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The struggle: To go or not to go?In July 2009, when my husband brad flied to US from China, prepared to do further study in Fisher College, the Ohio State University(OSU), I just got my master degree in the Chinese University of Hong Kong(CUHK). At that time, I was struggling about whether going to US to accompany my husband or staying in Hong Kong for my future career as I planned. Hong Kong, the cosmopolitan city, seems to be an ideal place for one to start a career, besides it is near my hometown Guangzhou, where my parents live. On the contrary, US was a remote and strange country, and I even never heard of the city Columbus(Ohio) before.
Yet eventually I decided to go to Columbus. The conversation I had with my mentor of CUHK, Professor Tung Yuan-fang had changed my mind. Professor Tung used to teach Chinese in Harvard University and had traveled to OSU for several times. “Why won’t you go? Columbus is such a beautiful place. So does the campus of OSU. I know you love writing; and I’m sure that place will give you many inspirations.”She said.
In early December that year, I got on the plane, travelled for 22 hours, then arrived at Columbus, Ohio,US, for me the brand new land.
Now a year has passed since I came to Columbus. Several times I thought about my mentor’s words, and felt happy that I did make the decision to come here. I love this city. I really enjoy my life here.
The birthday that full of surprises and joy
Back in the winter of 2009, soon after I arrived, a heavy snow fell in the city. When the snow stopped and the weather cleared up again, my husband Brad took me to the campus and showed me around. The first time I saw it, I thought I was in a dream world. The sunlight emphasized the pure blue of the sky; an oval lake, some red brick houses, several large green pines, all decorated in snow white, shining. The ground was also covered by snow, and when I walked on it I could hear my gentle steps. Immediately, I fell in love with this tranquil place.
We spent a nice day on Campus. That day was Friday, December 11th. I remembered the date clearly because that day was my birthday. At night Brad took me to the church nearby, where many international students gathered together every Friday night. Before I came here, Brad also went there every week. He told me that the church is like a big family, yet I was a little nervous. I thought for the people in church I was a stranger, an outsider; and I had no idea that what they would response when they saw me.
It turned out that everything went on well that night. The priest welcomed me warmly and then introduced me to everyone. The people that I never knew before provided me with a big applaud, celebrating my reunion with my husband. I saw genuine smile on their faces, and I felt that they really felt happy for us.
And the surprise part just came next. Somehow they knew that it was my birthday, and coincidently it was also a birthday of a Chinese boy. Someone brought in a birthday cake and all of us stood in a big circle to sing birthday songs. Students coming from all over the world took turns to sing, in Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Thai and Portuguese. Then altogether we sung it in English. I was moved and the only word I could say was “thank you”. They responded me with a hug, one by one.
It was the most impressive birthday I ever had.
The winter in the dream world
That was a wonderful start for my new life in Columbus. During the whole winter, I spent most of my time in one of the landmarks of OSU, the Thompson library. The inside space of the library, which is also like a dream world, would bring ecstasy to people who are fond of reading when they see it the first time. The first four floors take a giant-atrium design, the ground, the wall, and the staircases are either in white or transparent, made by glasses. It looks like a giant crystal kingdom with many shelves of books.
Before I came here I was a kind of worried that I probably couldn’t get many Chinese books to read if I left my own country. But it turned out to be opposite: Not only can I find books that I used to read in China, but also I can attain some valuable sources that are not available in China due to political reasons. Those books provides me other angles to see the world.
This was the routine of my first winter here: went to the Thompson library in the morning, searched books in the 3th floor and the 9th floor (there was an extensive collection of books in humanity subjects, both in English and Chinese), picked up some I was most eager to read first, went to the study room on 11th floor, found my seat at the northern corner, and started to read and think and write all day. The corner included a soft single sofa, a wooden table, and a green plant nearby, all facing a big window, through which one could bird-view the beautiful campus. I couldn’t expect more.
At that corner I got fascinated with the stories, true or fiction, composed by the Chinese characters or the English letters. The snow white world outside was peaceful, while my mind changed so rapidly. When the winter ended, I red and thought and wrote so much that if I didn’t become a person wiser, at least I was a person with a broaden heart. And a plus: the novels I wrote during that winter, one of which won me the second place of the 36th Hong Kong Youth Writing Competition.
The Vigorous Spring
The spring of this city came in overnight. One day in the library, I saw through the window and discovered some new green buds on the bare branches of trees, the next day flowers were blooming everywhere, in pink or red or purple or white. Walking on the campus, I often saw little squirrels and rabbits ran through the green grasses.
As the weather became warmer and warmer, Brad and I started to go outside. After Brad’s class, we went to a park near our home and played basketball there. We lived on the campus, a nice community called Fisher Commons, in which most MBA students of the Fisher College live. It consists of four rows of red houses with lawns in the front. In weekends, the students here often organize exciting activities on the lawns (back in winter they even organized an event called “Beer Drinking Competition in the Snow”, in which my husband’s team lose yet still had much fun).
The park that we went to almost every day in the spring, is on the opposite side of Fisher Commons, only 5 minutes walk from our home. There are two basketball courts in the park, sometimes Brad and I took turns to shoot the ball there, sometimes some other guys came and invited Brad to joined their informal basketball competition. When Brad competed with those white or black or yellow students, I usually took a walk in the park, watched people played football or flied the kites, took photos of some lovely dogs
and chatted with their owners. I brought the camera with me everywhere during the whole spring, in order to record every beautiful details of it.
Live as a Chinese and as an international person
The happy days slips fast. From spring to summer to fall, I manage to continue my reading and writing while do something that I am also interested in. I teach middle school kids Chinese in a weekend school, join the Columbus Chinese Chorus, and write some articles for the Chinese newspaper,Eric Chinese Journal.
On one hand, I am glad that I can make some contributions to the Chinese community here; on the other, I also enjoy making friends from all over the world: A Korean couple taught us to play golf in some weekend mornings, and after that they brought us to a Korean restaurant for a great lunch . A Japanese neighbor took us to the Japanese supermarket several times, where I found my favorite ice cream, the green-tea flavor ice cream bar. Brad’s Indian classmate took us to the parties of different Indian festivals, and there Brad fell in love with some spicy snacks while I started to learn some basic steps of Indian dance. When the football season began, some local American friends came to our apartment and had a “Chinese football night”, which means “the delicious home-make Chinese food and an exciting American football game on TV”.
As the late November comes now I am eager to watch the football game between Ohio State University and University of Michigan this weekend, the very game that everybody here talks about every year. Yet somehow I am also a little sad because the exciting football season is near an end. And I know that soon the last yellow leaf will leave the tree outside my window, telling me that the chilling winter would come again.
It will be another winter that I spent in Columbus, and probably there will be less surprises waiting for me. But who knows? As Forest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”. I’m pretty sure that I would try a tasteful one as long as I live in Columbus, the city I have fallen in love with. |
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发表于 2010-11-30 04:16:54
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