China One - Text
Female, 27. Born in Shanghai. She has lived there most of her life. Currently an accounting student. Recorded by Cynthia Blaise, 8/24/99. Edited by Shawn M. Muller, 9/9/99. Running time 00:02:38.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
When, ok…before I came here I had a lot of dreams. They told me…My friend told me, “you can’t imagine how beautiful U.S. (United States) is.” Then when…when I came here I realize what they said was not right. It is not as beautiful as what I thought from the picture. I re…I noticed there’s many poor people and then what I concentrate on is, I want to learn in the…understand and…um, I want to learn the Western culture. So, um, I will…I go to school, make the friend, then I just try to see what’s the difference of them with me. I noticed, the people, they’re all the same—whatever, where they’re living. They are working for money. They have their own problem, maybe just different kind of problem. For example, in my country my friend they have no drug problem, but maybe here they have drug, alcohol problem. But in my country there are few of them have that kind of problem. But the people, their thoughts…the way they’re thinking…a lot of their…there’s a lot of in common.