The Outsider

 

Ya Qiao

ESL INTG100

Oct 6, 2020.

The Outsider

 

            I’ve imagined a lot about my future. However, one thing I had never thought about was that one day I would leave the place where I live to go abroad.  I thought it was an impossible thing for me. However, two years ago, I moved to the United States from my country, China. Obviously, the U.S. is the one of the biggest countries for new immigrants in the world. As my second home country, I’ve had many happy memories in this place, but I still always miss my past life in China. I have realized lately since I’ve been living in  the United States, I have suffered from nervous tension. This feeling has made me realize that I have lost some important things along the way.    

 

            I used to feel free to go anywhere in China. When I lived in China, I never had a sense of danger of going outside or taking public transportation at midnight most of the time. However, in Chicago, where I now live it is completely different. There is a lot of crime in this city, including shooting and robbery. Besides, crime also happens on the train. I often take the red line for my daily commute, and sometimes the train is delayed, most of the reasons are because the robber escaped from the railway, so the train has to pause. However, once I experienced the red line at night, and I was shocked. One day I got off work at 9 pm as usual, and I took the red line back home. Although there were not many people on the train, there were some people who looked like they may want to cause trouble. Soon after, these people started to try to defy each other, and the car was full of fierce noise. I had a little bad feeling was about what was going to happen in the next minute. As I expected, someone took out a knife and started fighting. I was terrified, and I immediately changed to another car and got off the station. Since I noticed the sense of danger on the train, I have had an uneasy mood every time I take the red line, and it makes me feel not secure about living in the U.S.

 

            Besides the security, the unfamiliar language has caused me not to integrate well into society. Since I did not study English in my high school, my basic skills were weak. It made me feet life is like a circle there something was inevitable in my life, and I could not avoid it. Since my poor English speaking doesn’t let people understand clearly, I felt disappointed and afraid to speak with people at that time. Gradually, I lose my confidence.  In my first Christmas in Chicago, my husband and I went to a party with his friends. At that time, I was very cautious because I couldn't talk to them much. However，Americans are passionate  to socialize. That was a tough moment in my life, and it made me a little resistant  to commutate people who speak English. Since then, I have realized how awful my English speaking was, I became more stressed about speaking English. The reason was that I felt that as long as I speak English, people would judge my spoken English. It impacted my normal life because I started to feel uncomfortable to living in the United States.

 

Finally, the main reason is that it is not easy to have a close relationship with people. Honestly, except for good friends in China, I have not made good friends in the United States. In the beginning, I thought it was perhaps people value family relationship a lot. Generally, when most people get off work, they prefer to stay with their family. Therefore, the time I spent with my family increased a lot, but I only can spend time with friends on the phone. I quite miss my best friends in China. When my English was getting better, I discovered cultural differences are another reason, and even harder. In my view, cultural differences are like a gap between outsider and native speaker, and this dream country and I like an imperfect song. There are both nice tune in individual terms, but they could not combine to a perfect song because it sounds weird. I guess that it will be a confusing song for a long time.

 

In conclusion, since I came here two years ago, I haven't really adapted to life here, and I miss my original life in China. Even though it is like a challenge for a foreigner to live a new country, I have learned how to get out of my comfort zone to experience new things, and to experience diverse cultures. Moreover，I think I should open my heart to feel the uniqueness of America and spend more time. I  hope one day I will find a connection with this new country.