Emily's blog

An immigrant’s story

     My uncle and my aunt are an immigrant couple. They moved individually from Taiwan to America when they were young. Their families didn’t move there with them. Instead, my uncle moved there alone for his asthma problem, as the mild climate of California helps hold his health condition a lot, and my aunt moved there alone as her family seemed not to be self sufficient enough to supply her.

When they moved there, my uncle just graduated from the Math graduate school in NCU and got his Master’s Degree. He was around 26 years old. My aunt moved to California later than Uncle. She’s like 10 years old younger than my uncle, on the other hand. According to my uncle’s exaggerating descriptions, my aunt’s parents sent her to his front door and asked him to take care of her for them. Of course, this version of description maddens Aunt – who wants to be thrown and begged someone else to take care of anyway?! But regardless of their quarrels, the truth is that my aunt was sent to my uncle (very likely not under the condition of the one Uncle said above) and they started a life together.

My uncle’s English speaking ability was not fluent, not fluent enough to communicate, when he just moved there. He had been in department or graduate school of science and engineering trend, which involved mostly calculating instead of language usage. He had a tough time when his new life alone there just started. Being able to know the basic key words or sentences to buy things in supermarkets was the most crucial thing for him at first. After that, he had to figure out a way to strike out a life there. Then, my aunt emerged in his life and their lives were joined.

My aunt’s English ability was, and still is, much better than my uncle when they met. She had already been able to communicate with foreigners with some daily conversations before she moved. Undoubtedly, her appearance in my uncle’s life helped him to communicate with the “outer world” and understand what’s happening there better, though he always comments her appearance as “unexpected.” With the help of language, their new life soon began working.

My uncle decided to start up a house agency company with the help of my aunt. Customers consult with them and their company takes pictures of their customers’ houses to be sold from every perspective, inside the house of the living room, kitchen and other spaces, and outside the house to let the buyers see the whole picture. Their business expanded from scratch to some friends they knew, to now they have an official website running and taking orders from customers all over the west California.

     An immigrant’s story is always hard when he/she just started their life there. But if one would work hard, his new life in where he moves to would be promising. On the contrary, if he’s bent by the difficulties his new hard life brings and gives in, his immigrant story is probably just an inevitable misery. An immigrant’s story is hard. An immigratory story jointly written by two immigrants – that is a colorful and brand new story to tell!

PS their website: http://www.ouhome.com/

pretty massive work isn't it!