Coming to US at Forty to Start Over

In April 1980, I landed on the New Continent, the United States. At the age of forty, I had very little English, and even less money. I temporarily stayed in my aunt's house. At that time, if you had asked me what my American dream was, I would have been dumbfounded. I had never had the privilege to dream.

The phrase American dream sounds synonymous with materialistic entities: name-brand cars and gorgeous houses, delicious meals and tasty wine, rich clothing and expensive jewelry, and of course a lovely wife and smart children. Realization of the American dream required high social status and high income. I had two choices: I could choose to earn a Master's degree or a Ph. D. in America, or I could choose to make money through hard work. I chose the latter.

Two months after I came to America, I stepped out of my aunt's protective environment. My aunt and her husband were retired, and they lived a poor life. I didn't want to be a burden on them. As I flew from Chicago to the Bay Area in California, I declared myself independent. All the suffering endured during that period of hard work are not worth mentioning. In the worst part, I held four part-time jobs, plus going to an adult school to take English classes. I managed my time by minutes or even by seconds.

I had a splendid past back in China. I studied in Qinghua University for eight years where I was regarded as number one. I was also a senior engineer for fifteen years. I was in charge of the Tian Zi the First Project, and managed as many as one thousand people. Here in America however, I had to resign myself to dish-washing and doing cheap labor. At times I considered returning to China. But my relatives and friends immediately dismissed the idea: "How could you return to face everybody with no academic achievement, no money and no English?"

Suddenly I lost all my jobs. I was confined to a small, low-rent place the size of a snail's shell sitting on top of a nude-dancers' club on Broadway. I made up my mind to take intensive English classes in a community college. I cannot recall how I managed to survive eighteen hours of English daily and weekly exams with tens of thousands of vocabulary words to memorize.

A Lonely Raft in the Rough Sea

I had picked up barely enough everyday English to obtain a job in a Chinese newspaper office, where my boss promised to help me apply for a green card. I worked very hard hoping to make up for my dullness. I vividly remember how I spent numerous sleepless nights translating word-for-word a legal document beyond my comprehension. I also wrote numerous articles before I gradually started to gain some notoriety. Newspaper editors from New York and Hong Kong often woke me up late at night. And I always put up my best efforts to meet their requirements. I was especially adept at discovering inside information for some special nation-wide cases such as The Death of Jiang-nan the Writer in 1984, and my discoveries even helped the FBI crack the case. During those years, the President of UC San Francisco praised my interview coverage. The Vice President of UC Berkeley wondered how I managed to come up with a splendid article about him with titles and subtitles following only a brief chat with him. In the best of times, I was a special correspondent or columnist for as many as eight Chinese newspaper or periodical agencies. I had forty different pen names. Jiang-nan the Writer once criticized me for using too many pen names. I said I didn't want readers to know who I really was. I felt insecure because I didn't have a legal work permit.

My life was unstable and exhausting, and I could not see where I was heading. I lived on a monthly income of a thousand dollars, and yet every single penny went to the bank. Several years of hard work had allowed me to save up to tens of thousands of dollars and at one time I thought about buying a house. But why buy a house when I couldn't even legally work here?

In 1986, the Year of Tiger according to the Chinese lunar calendar, luck turned away from me. I lost everything a Chinese person could possibly own in America.

Early in the year, the newspaper office laid me off. At that time, my green card application was about to be approved. I was notified I must go through an immigration interview in China before I would be granted permanent residence status. But my boss refused to sign the final document, saying I was no longer his employee and that he couldn't lie to the INS. I even fell on my knees before him, but he refused to help. Next the American Consulate General in China rejected my wife's visa application, although the President of UC San Francisco was her financial sponsor and academic advisor. Furthermore, I lost all my savings -- over sixty thousand dollars -- to a gangster who didn't even speak a word of English. I still wouldn't admit defeat. I still had my good health. Then another disaster befell me. I was walking along the street when a car hit me so hard that I landed ten feet away. I suffered a serious concussion and ended up in the San Francisco general hospital. Green card, jobs, money, health, family reunion¡K all were lost. I was penniless with a heavy debt. I lost some and I gained some. What I lost was what my life depended on. What I gained was injuries and debt. I couldn't even afford to pay my rent at one point. I started to hate life. If I was asked about my American dream at that time, I would have answered but one word¡Xdeath.

A well-known Buddhist figure once asked me, "How do you know death is better than life?" Another exclaimed, "This is a tiger-snake fight. No wonder you couldn't hold on to your luck in the Year of Tiger." (According to the Chinese almanac, I was born in the Year of the Snake.)

