An interview of Ms. Lee             Age: 78-year-old       Record by Vanessa Zhan             Ms. Lee is a 78-year-old lady; I met her at the Red Cross YCE Program.  She is living in a small room in Chinatown all by herself.   She told me that her son visits her twice a month.  Anyway, she came from Shin Hu,i in Canton.  She has been in the U.S.A. for almost 40 years.  She decided to come here because her relatives asked her and her son to live with them after her husband died.  When she came here, she went to a sewing factory to work.  At that time, Chinese women got such bad treatment in so many ways.  They worked more than ten hours a day and needed to work on Saturday, too.  She needed work badly because she needed to support the basics of life for her son and herself.  However, after many years, her son is now grown up and has a better life. But she became a lonely elder just after her son got married.  It is very sad to hear about her past and the loneliness.
	Name:  Mrs. Wong                  Age:     72                    Record by  Tony Wu             I am writing a story about Mrs. Wong and trying to use the first subject to write it.  I think it will let us feel closer and more interested. Mrs. Wong�s story starts here: I am Mrs. Wong. I am a 72 year old Chinese woman. I came here 13 years ago. I was born in a little village in China in 1930. My family was very poor. Everyday, we didn�t have enough food to eat. All the people in our family were skinny and seemed only bones with skin. I did never go to school, which means that I am illiterate. When I was about 12, my dad was already gone. He died and he left my family by itself. He left my mom, my two brothers and me. So my mother had to do harder work and raise the three of us. When I was nearly 17, I married my husband. I got married earlier than my elder brother, because my family was poor and we didn�t have money for him to find a wife. Also, I didn�t know anything about my husband. All I knew was that I was going to marry a guy that I only saw a couple of times. At that time, that was only a trifle to marry someone that you never saw before. That was because most of the people married the people that they didn�t ever meet or even see before. Our lives were under the control of our parents, and our agreement or disagreement was worth nothing. After I married, I got lots of work to do, and I didn�t ever have time to visit my mother and brothers. I would only see them again a couple of times. When I was 20, my first son was born. Then 5 years later, my daughter was born. Then 4 years later, my second son was born. My husband and I had to do lots of work to raise them. We sowed lots of crops. After the crops were harvested, we took them to the market and sold them. We took the money to support our children to go to school.  When my children grew up, they found some good jobs, so our life became better. When my first son was about 40, he came to the United States of America with his job. So 20 years later, he applied for my husband and me to immigrate here. Since I moved here, I felt that everything was different from the way things were in China. I live in a little apartment with my husband. Sometimes my sons and daughter and grandchildren will come visit me, and I always have a good time with them.  Most of the time, I get bored because all the people in this building are foreigners. They don�t understand what I am saying, and I don�t know what they are talking about. I can�t communicate with them. All I can do is eat and then sleep and the only person that I can talk to is my husband.  We want to move to Chinatown, so we can talk to other Chinese people, but Chinatown is too far away from my children. There are lots of things we can�t do here, but anyway, it is better than in China. That is because I can see my children and grandchildren.
	--A story of a successful immigrant. Written By Simon Zhao Mr. Xiao Nia Wu just saw his eightieth birthday. He emigrated from Canton.  Living in the U.S. for about 30 years, he now has his own house in the East Bay. Also like the Cantonese people who were born in the early 20th century, watching the classical Cantonese drama is his favorite thing to do.  Mr. Wu told me, �life is just like a drama, full of unreasonable changing, but also exciting�.             Mr. Wu was born in a big family, which held a large area of farmland. However, the time of his birth was not ideal, in the 20�s, the age of war. The anti-government forces� attitude was no different from a rascal�s. They took over his family�s assets. At that time, he was just a little boy, but he needed to face the situation. He never stopped keeping his eye out for an opportunity to escape the hard life.  Eventually, he got a refugee visa to come to the United States.  In Mr. Wu�s story, coming to America is the starting of his second life.  When he arrived in San Francisco, he had a job in a small Chinese restaurant near Chinatown.  He worked extra hard and provided many valuable comments to his boss.  Ten years after, before the time the boss immigrated to Canada, he gave the restaurant to Mr. Wu as a reward.  By this time, Mr. Wu was sixty years old.  In the following ten years, he did not waste this chance, and instead, he used his talented business mind to make this small restaurant become well known in the Bay Area.  In 1993, he sold the restaurant and retired.  Now, he lives with his wife in Bay Point. His son, who was adopted from an orphanage, just graduated from MIT with a master�s degree in Economics. With everything just going well, Mr. Wu�s face is always smiling.  His life is just like a drama.     By Xia Nia Wu.
