Lost in Translation

America is an immigrant country. A lot of people come from other countries. In their countries, they can express themselves exactly to their friends without thinking and they can understand some technical information easily. No doubt that they have adapted what the environment they live in their country. What if they go to another country? They will get lost. I was born in China and lived there until I graduated high school. When I moved to America, it just gave me a feeling of total difference. It made me feel lost. Like a blind, deaf, dumb man.

First, education is one of the differences that makes me feel lost. I just graduated high school in China, and then moved to Chicago. In Chinese high school, the teachers pushed us to study very hard. We studied and did the homework from seven o’clock in the morning to night ten o’clock except the lunch and dinner, and a two hours’ break. We studied hard only for a good grade. In China, a lot of companies require you have a high degree before they hire you. For some companies, our high degree is more important than our experience. That’s why we need to have a good grade to go to a good college. That’s why we have a high pressure environment, so the teachers try to let us know as much as possible, and try to put every thing into our brain. In America, the education focuses on self-study. I have a class that totally makes me feel lost. For example, one chapter about 20 pages, the teacher just said the outline and main content within twenty minutes. Then, she said some stuff out of the book about 15 minutes, and let us did 2 to 3 exercises. She told us the answer include the detail at the end of the class. That’s it. That’s two hours for the class, and it’s for one chapter. It’s my first class in that course, and my basic English limit to understand. I didn’t know what was going on about that chapter. I just felt lost in the ocean.

Second, food is another difference to makes me feel lost. In China, we eat rice, meat and vegetables from the market directly, and they are very fresh. They never have been to a refrigerator. Usually, we eat meat and vegetables everyday. It’s not like the frozen or packaged food in America, so it’s healthier to us. Also, a lot of Chinese people don’t like the style of food in America. So they just eat Chinese food and they buy it in Chinatown. I was been at my friend’s home a couple months ago. All they ate for lunch was some cookies and cooked some meat. I can’t image eating that day after day. This difference has had a great effect on me.

Finally, language is most important thing to make me feel lost. I can use the basic English to communicate with my friends and my teachers, but I can’t express myself exactly. Everybody knows that a perfect poem is no longer a perfect poem after it has been translated to other languages. The meaning become nonsense. If I communicate with a friend from Mexico, I need to translate the Chinese to English, and than he translates English into Spanish. My word would have been translated twice. How much can my friend feel? That’s the main reason that my parents don’t want to take a train to work. They can’t translate the Chinese to English. That limits them to communicate with others in English. That’s worse than me. They are afraid to get lost if someday the train changes its way. Language problem is the main problem for most immigrants to live in America, and I have experienced this problem.

I have been lost in the differences between China and America. I think there are a lot of people like me. Facing this problem is very difficult, but I believe I can make it. The sun still rises in the east, set on the west. We should do what we should do, and think what we should think. All problems will be solved by these new immigrants. It will be part of our experience, and we can use this experience to create our better life.