In the general hospital, seven doctors examined me. They all agreed that I needed to go to a psychiatrist. So I was sent to the psychiatric department, accompanied by two police officers.

Dr. Chen of Taiwan was my psychiatrist. After hearing my painful experience, he agreed that I had had too many problems to deal with. He told me that I had two choices once I was released: either I could pay regular visits to a psychiatrist to maintain psychological balance or I could pick a religion to rely on. He said professional rules prevented him from telling me which religion was effective, but it had to be one that could bring me a peaceful spiritual environment. I had never heard that religion could bring a cure to problems like mine.

Dr. Chen was a pious Christian. Shortly after I was released, he called me. It was the Mid-Autumn Day. He told me that the youth fellowship would be meeting in his church in the evening and that he would be glad to come and pick me up if I wanted to join them. In the church I met Pastor Chu. I abruptly attacked him and said: "What good is Christianity, which has historically persecuted many famous scientists such as Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo." To my surprise, Pastor Chu didn't argue with me but agreed with me and admitted that what I said was historically true. That evening, the young people in the fellowship were playing games, and I became extremely impatient. When it was over, Dr. Chen drove me home. He gave me three booklets to read, which I casually put aside. Then after Dr. Chen left, I casually picked them up and glanced through them. I was amazed. I finished reading all of them at once. Professor Chang was the author of these books, What Is the Bible¡XThe Book of Books; Christianity and Science, and Christianity and the Chinese Culture. After reading these books, I was strangely and deeply moved. Not only did the books cover all of my questions and doubts though they didn't provide all answers, but what amazed me was that Professor Chang the author had studied Buddhism for three years before he became a Christian. Since my release from the hospital, I had taken Dr. Chen's advice about religion and had been reading about Buddhism, but with very little gain. Even though it was one o'clock at night, I picked up the phone and called Dr. Chen. I told him that if Christianity was really that good, then the billions of Chinese people needed it most of all. I wasn't even a Christian at that time, but I told Dr. Chen that I was willing to return to China to spread the Gospel. I asked him if I could meet with the author of the books. He said he could talk to Pastor Chu to arrange it, as the author had already retired but was still teaching in a seminary in Berkeley.

Professor Chang was formerly President of Taiwan's Qinghua University and Director of Taiwan's Scientific Institute. With Pastor Chu's help, I met with Professor Chang a few times. Each meeting lasted from six to eight hours. Sometimes Pastor Chu was with us too. Pastor Chu was a scientist himself. He was formerly a research fellow and professor in biochemistry before he studied in seminary and later became a pastor. Our discussions covered a broad scope, the origin of life, apes evolving to human beings, Darwin's evolutionism, inorganic substance and organic substance, bovine insulin, etc. I raised whatever questions I had. Professor Chang, my beloved teacher, continually gave me detailed explanations with patience. He suggested I do some reading. So I went through almost every single book in the church's little library. Then I decided to believe in Christ.

How could one learn to swim by standing on the side of the swimming pool shouting instead of jumping into the pool? Surely faith is not equal to knowledge, and one could not possibly solve all the problems before jumping in and taking a plunge. I decided to be baptized.

I had lived in Chicago for two years, at which time I lived with Father Fu in his dorm. Father Fu had previously been Head Dean of FuRen University for seventeen years. He was like a father to me but he did not believe I would become a Christian. He had once said, "If you ever believe in Christ, then I will become the Pope." At this I had retorted, "So you don't believe I will become a Christian, eh?" He replied, "So you don't believe I will become the Pope, eh?" Hearing that I had truly become a Christian, Father Fu was so happy that he burst into tears. He wished that I would become like Paul. He said that Paul had once persecuted Christians but had later become Christ's follower and had become an apostle. Making such an about turn was by no means easy for a person like me, who had been brainwashed by Communism for over thirty years. I had studied major Communist philosophy, dialectical materialism, historical materialism, political economics, history of the Soviet Communist Party, history of the Chinese Communist Party, and Natural Dialectics, and had been a thorough materialist and atheist. Such a turnabout, however, was necessary or I would never be where I am today.

In the past, I was very proud of myself. I believed in my own survival skills and I believed in human capability more than nature. I would not have admitted defeat and would not have accepted Jesus as my Savior if I had not first lost all I had. In the Old Testament I read about the very rich man Job who owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. God tested Job and allowed all his belongings to be destroyed. Job remained faithful throughout all his sufferings. Finally God enabled Job to turn around from bitterness, and blessed him more than ever before. In the end, Job owned fourteen hundred sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys.

Help from God Leading to Eternity

In the past, I had a strong propensity toward hatred, thinking everybody around me as well as all society owed me something. Today, I am full of thankfulness and joy. I am able to look at things from a different angle to gain a completely different outlook. Taking a step backward enables me to see the entire horizon.

