Chapter 8: The Battle Hymn of An Asian Immigrant

Orren

As we rang in the year of 1997, the vibe seemed to have shifted.  We suddenly got a much-needed break from the rainy and cold San Francisco winter weather.  Sunshine returned with a vengeance to erase the doom and gloom of the year that just passed.

I decided to take Nora to see the coastline.  We first stopped by Golden Gate Park which was already teeming with people, eager to shake off the dreariness that came from short, cloudy days and long winter nights of Northern California.  Some people were jogging in shorts, while kids passed us on roller skaters.

When we emerged from the shrubs that insulate the park from the busy streets, the sunlight washed over  an expansive lawn where people enjoyed all sorts of activities.  The sporadic redwood trees soared into the blue sky.  The small ponds on both sides of the walking paths reflected the light, moving clouds and the waving tree tops. Some unknown flowery shrubs had started to blossom.  The famous Dutch Windmill and the tulip gardens around the base of the mill evoked an European feeling.   

We then crossed the Great Highway that hugs the coastline to Ocean Beach.  Gazing at the horizon across the Pacific Ocean, we realized that Jason was behind the distant shoreline.  He would turn one year old in about six weeks.  Grandpa said that he could walk now.  After four months of struggles in a booming Bay Area job market, I still did not know when I could secure a job so we could bring him back.  

It was still pretty chilly in winter breeze, but some die-hard surfers could not let go of the rarely good weather. We got back into our car and drove south on the Pacific Coast Highway.  With sweeping ocean views, dotted with Cypress trees, every spot on the rugged coastline was a postcard.  I had to be ready to stop at any moment if Nora spotted something worthy of a photo shot.  When we saw a large swath of ocean beach, I drove to the nearby parking lots.  We followed the footsteps on a sandy trail, and got on the beaten path in a little valley that leads to the beach.  When we returned around, a sand cliff appeared in front of us.  That was a pretty backdrop for a photo with the dark green mountains in the distance.   

After I dropped Nora at San Francisco International airport for her return flight to Kentucky, I got a flurry of invitations for office interviews.  The first interview was with a small accounting firm in Marin County, the northern side of the Golden Gate.  It was the first time that I drove across the Gold Gate Bridge, one of the most recognized landmarks of San Francisco.  The city skyline and the shimmering bay, dotted with sailboats, were breathtaking.  The firm’s office seemed to be in a residential area.  A senior manager and a partner both spoke at length about the opportunities the firm had.  They were aware of the employment visa issue I was facing and promised to seek help from immigration lawyers.

Another memorable interview was with Golden Gate Horse Racing Association in Berkeley.  The interview was conducted in a unscripted building far away from the racing track.  I knew nothing about the horse racing industry and wondered what their accounting transactions were.  The hiring manager and later its CFO both interviewed me.  They later did make a job offer, knowing my immigration status shortly after I returned to Kentucky.  I told them that I just could not handle the commute.      

The most humbling interview was with an accounting recruiter in San Francisco’s Financial District.

When I stepped into the imposing entrance of the office building, a soaring ceiling revealed intricate details of its interior.  I walked on the polished marble floors and passed the gleaming granite concierge desk.  The elevator took me to an office with wall-to wall windows with sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay.  The office decor and furniture exuded an air of sophistication and luxury.  I had never been to such a modern office,  My entire work life in the United States had been stuck in kitchens, walk-in coolers and at cash registers.  I was wondering what was lying ahead of me.  I had never worked with a recruiter during my job search.  The recruiter talked about the many opportunities in IT and traditional industries, such as retails, real estate and banking, etc.  With a few months left on my work permit, she did match me to a two-month project with a children’s clothing retailer.  I realized that recruiters would never get me to a job that sponsored H1-B visa application.      

