way around.

Finance will be the first. Last year, it was tight for me, and our situation made me miss my home country quite a bit. But, you know what, I was not alone. Human beings can somehow always find a way to make their life better. I laughed really hard when I heard one lady went to dumpsters in her city to pick out abandoned furniture daily and sent them to local thrift stores, so that she can accumulate enough to reduce the tax her husband had to pay. I remember I shook my head and said "unbelievable"; some people couldn't afford to pay for the expense for keeping pets in their apartments, they simply chose to hide their pets in their apartments, and only took those poor creatures out for a walk when the apt manager was out; some of the business owners decided to hire illegally for cheaper costs, and there were always people willing to do so because they needed the money;... yes news of such is plenty, and news of such has permanently formed numerous reputation, assumption and impression. 

I feel sad and I blush. But I think I understand it a little bit more these days than before. An article I read before helped me very much. It said the reason our people or people from mainland were more aggressive was that there was lack of sense of security already even they were back in their homeland, so they had to be aggressive to keep what they had or what they deserved to have. So here is a good question: how would they feel once moving to a totally new environment where they are not the majority or priority anymore?

Of course, this is not an excuse for why they behave this way or what they have done.

 It is time to file tax again. I have heard from some of the students regarding how much money they got back from American government this year, and comments on that as well. These comments are: Of course I need to get this much back, the dumb American in my lab, so dumb, he got even more than I did; or, Of course they need to give me more back…I’m so poor; etc.

My point is when people feel insecure and out-of-place, all they can think of is to satisfy their own desire by any means. They will be aggressive, rude and inconsiderate. Plus, it is definitely not helping at all if the environment is totally ignorant about the new immigrants. I got one person asking me if we still use coal to keep warm and cook the other day.

Yes there are reasons to explain their behaviors. But that does not say it is OK for them to behave this way. We can pray, and God can change everything. Of course, we can always start from ourselves. We are the image of our own country. It always takes only one at a time to make a huge difference.