I am still looking for a good stationery shop to buy some flashcards, so wherever I go, I ask people if they know if there's a good stationery shop nearby. It seems that everywhere you go in Taiwan, there are these magnificent stationery shops everywhere. Perhaps on a certain level, I am not really looking for stationery, but just missing my laojia in Taiwan.
I get off the subway and see an older woman selling kids' books in a stall in the station. I figure she might know. She doesn't, but I start looking at the childrens' books (which are perfect for my level of Chinese). She asks me where I am from. I tell her from the States.
She tells me she has applied for a visa to the States five times already, and has been rejected every time. She tells me that her 80 year-old brother lives there. He is ill and she wants to see him before he dies. He lives in Maryland, which is where I am from. She tells me that before he dies, she wants to cook him food from his childhood that he loves and can't get in the States.
I tell her I know I am lucky. I am a U.S. citizen and can basically go wherever I want in the world. I haven't even been in China for two months, and I have already encountered lots of Chinese people who want to travel abroad but can't due to political reasons.
I tell her I am sorry that she isn't able to get permission to see her brother. "Did you tell the people at the consulate your story?" I ask. She replies that she has, but that obviously, it hasn't moved them to help her.
"Maybe you should meet him in Canada. It's not that far from Maryland," I suggest.
I look in her eyes and I sense her deep sadness. She has cried a lot about this. It's time for me to go. I tell her I live near here and will come back and look at her books again.
"Thank you, thank you," she says.
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2 comments:
sigh.. life is a struggle.. we should have helped each other more, including those immigration officers..
Ahhh, I can tell you from my current and not always pleasant experience. Getting a Chinese person into the USA is difficult. Very difficult. That same American identity that allows us to travel all over the world, works in reverse at our border. It is not so easy for Chinese to get into our country.
You first have to prove you don't want to stay in America, then, maybe, we will let you in. But, you must first prove your indifference. Unless, of course, you can walk over our border and do a job that we would never want to do in a million years.
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