One night when I retuned home from my shift at Burger King, Charles left a message on my answering machine.  He said that his one-time roommate, James overheard that his company, Armstrong International was hiring an accounting manager for its joint-ventures in China.  Armstrong is an international manufacturer of industrial products, headquartered in Florida with its main factory in Michigan.  That sounded like a great opportunity.  Without any delay, I got my resume for him to pass to James the next morning.  A few days later, I got a call from its West Regional office in San Jose.  The company CFO, Steve Gibson asked the regional director, Dr. Frank Wang to conduct an initial interview with me.  

Dr, Wang came to the United States from Taiwan to pursue his doctoral degree in chemical engineering.  He was hired from Dow Chemical and charged with developing China market for Armstrong.  The interview went very well as we spoke Chinese and English alternatively.  Before I left, Frank said that he would write up a report about the interview and send it to Steve.  One week later, Steve himself interviewed me over the phone, and finally invited me to Florida for office interview with himself and all other corporate executives.  

Long before all of these, I was planning to leave San Francisco.  My work permit would expire in early February.  There was just not enough time for me to secure a job with a company to sponsor my H1-B visa application.  Charles was heading to graduate school in Connecticut at the end of January.  I was not going to drive back to Kentucky.  So, I put my car up for sale on San Francisco Chronicle.

The next day, somebody called and said that he wanted to see the car.  I gave him my address and he showed up half hour later in a brand new Mercedes.  Without really looking at the car, he said he would buy it.  He needed to go back home to get the money and invited me to ride with him to his house.  He pulled over to the driveway of a nice house.  When the door opened, I saw an almost empty house with an Asian lady holding a new born baby.  He told me that he had just bought the house for over half of a million dollar.  I asked him why he would buy a junky car while he drove a Mercedes.  He told me that he was the shift supervisor in a furniture manufacturer in San Jose.  He needed a car to transport his mostly Hispanics employees to work.  

He then told me how he came to the United States from Thailand in the late 1980s.  The Border Control agent at the airport noticed that he came from the Golden Triangle region of the country and suspected him of drug trafficking in heroin.  He told the agent that he just came to the United States on a tourist visa.  I asked myself why he showed me his house, his brand new Mercedes and told me about the people he transported to work.  A supervisor was not supposed to transport your staff back and forth to work. He must used these people for other purposes.  He did not deny that he was a drug dealer.  Suddenly I realized that he might try to recruit me.  I told him that I was leaving San Francisco and wanted to complete the transaction as soon as possible.  Reluctantly, he agreed to meet at DMV for me to hand over my car to him.  

It was really hard to part with the car.  It was the very first car we ever had.  It was the car I brought Jason home from the hospital with.  It was the car that carried the weight of my struggle from Kentucky to the West Coast.  I wished that one day when it laid at the forgotten corner of a graveyard, I could put a little yellow flower by its side.  The brush with a possible drug dealer sent chill down my spine.  When people live at the bottom of the economic ladder, they are vulnerable to all kinds of preys that people who live in higher society can’t imagine.  They have to resist the temptations in order not to become a victim.      

Over a week later, I received the airline ticket that Armstrong Fedexed to me.  I booked a ride with an airport shuttle and was on my way to leave San Francisco behind.  Little did I know then that seventeen years later, we came to San Francisco to drop Jason at UC Berkeley as he started his college year in 2014.  

I flew to Miami first, and then took a connecting flight to West Palm Beach, Florida.  I was picked up at the airport by a limo driver.  He told me that he had been contracting with Armstrong for a long time.  He knew the owner of the company, Gus Armstrong and his family very well.  He said that Armstrong was a good company to work for.  He dropped me at Pirate’s Cove Resort & Marina, five miles away from the corporate office in Stuart, Florida.  It was already dark after a cross-the-country trip from the west coast.

Next morning, I was woke up by the gentle warm breeze through the window. I pushed open the door to the balcony.   A marina with a forest of masts under the morning sun burst into my eyes.  The limo driver told me that Stuart is a fishing town.  Gus Armstrong liked fishing, so he moved the corporate headquarters from Michigan to Florida.  I did not have time to enjoy the tropical view.  Steve was about to pick me up in about an hour.  I took a quick shower and went down stairs to grab something for breakfast.           

