Lost In Translation

Living in a totally different place takes time to get used to. Ever since I came to this country, the United States of America, my whole life started to change dramatically. I highly doubt that any of those immigrants or people who came from other countries will still live the same kind of life that they had in their native countries. I came from Malaysia, a small country in the south west Asia. After I had arrived the United States of America, I encountered some difficulties that I had to deal with.

The first issue that I had faced was the language. People here do not speak the same language as I do in Malaysia. They speak English, and everything they do is in English. It was difficult for me because I hardly spoke English in my country except in my English classes. And then I also had this issue that is also connected to the language – friends. The first high school that I attended was in California. People there were nice and caring, but since we didn’t speak the same language, we weren’t that close to each other. The method of education in high school here is different to Malaysia. Each student at Malaysia will have his or her own class with a schedule that determines what classes they will be having throughout the whole year. Teachers come into the classes instead of students rushing to their classes like here in the United States of America.

The second issue is the culture. In Malaysia, we celebrate a lot of festivals which don’t even exist here in the United States of America. The festival that I like the most is the Chinese New Year festival. This is the day when all of our relatives would come back and we would have dinner together. I have an uncle, auntie and two cousins who live in Germany and they would only come back once a year which is during the Chinese New Year. Now, we hardly celebrate festivals anymore like we did for years in Malaysia. The only way for us to stay connected and to keep in touch is through a long distance phone call. I feel somewhat lonely in this country because the only people I have are my parents and my sister. It was pretty tough for us at the beginning, but once we got used to it, it turned out to be fine.

The last issue is the environment and weather. Malaysia is located on the equator which means there are no seasons, and it feels like summer for whole year long. But here in Chicago, we have seasons from winter to summer. I remember at the first time seeing snow falling from the sky, I was really excited because I had never seen snows in my whole life. But, after three years now, I’ve started to lose the excitement like I had before. In addition, the houses and buildings here also look different from my country. The highest building we have at Malaysia is the Petronas Twin Towers, which were the world’s tallest towers from 1998-2004. The chimneys look different too, and we usually have gates surrounding every individual house. These are all pretty new to me and it took me a while to get used to them.

Living here in the United States of America is life-challenging and always full of surprises. It is like starting a new life and in a new place to me because I’m meeting new friends, living in a new environment and learning new different cultures and languages. I believe that I am not the only person who is facing all of these difficulties.