| Taking Root |
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By Jiuan Wong Whitby, Ontario I am a typical 90’s boy that spent my early years in China. When I was little, I always dreamed Canada to be a place where work is like play, money comes easily, and a place where no hardship has to be endured. I still remember the day I first set foot on Canada. It was in a cold night in September, my parents and I stood outside Pearson airport looking for our family friend who was picking us up. Maybe it was because I wasn’t used to seeing races other than Chinese, or it could be the difference in landscape from my homeland, or it could have simply been the small population Canada possesses, but things here are a lot different from my imaginations. What chilled me the most that night was not the cold wind, but the vast difference between dream and reality. The first year in Toronto had been the most difficult for us. My parents rented a room in a house and the few household goods we had came mostly from garage sales and the street. My mother who had given up her comfortable job in China had found a job working in a factory and my father went back to his job in Iraq shortly after we settled in to ensure a stable income for our family. I, a 9-year-old boy back then, had to face what most immigrant children had to face upon coming to Canada – learning in a completely new teaching style and language. In school, I did not understand what the teachers and others were saying. Despite of the easy curriculum and the help I received from a few Chinese friends, I did miserably in elementary school. We moved to an apartment building in North York because my father’s best friend, Song, who also lived in that building, could make life easier for my mother and I. Song would take us to the grocery shop every week and he would solve all living problems for my family. With help from Song, we became much more accustomed to living in Canada. One year after we moved into the apartment, my father gave up his well-paid job in Iraq to live with us in Toronto. Together, my father and Song decided to make an online company. It took them years to program but unfortunately few clients bought it. Up to this day, my father and Song are still perfecting their websites in their spare time. With the arrival of my father, everything clearly was taking a turn for the better – everything but my school grades. At the time I entered junior high school, I wasn’t a boy a person would consider intelligent. Back then, I was heavily addicted to computer games. I would play games all afternoon and take no account of school work. I remember the worst moment in a year for me was report card day. I would go home with a heavy heart along with the burden of facing my parents’ anger and disappointment. I could still remember the time when all my teachers recommended me to take applied courses in high school. My mother was sad upon hearing the news but insisted that I continue taking academic courses. My junior high school life came to an end with a final bad report card. As a last resort, my parents decided to send me back to China to make me learn the way Chinese students study and to help me remember Chinese. I was eager to return to my roots in China and to live with my grandparents whom I haven’t seen for six years. I went to a middle school where my mother used to teach in and there I received what could be described as the most valuable year of teaching I have had in my life. The teachers were my mother’s old colleagues and they took extra care of me. School in China was difficult. Students had to go to school fifteen hours a day, six days a week, and competition was intense. With the help from my teachers and classmates, my Chinese improved quickly and I soon learnt what it takes to be successful in school. With the new skills and study habits I learned in China, I was ready for high school. When I returned to Canada, a lot had changed. My father found a job in Whitby, a town close to Toronto and to make his everyday life easier, my family bought a house there with the financial help from my aunt and uncle. It took me a while to get used to living in Whitby as the population structure is quite different from that of Toronto and China. Being the only Chinese student in my classes, I had to learn to communicate and make friends with students of other races. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the kids here aren’t that different from the ones I knew from the past. Most of them were nice and I soon made myself a lot of friends within the school. But there are always exceptions, I had to defend myself verbally and physically against the unusual racism that arises from time to time. And, by persisting what I believed is right, I always came out victorious. I began working hard in school and for the first time since coming to Canada, I received a good report card. I became more involved within society and became a school librarian. At the end of last school year, I became one of the few certified honoured students in my school. Thinking back, blending into the Canadian society was a difficult and long process for me. The language barrier took me years to break through and taking root in a foreign land was a challenging job to accomplish. I am certain that many other immigrants also have trouble acclimating to life in Canada. But as the proverb says: “Where there is a will, there is a way”. Background InformationMy name is Wang Jinyuan (???) and I’m currently studying in Sinclair Secondary School in Whitby. I was born in Fushun, China in 1990. I immigrated to Canada with my parents on September 27, 2000 and first lived in Toronto. I went back to China for one year to learn Chinese and then returned to Canada. I plan to go study in medical school and become a doctor in the future. When I retire I wish to go live in China. This story speaks about the issues and hardships I faced since immigrating to Canada. It is written in the perspective of a teenager and describes what the lives of immigrants are like after moving into a completely new environment. It talks about the language barrier, the difficulty of finding a job, and other difficulties that pose problems to Chinese immigrants. This story is written with hope that it will stimulate, encourage and inspire new immigrants who are facing problems to overcome their issues and live happily in this new environment. |