I met Steve at the hotel entrance.  The drive to the office along palm tree lined street was very pleasant, as was my conversation with Steve.  He was in his early fifty and was one of the few executives who were not from the Armstrong family.  His assistant Joanne greeted us when we entered the office.  Steve said to me that he did not have more questions for me after the phone interview two weeks earlier.  He asked Joanne to introduce other executives to me as I made the rounds.

For lunch, Joanne drove Steve and myself to a local restaurant.  Over the lunch table, Steve said that the company did not have much difficulty to hire engineers who could spoke both Chinese and English, but had a hard time to find a qualified accountant who knew both Chinese and US accounting standard with the language skills.  I told Steve that I had even more difficult time to find a job that required the skills he mentioned.  We both agreed that there were mis-matches in job market.  When Joanne asked me if I would be returning to San Francisco, I told her that I would go to Kentucky.  Since Armstrong sent me a two-way ticket for this trip, I would pay my own ticket to Kentucky.  But, she said that she could change the ticket for me.  I told myself: “Wow, that is nice.  If you are in the right place, nothing goes wrong!”  

After meeting a few more executives back in the office from lunch, I was on my way to the airport.  Since Nora did not have a car, she rode with a friend to drive to Nashville Airport to pick me up.  I did not wait too long before Steve called me to lay out the offer.  I would be reporting to himself, based in Beijing, China, but I would be on corporate payroll.  Armstrong would start H1-B visa application on my behalf right away.   Before the application was approved, Armstrong could not pay me.  So, they advanced me a sizable chunk of money.  I already knew what I wanted to buy first with the money.  I spent over $400 dollar, almost twice as much as my monthly living expense, to buy a camcorder.  I wanted to capture the moments of Jason’s life on tapes as early as possible.   

A week later, Joanne Fedexed me my American Express Corporate Credit Card and a one-way business class airline ticket to Beijing.  At Detroit International Airport, I joined Steve and two other corporate executives on the direct flight to Beijing.  Steve handed me a brand new laptop.  I leapfrogged most people in having a laptop when not every family could afford a desktop computer.  The flight attendants in business class cabin were more than considerate.  In soft voice, they asked each passenger about his or her preference for food and beverage every few hours, and tried their best to cater to every need you could possibly think of.  I did not realize that people’s needs could be so sophisticated.  They turned on the light for you if they noticed you were reading.  For a simple person like myself, I did not need much of what they offered.  I was thinking of what the months ahead of me looked like.  I was very excited about the professional work in accounting I had studied so hard at Western.  I looked forward to seeing my parents after almost three years.  Above all, I was thinking of Jason.  He had just turned one year old.  I was wondering if he would still remember me, how he would react when I held him in my arms.  Everything looked so bright and joyful in my life at this moment.  Then I thought of my flight from Hong Kong to the United States just a short two and half years earlier.  Then and now were like day and night.  After all the battles I had fought and all the hardship I had gone through, my prayers were finally answered.               

Steve and I were picked up at Beijing International Airport.  We were taken to Swissotel Beijing, a five-star hotel where all Armstrong Executives stayed.  I finally met Gus Armstong, the President and CEO of the company and his wife Barbara.  They were gradually handing over the rein of steering the company to their oldest son David.  But China market was their final project.  They had stayed in China for so long that Barbara could venture out to the street markets in the embassy district to buy some pirated music CDs for her grandkids.  She was quite adventurous to bargain with peddlers in another country and buy something that might not work.           

I only stayed in Swissotel for two weeks.  American expatriates in Beijing usually lived in furnished apartments within five-star hotels.  They received company cars, had designated drivers and secretaries/interpreters.  I returned to my own country.  I did not need, nor negotiated for these perks. I moved into an apartment in the residential area in Beijing, fully blending into the local society.

