Life in Hong Kong
Well where we were there were a lot of Chinese people, a lot of Chinese kids, but a lot of different dialects…and so eventually when I started speaking to them, my Vietnamese was completely gone. I don’t remember any of it, because I just felt like if I kept speaking it, I couldn’t fit in because they weren’t speaking the same language I was. After that, it was a lot of Chinese but mainly English, that’s how most of my friends communicated at the time. I started in kindergarden, but only a couple of months because I was a little older than the kids and they bumped me up to first grade. And so that year was just half kindergarden maybe and the rest first grade.
The transition, I don’t think it was that hard. But when your parents are refugees, and you have to get a lot of the welfare, and the food stamps, it was hard because I know that, my parents were saying, people look at you when we were spending food stamps in the supermarket, but I think it might have been a little harder for them than it was for us. Looking back, I mean, it’s probably [inaudible], but I don’t think I can take those hardships like my parents. I’m so grateful that we don’t have to right now….
[on how being a refugee altered her outlook on life] I actually don’t think I thought about it when I was younger, but as I’m getting older, I’m feeling like, you know, it kinda shapes my thinking and I’m not too worried about little things. Like I just need everybody to be alright, you know? I don’t really get worked up over the little stuff, when I think back how I got what I’m getting right now, and where I’ve been to be where I am right now. So, that, and you know other stuff. But I think it made me a more optimistic person, a more grateful person. I need to just be very, very grateful that my parents, you know, were there to do that and are here to experience something better than what they had. Yeah, this is the uncle who sponsored us and whose house we lived in for the few months. Yeah, thanks to him, we’re here.