National Tide 1980

Some people say that emotional distress comes from human naivety and irrationality.

This is not the case.

Because even mature and rational emotions can still have distress.

The most realistic example is Mi Xiaoran who married overseas.

There is no doubt that compared to Ning Weimin who doesn't take her seriously, Zhao Hanyu who loves her deeply is the real good match.

What's more, Zhao Hanyu's excellent family background can create convenient conditions for her to study abroad.

So now that he discovered that his unrequited love was wrong, Mi Xiaoran was able to resolutely turn around and leave to spend his life hand in hand with another person who cherishes him more. This is definitely a very wise decision.

But I have to say that many things in this world look beautiful.

A distant foreign country will not be a perfect paradise after all.

When Mi Xiaoran carried the expectation of a happy life, carrying several boxes of luggage, she boarded a flight to a foreign country and arrived in New York, the most developed city in the United States.

And he became a new member of a Chinese family with a small amount of wealth, entrusting everything he had to those quite unfamiliar in-laws.

The pain and joy involved, as well as the cultural differences and conceptual conflicts she has experienced, are probably only hers who can understand and explain clearly.

Mi Xiaoran would never deny that her first impression of the United States was very good when she first arrived here.

In fact, she was excited from the moment she got on the plane and approached the window.

During the long journey of more than ten hours, she did not dare to sleep at all, and her hands were always entangled with Zhao Hanyu.

Because she was afraid this was a dream.

Especially when the plane finally lands at JFK Airport.

Just looking down from the porthole, she felt her heart pounding.

You know, it was when night fell, and before her eyes was a sea of ​​colorful lights.

It is exactly like the description in the literary works, as broad as the sea and as brilliant as the bright starry sky.

The situation in China is very different from the one-line lights at most.

Think about it, for a person who sees such a difference for the first time, can he not be shocked?

The scene Mi Xiaoran saw became an unforgettable scene in her life.

Just like the Italians and Irish who came to New York by boat, they couldn't help but respect and worship the Statue of Liberty.

She also regarded the sea of ​​lights she saw in the sky as a symbol of the beginning of her American dream.

On this day, it was Zhao Hanyu's eldest brother Zhao Hanzhang who personally drove to pick them up.

When Mi Xiaoran got into the luxurious Cadillac car, she was first surprised by the advanced car equipment and the comfort of the seats.

She had ridden in a car several times in the capital, but compared to the Cadillac, it felt completely different.

Most cars in the capital do not have air conditioning and can only listen to the radio, which is even uncomfortable for the legs.

And this kind of truly high-end car gives people the feeling that it is spacious, stable, comfortable, smooth, and has a general fragrance from time to time.

When the car started driving smoothly on the highway, New York's Long Island appeared before Mi Xiaoran's eyes like a mirage with flashing lights, and she felt her horizons widened even more.

Needless to say, the economic level of the United States in the early 1980s was completely different from that of the Republic in the early days of reform and opening up.

This year, the average annual income of our people was 742 yuan, while the average annual income of Americans during the same period was 18,000 US dollars.

This year, 99.5% of households in the United States owned at least one TV, more than 90% of households owned color TVs, and more than 50% of households owned two or more TVs.

On average, every three people own a car.

To be honest, the Western world represented by the United States has already entered a post-industrial society.

On the other hand, our republic is still in the arduous process of industrialization.

So whether it is a fast-moving city, busy American citizens, numerous skyscrapers, or the streets are full of good and famous cars.

It's still a three-level intersection with four or five floors up and down, and endless car lights can be seen on the congested road.

Mi Xiaoran couldn't even imagine that, so he was naturally dazzled and amazed.

Later, when I came to the Zhao family's villa on Changdao, I was under the square red bricks and green tiles.

The Zhao family's vast garden, fully automatic garage, huge living room with fireplace, maids to serve the housework, bathroom with bathtub, and banquet with sixteen delicacies from all over the world made Mi Xiaoran feel a new kind of Mental shockwave.

In her mind, perhaps only Liu Wencai, a big landowner, could own such a house.

In this way, she was delighted to find that Zhao Hanyu's parents treated her in a very kind manner and seemed to have a good impression of her.

Although life is still full of many unknowns, she is already convinced that happiness falls from the sky.

Your beautiful life is about to start from here, from this moment.

Unfortunately, as time passed, her thoughts quickly changed.

Because this is a foreigner's hometown after all, and she lives in her husband's house.

In the situation of relying on others, there are too many obstacles and restrictions that make it difficult for her to adapt and integrate, but she has to tolerate herself.

The first is the many inconveniences in life.