I returned to a quite different China than the one I left just a few years ago.  I could tell people on the street walked with more confidence and purpose.  The society had fully embraced free-market capitalism and entrepreneurship.  Farmers markets, which were banned in the centrally planned economy were now booming, while state-owned grocery stores were on the decline.  Farmers better understood consumer needs, grew the produces efficiently and took them straight to the market to provide the varieties at the prices customers were willing to buy.  Restaurants of all cuisines were easy to find, and served all kinds of delicacies I craved for.  Local residents became more wealthier, too.  Luxury hotels, like Swissotel would initially not allow Chinese residents without reservations to enter, I was told.  Now, they could afford to host their guests here for banquets.  

The Chinese people openly showed their love for everything American.  They could hum the tune of songs popularized by saxophonist Kenny G.  They loved American movies, too.  Probably more Chinese watched the movies, like The Titanic and later Saving Private Ryan than the Ameicans did.  Michael Jordan, the basketball legend of the Chicago Bulls, definitely had more fans in China than in any other country.   Some of them followed him so closely that when they talked about him, I thought that Michale Jordan was their next door neighbor.  In business community, the trend was even more obvious.  For Amazon, there is Taobao; for Google, Baidu; and for Facebook, Tencent.  

I quickly got to work.  Dave Dykstra, the Corporate Controller, was my resource for any help at any moment.  I helped the manufacturing joint-venture, Armstrong’s first operation in China, set up the budgeting process, developed its monthly financial reporting, based on both US and Chinese Accounting standards, and filled the Accounting Supervisor’s position.  A few months later, I earned the praises from Steve and other corporate executives.  I was proud of myself for the progresses I had made with the guidance from Dave.   Even in the dark days when I worked in restaurants in the past two years, I never lost faith that some day, I would work the job I was trained to do at Western Kentucky University.  I never stopped learning, regularly reading professional journals and even going back to accounting textbooks.  When I could finally take a pause from the fast and furious, I was thinking about the next big holiday on the calendar, China’s Labor Day on May 1.  I was torn between seeing Jason in southwestern China or my parents in south central China.  I could take an overnight train to see them.  But, I would have to fly to see Jason.  Nora had decided to come back to China during her summer break.  She would go to see her parents first and then take Jason to Beijing.  So, I decided to go back to my hometown, not only to see my mom and dad, but also my brother, my two sisters and their kids, all of whom I had not seen for seven years.  

My parents had moved twice in the last seven years, first from the village I grew up to the town I attended middle and high school, then to the city where my brother worked.  My brother picked me up at the train station in the capital city of my province, an hour drive from where he lived.  He is a doctor in internal medicine.  My parents were thrilled when I told them that I would be home for the Labor Day.  My brother told me that they had planned for days for my visit.  

My parents gave me a hero’s welcome because I gave them a grandson who will carry the family name.  They had been telling neighbors that I would be home for weeks.  Some of them did show up to see what someone who had been to America looked like.  I burst into laughter and told them that I was still the old myself.  My nephew and nieces were in their early or middle teens.  They were so excited to see me as an American.  I told them that I was still a Chinese.  They had learned English in middle school for years now.  They tried to speak some English to me.  They asked me about some American songs I did not even know.  

My mom cooked my childhood favorite dishes.  My sisters showed their kitchen prowess, too.  The table were filled with dishes to the brim.  I had not shared meal with so many family members for years.     

After dinner when everyone had left, my parents sat down across the tea table from me.  My mom picked up my hands and said ” Tell me how you lived through these years”  Over the phone calls, I would always said that we were doing fine when they asked.  I did not want them to worry about me, while they could not do anything half way around the world to help us.  It would only accentuate their sorrows and guilt for the life I chose.     

