You don’t look like you want to be here

I was told that at the age of 5 when I first emigrated out of China, that I didn’t want to leave the country. I think there’s still some truth to that. The time I spent in Canada and the United States were not necessarily happy times. It was a period filled with solitude, ridicule, boredom, and, sometimes, violence. I think about the happiest time in my life and maybe it was college, though that may have been a bit of an illusion too. I didn’t make any strong, lasting friendships at WashU. Consequently, I don’t really visit.

As mentioned previously, I couldn’t find a friend in St. Louis with whom I had much in common with. I’ve always sort of thought it was because I was at the wrong school since I wasn’t born in this country and, on some levels, I think that may have been the case. My English, despite it being my favorite subject, has always been poor. Language is something that is passed down and my parents, through no fault of their own, were not proficient in English, and so we don’t speak it at home.  

Yet, at the end of the day, I think there is some truth to the statement that I don’t really want to be here. America is a great country, but one that has arguably been in decline over the previous decades or so in the measurement of health, economics, and perhaps other metrics as well while China is a country that is on the rise–though it has experienced its own setbacks. Is it up to people like me, who’ve just arrived in America, to set it back on course? I don’t know the answer to that. Yet, I think for people who understand that they possess talent, there is this unspoken obligation to use that talent to improve the community they’re in and, for me, that is America.