	The Life of Siu Ming Tong             Robert Ling             Siu Ming Tong is my mother�s elder brother, which means that he�s my uncle and he�s over 65 years of age. He was born in Toishan, Canton, China in 1936. He was born after the Asian Holocaust, which was a difficult time in life for his parents, because they had to go and hide out. Since the invasion of the Japanese, some of his mother�s relatives were killed or became a slaves to the Japanese. He is the second oldest child of out of 10 siblings. He�s the oldest brother in the family. He has 3 younger brothers, one elder sister and 5 younger sisters. He was the only child in the family and had the most responsibility. After all the suffering during World War II, the Japanese were swept away by the Americans after two Atomic Bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That shocked the World into ending WW II. The Atomic Bomb blasted off all parts of  the city and 75% of the people there were killed and the other 25% of the people were wounded or injured. The Americans helped the Chinese to put a vengeance on the Japanese. The time he told me that, he felt very angry and said that it was not enough because the Japanese killed so many people and that it was just not enough. He thought about becoming a soldier in order to fight Japan in WWII. In 1949, the Chinese Revolution began; it was the order by Mao Tse Tung. His father was fighting to change the government.             In 1956, his whole family moved out from Toishan to Guang Zhou. In 1957, Siu Ming Tong went to Hong Kong to look for a better life. He worked in public educational schools and became a teacher. In 1962, his father had high blood pressure, which led his father to lie down on the bed. The blood flew into his brain and he passed away. It was very sad; Siu Ming Tong�s father left their family behind at age 53. That brought up a difficult time for his mother to take care of 10 children. In 1966-1968, during those years Mao Tse Tung ordered that all the schools in China close; it was because he did not want other people to be smarter than him. In 1970, my Uncle was married, and in 1972, he settled into the United States. He bought a house in San Francisco in 1975. He worked as a butcher at a hotel near Downtown. He ended up working as a butcher to open a restaurant in 1980. It was a hard time for him to take care of a business, and he gave up less than a year later, and ended up going back to the same hotel that he used to work at and became a bellman. The bellman serves tourists through a hotel. He later applied for his siblings to immigrate to America from China. He has no children, but he always wanted to have one.             He retired in the very beginning of 2002. He was so happy that he was planning to go back to China for a visit. He�s looking forward to succeed in Shen Zhen in the future.
	Author: Xiao Yan Chan         I have interviewed my friend Joanna. She is 52 years old. She came here to the United States about twenty years ago.  Now she has one daughter and one son.  She has a very good job now. But when she first came here she felt that it was as hard here as it was in China. Because she did not know any English; she could not find a job; also she felt so strange because she had never seen the black people and the white people.         As time passed, she could not live in the Unite States without a job. Then finally she found a job where she worked at a restaurant.  She only had a very few benefits and it was very unfair because she had to work long shifts, like 12 hours, and then still only got a little pay.  However she was very happy, too.  She thought that in China it was still a very hard time and she couldn�t make very much money. But here, after even longer hours she gets paid ten times as much as in China.  Because she always thought that she would be going back to China to spend the money she has made, it would be a very large amount there.        She compares the Unite States and China, but she likes America better because she thinks that, here, we have more freedoms, more rights, more benefits for people, and she can still go to school at her age. Also she likes the US living conditions, the foods, and the people that come from different countries. She likes to talk to them.        So far she still likes to live in America and likes America. But she does not know what will happen in a few years. It is because she still feels unsafe after September 11, and also afraid of the economic fate, too.
	B y Annie Ma        Today, I visited my neighbor, Ms. Li. She is over 60 years old; she came here almost 15 years ago.  But she didn�t speak English fluently.  She just knew some English words. Her son applied for her to come here. She told me that she doesn�t like living here. She feels alone and has nothing to do after she gets out of work! Oh smart reader! Do you think about the fact that a person who is your grandmother's age has to work? She told me that she works at a store selling food. She is a Taishan person.  She wants to go back to China, but she can't. Everybody in China hopes to go to America to get more money to make a beautiful life. So she came to America when her age was almost 50 years old. Even though she regrets coming here, she hasn't any choice at this moment. She has decided to make more money so that she has enough money to buy an apartment and has other money for spend. This is her little wish, and she told me that it would hopefully come true a few years from now. Right now, we hope Ms. Li's dream comes true as soon as possible!!!
	Interview of A Senior  Amy Zhen              The person that I had interviewed was an old lady named Yan Lin Yu.  She is my neighbor who lives here around 20 years.  She is about 85 years old.  She came to America when she was 36 with her husband.  They had a very hard time when they just got to the new country.  Because they don�t know how to speak English, she doesn�t know anybody in this country.  In America the first job she had was made clothes and with little money.  Then she worked on a restaurant with the friends that she had met in here.  Then she and her friend together buy a house and live together.             In this interview, I have learned lots of things from her life.
	Ping Juan Huang                    By: Linda Kuang An 80 years old lady, Ping Juan Huang, told me that story about what was happened when the time she was in China.  When she was seven, her dad passed. After a short time, her mother was also ill and passed away she then lived alone by herself. She became a child worker in a landowner�s house.  She needed to face a lot of the difficult of her life and she could not go to school. She was no school to go and no food to eat. She needed to do all the works in the family. One day she torn her landowner�s wife�s dress and she was bitten by her badly.  They locked her up in a room and no meal for couple of days. But lucky she got married into a family and have two children and she still live a happy life.

