Me: What are the differences between your life in Taiwan and life in America?
Jeff Lin: In Taiwan, your life revolves around school because everything you do is to prepare yourself for taking the high school examination. Where you go to high school and subsequently where you go to college at the time, or at least what the people in Taiwan believe, pretty much determines the success for the rest of your life. In other words, if you did poorly on your test and didn’t get into a good school, you will have less opportunities for success as you move along in life, whereas if you had done well and went to a good school the success for the rest of your life is halfway guaranteed. That’s how they see it. So all you do revolves around going to school, doing homework, and go to extra classes after school more homework just so that you can do well on the test preparation courses. In fact, when I was 15 years old, this would be ninth grade in the states, we were required to stay in school as in boarding school just that year so that the school could make sure that they have full control of our academic life and so we’d be best prepared for the test. So that’s very different than when I moved to the states for 10th grade school is pretty much like vacation to me. The only difficulty I had would be to learn the language. Everything else pretty much I had in American high school I had already learned in Taiwan and in fact I was so ahead on the mathematics part that I think in the 11th grade I finished already everything they had to offer at school including calculus and they had to send me to a community college to further my mathematic education because they had nothing else that high school could offer me to learn. So a typical day in Taiwan would be you get up at something lie 6 in the morning, you start school maybe 7:00, you study, study, you end your day, a school day, maybe around 6:30. You go home, you maybe eat a quick dinner, you go off for test preparation classes until maybe 10:00, go home and do some more homework and maybe go to bed at 11 and then get up again next morning for more school…and in the states, you know, you get up at 7:30 as long as you make it to school by 8:00. You get out of school at 2:00 or 3:00, it depends on what class you have last period, and then you play. [laughs] So that’s the difference.
Me: So what made you decide to come to America?
JL: Well I moved to the states when I was 15 years old, so at that age you don’t make decisions for yourself or not really…the parents made the decision for me back then but did I want to go to America, yes I did for the reasons I just listed answering your previous question. The reason why they want to send the children to America is because they want to give me (their children) the best opportunities they can afford and they believe that going to America is what they believe will provide the path. Plus, in Taiwan the only way ahead back then was to do well on these tests and go to a good school, but also once you graduate from high school, there is compulsory service for 2 or 3 years and that’s also something they don’t want their children to do I guess because it is a waste of a couple years of your life. What else…back then when I left Taiwan and moved to the States it was 1983 and Taiwan was still under martial law and politically you’re always sort of living under the cloud because anybody could get arrested for something they say or something they do or somebody they know and anybody who can get out tries to get out. So all these added to the decision to go to the states mostly because he’s done well enough that he can afford it so like I said anybody who could get out got out.
Me: How did you get here?
JL: We flew (laughs)
Me: And can you describe the process of becoming an American citizen?
JL: Process…I landed in the United States dependent on my father who was setting up a business in the United States and that allowed us residency on account of business. After you stay there for a certain period of time, I don’t know how long, you could apply for permanent residency i.e. the green card. I forget how many years, maybe 5-10 years, there are rules whatever and at the time I was 15 years old so I didn’t think about it very much. Once you’ve got your green card, you have to live in the states for 5 years in total before you can apply for citizenship. And then you have to pass the citizenship test. I think I didn’t get my citizenship until the early 90’so, you know, maybe it took 10 years or something like that. The citizenship test is, you know there is stuff that you should know in civics class like how many justices are on the supreme court who is the chief justice, the terms, how many congressmen there are, how many senators, and political terms, stuff like that. So yup, that’s how you become a citizen.
Me: What kind of language barriers did you experience in America?
JL: Well, when I first went to the states at age 15, as I said, school was no problem for me because the content of school, I had learned everything back in Taiwan except for the language. The language there are speaking and listening skills, reading and writing and luckily there were ESL classes in my school and kids learn pretty quickly if you are willing to learn I guess. So it was difficult for the first year or two mostly for the first year you know when you walk into a new environment you pretty much don’t know what’s going on you don’t understand anything that anyone says to you mostly. I think a good example would be the 10th grade I had to take my SAT. SAT back then was graded on a 1600 point scale where you get 800 points allocated to mathematics and another 800 points allocated to language, to English. In 10th grade I had been in the states for barely a year and I got 1080 on the SAT. I got 790 points for the math part so I maybe got one thing wrong but I only got 290 on the English part and I was told that if you write your name on the test you get 200 points. So that would be the language barrier, that was the step I had to overcome of course high school was tough you went through high school so you should know kids are cruel there are certainly racist kids, there are certainly bullies and you’re an easy target if you’re a different race and you don’t speak the language or you speak the language poorly. So these are things that you had to deal with, but there were also nice kids. So that’s what I had to deal with back then.
Me: How long did it take you to overcome the language barrier?
JL: It’s very hard to say what you consider to be a barrier because to this day I mean there are people who have been in the states for 30-40 years or even their whole life and they still speak with an accent- some do, some don’t- some can communicate with you on day to day life but they would not be able to conduct a business meeting or speak in public. So, I think, you know, it never ends. It’s very difficult to say when you overcome a barrier. To this day, let’s say I’ve been in Taiwan for two and a half years now and I’ve noticed that every time I come to Taiwan or go to a different country- I was based in Hong Kong as you know for a while- your language skill improves for where you are but your language skill for…in this case English…gets pushed back so you start to speak with a little accent and you start to forget some words, you start to have to search your brain for certain expressions even though you know what it is but it just doesn’t really come to you…and the reverse is true. After I lived in the States for a while, I was having trouble talking to people in Chinese because I don’t remember these words. So, if you’re talking about just being able to function in everyday life, it probably took me a year. But beyond that I think it never ends, for me or for anybody.
Me: What were some of your expectations when you came to America and were those expectations met?
JL: At 15 years old, your expectations of the world are unrealistic anyway I think you also judge based on stuff you see on TV or based on your current environment so for example Taipei, where I came from is a city with semi-tall buildings, especially back then, buildings with 10-12 floors, but it’s a city- lots of cars and lots of people. So I think I expected, going to America, to go to a city with bigger, taller buildings and more people. As you know, there are parts of America that look like that, but when I moved to the states I went to a suburb in L.A so I was a little surprised to see that there are no tall buildings, there were very few people on the street and you had to drive everywhere- you couldn’t just walk places. So that was a bit of a surprise.
Me: Okay that’s all I have. Thank you for your time.