Christians have a unique privilege, and that is to learn to unload their burdens on the Lord. This skill has fundamentally changed my world outlook.

Believing in the Lord did not make all my personal problems go away. How should I face life? Brothers and sisters encouraged me to pray, but I was pretty doubtful. Concussion, headache, tears, insomnia, and joblessness. Despite my doctor's recommendation, I did not qualify for any financial aid from the government. I started to pray. On Christmas night, I was about to go to church when I opened my mailbox and saw the court settlement notice for the lawsuit between the state government and me. I was very disappointed, as everything listed in the notice seemed unfavorable to me. I asked Pastor Chu to interpret the notice for me. Pastor Chu also shook his head. Then he discovered the last page I had missed. Strangely, the final court decision was in my favor. I was eligible to receive a monthly allowance.

Encouraged by this, plus my several years of experience living in America, I realized that I could not gain any type of prosperity through cheap labor without starting some sort of business. By grasping business opportunities, taking advantage of my strengths, and with courage and a bit of luck, I might be able to succeed. But to start up a business I needed capital.

After some deliberation, I decided to go into the business of trading antique and traditional paintings. My grandfather was an antique collector. He had taught me a lot about antique appraisal. During the Cultural Revolution, he had been forced to throw two huge boxes of ancient paintings into fire. I could no longer remember all the details about the works, except that one of them used to be a royal gift. The painting was burned, but the pair of porcelain rollers managed to escape the fire. Experts said the rollers were made during the Ming Dynasty and could be worth thousands of dollars.

I knew a rich man who appreciated my wisdom and frankness. He told me that his ambition was to make me one of the best appraisers of Chinese traditional paintings. I had done quite a bit of work in the art circles in China. I had even been labeled as one of the best amateur appraisers of artistic works. Amateurish as I was, with perseverance I managed to become successful. I had no capital resources, but I owned a couple of paintings. A famous painter had once given me a gift, a painting of black mountains and flowing waters. I was able to trade it for a set of twelve royal paintings from the Qing Dynasty. The paintings were seriously damaged but were not completely ruined. After some restoration work by experts, the paintings were restored to their original beauty and became priceless. These paintings were really great art works of the past and were now extremely rare.

I explained to Pastor Chu that I wanted to sell these paintings, and asked whether I could pray to God for that. Pastor Chu replied that I could pray for anything. I proceeded to sell and was able to hit the jackpot. The paintings sold for tens of thousands of dollars. With this money, I continued my hard work and was able to make significant achievement in a few years. I managed to own quite a few paintings by famous artists and I even owned a house. More important, through extreme perseverance and continual immersion in the Chinese culture, my spiritual world was greatly enlightened. I even published a few articles about the appraisal of Chinese paintings. Finally in 1991, I was offered a job working for a famous collector and appraiser on the east coast.

It has been six years since I was baptized at the Thanksgiving season of 1986. Whatever I had lost, the Lord has abundantly given back to me. Today, I work as a college lecturer. I have been reunited with my family, following ten years of separation. My two daughters are in college and they both believe in the Lord and have been baptized. We live in a house we ourselves own. We are not extremely rich and yet we are by no means poor. I often pray to the Lord praising His work and giving thanks for His grace. A hymn called Amazing Grace is my favorite. Whenever I sing this song, I am deeply touched and cannot hold back the tears.

Life is still not without its difficulties. But I have learned to keep my composure when running into difficulties. I have learned to re-evaluate myself and to unload my burdens to the Lord. The fatal blow that came to me in the Year of Tiger turned out to be non-fatal after all and I was able to re-establish myself. For this reason, I cannot help giving thanks to the Lord. I have come to realize that we can live a more meaningful life by staying away from worldliness than by going after glorious career achievements, and that we can achieve spiritual transcendence by freeing ourselves from materialistic slavery as opposed to going after academic excellence. As for me as a Christian, the purpose of life is to completely devote myself to the Lord by letting the Lord be my master and letting myself be usable to the Lord, for we are walking a road that leads toward eternal life. And this is also my ultimate dream.

I am willing to reveal my true name in this article as I desire this writing to be a testimony for the Lord. Hopefully those who know me can tell from this writing how much I have changed. I hope those who do not know me may also be inspired. Psalm 124 says, "If the Lord had not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us alive; the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away. Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird, out of the fowler''s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

*****

The author came from Beijing. He won the Chinese National Creative Writing Award, and had been a special correspondent for numerous newspaper and communication media agencies. The author is now a lecturer of Chinese art in a University in San Francisco; he is also editor of the Hua Sheng Television Station.