	Jessica Lu         Here is a story about an elder person.          A seventy-one year old woman, Qing En Lin, was a very nice person. She told me a very interesting story about herself in Cantonese. I am here to translate in English; so all the young people will know something about our elders.          Qing En Lin was a doctor in Canton, China, twenty-five years ago. She had two sons and one daughter. Her husband was an accountant. They were very happy when they lived together. Her daughter met a very handsome man that came from the U.S.A. They fell in love. After they married, Qing En's daughter followed her husband to the U.S.A. When they lived in San Francisco for about one and a half years, her mother, Qing En, her husband, and one of her sons came to the United States to join their family. Her oldest son was more than 21 years old, so he stayed in Canton, China.          Qing En Lin came here about fifteen years ago, but when she talked about the things that happened in Canton, she still remembered clearly, and felt very happy. She was very much enjoying the days that she lived in China.        Now, she lives in the United States. She feels happy, too, because she has a lot of cute grandchildren and three children who love her. They get together during the weekend and go to drink tea together. America and China both give her a lot of good times. These events will stick in her mind all of her life.          That is the end of this story, but there are many different kind old stories in the world. We must find out more and get a better feeling about them --" the elders".
	Amandy Liang       Here is the Project! But the name I wrote was a nickname, because she doesn't want her real name to be on the news, newspaper, Internet and others.  So I used a nickname for her.     Amy is an elderly woman who came here about twenty years ago.  She has six children: four daughters and two sons.  Her husband had died after he took his three daughters, last son and his wife to come to the United States. Before he came, he had lived in Hong Kong for a few years to earn more money for his family in China, and then heard that people were trying to get to the US by sailing on the ocean for a few months.  After he arrived in the US, he worked hard and mailed money back to China to let his wife come over too.  He died of exhaustion because of working so hard.  Then their third daughter and first son were to get married in China already, so they could not come until Amy earned enough money.  So she tried a lot of kinds of work, such as being a cleaner in the airport, taking care of babies, and doing housework in people's houses. She thinks that working in China is much more tiring than working in the US, because in China she needs to take care of her children, cook, clean the house, and farm everyday. She even taught her children to help her do some housework and help her on the farm.  But in the US, she just had to take care of her children and do her work.  Then, after she had been here for a few years, her last son went back to China and got thrown in jail, because he was smoking and doing drugs.  She attended a few weddings here; her daughters� and her relatives� daughters and sons.  Then she changed her job from taking care of the elders in their house, to taking care of her grandsons and granddaughters.  She even went back to China once with her last daughter. It's because she wanted to visit   her relatives and her children.  Right now she wants to go back to China again to go to some other places besides her birth place, and take a visit of her son's place to see how he is doing in there.
	Teresa Li  I'm Teresa. Yesterday I interviewed a senior lady. Her name is Mei Wong. She was born on September 28, 1930, in Canton, China. She had a rich family, so she could attend school at a younger age. Not long after she graduated from high school, she found a job in an elementary school. This job was to teach younger children.  Those students were six to ten years old. A few years later, she met a boyfriend through her friend (Mr. Wu). She thought this boy was a good future husband and father. Afterward, she and that boy married at a beautiful place. That place is called Tai Shan Fifty. One year after, her son was born in China, so she didn't work in school, and became a housewife. They had a perfect family. When they had three sons, and one daughter, their lives were very difficult. But her husband gave their children a good education and a good life. Now, their children have grown up, they have good job and good families. Right now, she always lives by her sons� sides. When I finished this interview, I felt that she was a good mother and a good wife. I hope I will be a good mother and good wife.
	Okay, today, the elderly man that I am talking about is my Papa. He is 57 years old right now (2002), and I don't think that is old enough for the requirement that the teacher made for senior citizens, but I guess he is an old man. He was born in Vietnam, Hai Phong, in the time of the 1940's, when the famous Vietnam War was going on. That affected my grandparents a lot.  They had lost all that they had, and started to escape from the North to the South. Then, Papa escaped to Cambodia, and then to Hong Kong. Because he didn�t have enough money, he moved to Macao. When he started to study there, he was 19. After one year, he went to Taiwan and studied there. Because of a financial problem, he went to Japan for a job for 5 months. Then he came back to Taiwan again. He worked at a factory on a pier. Because of the financial case again, he became a teacher and taught in a professional school. That is the major job that lasted the longest. Then he retired when he was 53 years old.      When his children (he got married, but he doesn�t want to talk about that) grew up, because of the memories of the wars, he didn�t want his son to go into the army, so the family had to move to the United States of America. At that period, he was 54 years old already. At first, he couldn�t find a job the fit him, and then he joined the financial aid program and began studying at City College. Although my dad is not old enough for the project, the experiences that he had faced is worth for our entire FIT member to know and it is also why I am here �.   I respect my father, the so-called old man and thank him for bringing me here.  None of his bad experiences ever happen to me here.   Thank you to my loving father.  This paper is written for my loving Papa, too. By Scott Thi
	The story of Su Ling Cheng                     Jack Chen  Su Ling Cheng is an elder who came from China; she was born April, 12, 1915. She is living by herself, she is too old and she has some problem with her feet.  She can�t walk by herself.  When she wants to go out she needs someone to help her. I remember the first time I visited her, she was so lonely.   When she eats, goes to restroom or goes out, she also needs people to help.  At that time I want to know why her son or daughter don�t take care her.  Later the people told me her husband was died when she was young. And she has two sons and one daughter.  She came to America for 25 years. But uniformly her daughter died in an accident 5 years ago. At that time she started being alone, but also at that time have some people take care her.  Sometimes she has some high school student like us go to see her, and every time when us go to visit her, we also talked a lot. Like talk about family, school or friends, we talk about everythings, slowly we become friends. I can see she has a big change.  It is because she didn�t lonely anymore.
	Wendy Miao            I have an interview with a senior whose name is Zhang Shao Min.  Now he is 80 years old, he has been in San Francisco for ten years.  The years he has been here, he has worked very hard and he still does not have much money.  The house he needs to rent $150 for a month, and he only get $300 a month for working very hard.  Also, he was old when he got here, so, no store would hire him. So, he needed to do other things to earn money.  Now his children have moved to San Francisco, too.  His children take care of him and he rests at home now.
	A Story about Deng Gui Cai                  By:Susie Liang        I did an interview with a senior who is named Deng Gui Cai.  Now he is 65 years old.  He has been in San Francisco for thirteen years.   When he first came to San Francisco, he didn't know any English. So, it was very hard for him to get a job.  After about half of a year, he found a job as a janitor- cleaning a store's floor and restroom.  And he has less money. The small room he rents is $300 for a month, and he only gets about $600 a month for working day and night.  After 5 years, his children told him there was no need to go out and work.  They asked him to stay at home and let them take care of him. Now, he finally has a good ending for his story, because he is living with his sons and grandsons.
	Jenny Kuang  I am going to do is to ask a senior about what they have done in the past and how difficult it was for them to move into this new place. I decided to ask my grandmother to help me with this project. When my grandmother and my grandfather moved to San Francisco they felt very nervous because they had to find a house and to be able to use their money to rent that house. At that time their income was very little because they didn�t have very good jobs, and they had to work many hours a day.  The things that scared my mother the most were the earthquakes in 1987, and then again in 1989. She said that when she was in the house, sitting, suddenly, she felt the whole house was shaking. She heard her neighbors screaming "earthquake, earthquake".  That was a time when my grandfather was still at work, and so she was so worried and didn�t know how to find my grandfather. My grandmother hurried and called my auntie and uncles to the place that my grandfather worked, to pick him up. Finally they brought my grandfather home safely. Luckily their house didn't fall apart, and only the things on their tables fell down. These are the things that my grandmother told me about the past. I wish I could ask my grandfather something about what he has done too! But my grandfather is not here any more.  When he left I cried a lot for him and I miss him very much. I still always think of him. I love my grandfather very much. I wish he were still alive to watch me grow up. These are the happenings in my family.
	I went to Chinatown on the weekend to ask some seniors about how they felt when they got to America. The one I interviewed is named Ray Li. this is not his real name because he doesn't let me use his real name.  Before he got to America he had a hard life back in his hometown because he told me that rich people were mostly bribing the government. The rich were bribing the police, and, therefore, a poor person doesn't have that much freedom in China.  The United States was a place for a chance at a better living standard. He said that America has more freedom than China. When he got here he was not used to the place and he was afraid because he didn�t know any English and he had to find a place to rent.  When he got to America he had no relatives here, so he had to depend on himself.  So he asked Chinese people when he saw them, and they advised him to go to Chinatown and show him the place. He told me he was glad to see many Chinese faces on the street.  The Chinatown neighborhood is not strange to him. He found a better living here in America. By Vinh Nguyen