Now, all emotions erupted into surface.  I could not hold back tears any longer as I had for the last two and half years.  Living through these years was like living in a pressure cooker.  I finally find a channel to release the frustrations, the disappoints and the sadness that had been suppressed for so long.  It was only in front of them that I could cry like a baby.  I told them how I had struggled to finish school, find a job and keep and raise the child.  My mom held my hands ever tighter as I recounted the trials and tribulations of my life in America.  My dad gave a deep and resigned sigh.  The long and heartfelt talk ended on a happy note.  I told them that they would go to Beijing in a less than two months to meet Jason.  I invited all my siblings and their families to Beijing, too.  They would have to come one family at a time because my apartment wasn’t big enough.

After I returned from my hometown, I tried to put everything together for the big family gathering in summer.  They had never been to Beijing before.  Beijing is an international metropolis, dating back to thousands of years ago.  It has so many historic sites to see, so many legendary stories to tell and so many forms of arts and architectures to appreciate.  I needed to think about the major sights I would take them to, such as, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven.  Then, I would let them choose other sites that are more strenuous to tour, such as the Great Wall.

About two months later, I went on the railway platform at the train station to welcome my mom and dad.  After an overnight ride in the sleeper cabin, they looked tired and needed some help to get off the train.  I took a taxi to rush them home so they could have a good rest.  They could not wait to meet Jason.  They insisted that I took them  to the airport to pick up Nora and Jason the next day.

We stood in a big crowd of people behind the ropes, anxiously waiting for friends and families to emerge from the Border Control area.  After I stretched my neck for dozen of minutes since the landing, the crowd had become much thinner.  Nora finally was seen with Jason in one arm and a carryon in another hand.  I stepped forward to take Jason from her.  Jason was still bonding with his mom, so he did not refuse and passively fell into my arms. I looked at him attentively to see how he had grown.  My mom and dad had been all smiles on their still-tired faces after Nora and Jason approached us.  I handed Jason over to grandma and grandpa.  Sixteen months after Jason was born, they could finally hold him in their arms.  I was told that when I called them the morning Jason was born, my mom handed out over hundreds of boiled eggs to family and friends, a Chinese tradition in my hometown to celebrate the birth of a child, particularly a grandchild.  My parents kissed him so profusely that Jason kept wiping off his cheeks.      

Then, my brother, my two sisters and their family one by one came to Beijing.  For the entire summer, the apartment was filled with joy and laughter.  Jason was a happy boy.  He was initially overwhelmed by so many people who wanted to kiss him.  He then very much enjoyed being at the center of attention.  He could not speak yet, but he understood everything we spoke to him.  His cousins liked to tease him and threw his toys away and ask him to pick them up.  He was not upset at all and gladly picked them up.  He liked to share the candies and the fruits we cut just for him.  He walked around to put the food in our mouths.  We all laughed and clapped.  When finally he was fed with formula, he took his formula bottle to share with everybody, too.     

On weekends, I took them across the city to experience all the things that Beijing could offered, from visiting the courtyards where royal families lived to touring the century-old neighborhoods where traditions were still intact, from eating delicacy at ornately decorated restaurants to waiting in long lines for street food from different part of the country.

That summer while I was enjoying my family life in Beijing, an event that would impacted the lives of mang families, the balance of great world powers and even human history occurred in the city on South China Sea: Hong Kong.  On July 1, 1997, the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom  to the People's Republic of  China.  Ceremonies were held in both Hong Kong and Beijing with live broadcast on huge screens at the intersections of major streets near where we lived.   

At night, fireworks ignited the sky with some of them shattering into thousands of sparks, while others tumbling like colorful waterfalls.  Firecrackers in my neighborhood exploded so frighteningly loud that I had to cover Jason’s ears.  

I had grave concerns for the future of Hong Kong and the fates of its citizens under the CCP’s regime.  Just a short eight years earlier, the CCP brutally crushed the student-led democratic movement on the mainland.  Oppression and tyranny are in the DNA of any communist regime.  The recent setbacks of the civil rights movement in Hong Kong have proved “conspiracy theorists” like myself right.