 

	Candy Kuang             I interview a woman telling me that piece of story.  In long time ago, her family as five people lived in a house and had nice and sweet life. There was her husband, her son and daughter in law and a granddaughter.  They lived happily in their house.  Everyday of the family is a day full of laugh and happiness.           But suddenly in one night a tornado came and rolled away her husband, son and her daughter in law.  The happy family only left her granddaughter and her.  Her granddaughter�s name is Agatha.  She opened a small store to earn their living.  Now her granddaughter is grown up and lived in San Francisco.  She said she has a good ending now.  Her age is 80 and her granddaughter is doing a job that related to tornado.  She doesn�t want her sad experience happened to other family in here.
	Ying Fang Yu             Her name is Wei Ming Chen, and she was born in 1919, on September 24.  She lived in a small beautiful and famous Chinese City, Taishan.  It lies along the Guangdong province coastline on the southwest corner of the Pearl River Delta area bordering the South China Sea.  She told me a lot about Taishan�s history.  Taishan was founded in the 12th year of the Hongzhi Reign during the Ming Dynasty.  Originally, it was actually known as Xinning country, it was later changed to Taishan Country in 1914. In April17, 1992, the state council approved promoting it to the position of a city-state. Taishan is also reputable in its volleyball activities. Taishan makes up half of the country�s (China) volleyball system. Taishan also has an excellent educational system, giving the nation with large amounts of talented people. When Wei Ming was 70 years old, she came to the USA. She told me a lot of information about Taishan. I was very excited to do my interview project. I am very happy to have learned so many things about a person because I took the time to interview them.  I am very thankful that Ms Wei Ming Chen let me learn a good lesson from her life experience.
	My Senior Project for CCSC                     By: Jianh Li

            My grandma is 80 something years old.  Now she told me what happened when she was a little girl in China.

 

Kevin Liu             She came to United State of America about 54 years old.  She lives in Chinatown with her husband.  At first she feels she didn�t like here much because her son and daughter is working so they don�t have time to play or talk with they.  If they want to go out, they don�t know what place to go.  Now they met some other people and know some place to go.  So they feel better now.  One more think is she thought the United State people got more freedom than other places.  Her name is Julie Wong.

THIS IS QI LING WU             I HAVE INTERVIEW A SENIOR WHOSE NAME IS LI WEN CAI, NOW SHE IS SEVENTY YEARS OLD. SHE HAS BEEN HERE AROUD TWENTY YEARS. THE YEAR SHE HAS COME WAS VERY HARD TO WORK. BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T HAVE THE GOOD HEALTH, SHE ALWAYS GOT SICK WHEN SHE WAS IN CHINA. SO SHE SPENT A LOT OF MONEY TO SEE THE DOCTOR. AFTER SHE COME TO THE SAN FRANCISCO HER SONS TAKE CARE OF HER, BUT DIDN'T GIVE MUCH MONEY TO HER. SO SHE MUST FIND A JOD TO SURVIVE BY HERSELF. SHE WORKED ABOUT FIVE YEAR AND RETIRED AND THE GROVENMENT GIVE FOUR HUNDRED FOR A MONTH. SO NOW SHE HAS A GOOD LIFE BY HER OWN. SHE IS VERY HAPPY TO BEEN HERE.

 

Name:  Zhu Zhao Ming                                                             Record by Caly Huan              It was about a year ago where Mr. Zhu had to stress over the whole fact of his family immigrating.             I learned that he went through a lot to try and get his family over here to America. He was under stress and could not ever get much sleep. Everyday he would worry constantly about their immigration status and papers. I would go to the law office every week to check up on the sent documents.             I feel that he is very strong man. He is able to manage a lot of stress and problems.