As we all know, in the United States, buses often only run in urban areas. A little further away from the urban areas, there are no buses.

Even if there is one, the bus only comes every hour or two.

So if you don’t have a car in the United States, or you don’t know how to drive, it’s like you’re missing a leg, which is extremely inconvenient.

However, if you want to get a driver's license, in addition to learning to drive, you must first have a legal identity.

Considering Mi Xiaoran's situation, she filled out the marriage registration form and handed it to the Zhao family's lawyer.

It will take three months to get a temporary green card, and one year later, you will have formal residency.

Of course, due to identity issues, it is impossible to make money by working without a work card.

In this way, the only thing Mi Xiaoran can do is to go to a language school to learn the language and improve his English.

But unfortunately, since Zhao's family is in a wealthy area of ​​Long Island, it is also far away for her to go to school.

Not only is it inconvenient to go back and forth, but Zhao Hanyu needs to be picked up and dropped off, which wastes a lot of his time.

The key is that most Chinese in the United States still speak Chaoshan and Cantonese.

Originally, there were not many teachers in language schools who knew Chinese. Even if there were, they could not speak Mandarin and all they could write in traditional Chinese.

Even the situation of the Zhao family is like this.

So Mi Xiaoran has become completely helpless.

Not only did she have to improve her English, she also had to learn Cantonese crazily. Her progress was slow and she struggled to learn. Isn't that uncomfortable?

But what is even more uncomfortable is the inferiority in status.

This is no exaggeration.

Although all Americans hate the word "social class", they all claim that class differences do not exist in their country and that they are a paradise of democratic equality.

But money dominates everything and white supremacy has always coexisted.

Therefore, no matter from the economic aspect or from the perspective of skin color, those who come here from the Republic are all at the bottom and least respected.

Mi Xiaoran felt the taste of it when she first arrived at the language school.

Because wherever she went, whenever she saw someone who looked like an Oriental, the long-haired foreigners would always ask her.

"Japanese? Or Singaporean?" Once the answer is "NO!"

The other party would persist in guessing, "Is that from Hong Kong City? Haha... from Treasure Island..."

"NO! A!\

,"The other party was immediately shocked and said, "How is it possible? Isn't your country very poor and the quality of civilization is not high? How can you come from the mainland of China?"

What makes Mi Xiaoran even more sad and powerless is that the food is always the same.

This situation is the same even in the Zhao family.

Just because Mi Xiaoran's family has no possibility of giving her financial help, she will always need the Zhao family to support her.

My sister-in-law Lin Yuzhen’s mother-in-law is a small business owner of plastic toys.

No matter how hard Mi Xiaoran tried to please her parents-in-law, she could not compare with her sister-in-law's status.

For example, every important matter at home, the parents-in-law would only discuss it with the eldest daughter-in-law, and Mi Xiaoran didn't even know about it.

Even the servants at home only regarded Lin Yuzhen as the master of the house.

In their eyes, Mi Xiaoran was just a mainland girl who was lucky enough to marry into the Zhao family.

Under the surface politeness of the servants, the perfunctory and contempt in their hearts cannot be concealed and will be revealed from time to time.

So the only thing Mi Xiaoran could do was to wait, unable to do anything, waiting to get his legal status.

Only then will her troublesome situation be solved, and everything can start again.

Unfortunately, she miscalculated again.

Soon, she got her identity and got her driver's license. Her parents-in-law even bought her an old second-hand car.

But at this time, her parents-in-law urged her and Zhao Hanyu to have a child.

I think that there is no practical significance for her to go to school. It is better to stay at home to help my sister-in-law take care of the housework and concentrate on raising her husband and children.

This is what really scares Mi Xiaoran.

She didn't want to come all the way to the United States, just to be an unpaid nanny and give birth to many children for the Zhao family.

From now on, I will have no freedom, and every move I make will depend on the eyes of the Zhao family.

The bigger danger is that in a few years, women will get old, and men who are not old will also get bored.

Once she loses Zhao Hanyu's affection, she doesn't know what capital she still has to pursue happiness.

But she eats, drinks, takes and uses other people's things for free, so what right does she have to object?

So I could only agree to it first with a smile, and slowly wait for the opportunity to change my life situation.

For this reason, she inevitably felt a kind of sadness in her heart that she had sold herself at a price and had no way out.

In the last three months of 1982, her life in the Zhao family completely lost its fun, as if this place was a strange planet.

She was particularly homesick and longed to return to my safe and warm little bed at home in Beijing.

At this time, she had only been in the United States for three months.

She knew very well that what was before her was not a matter of months, but years.

So she was afraid of facing the cruel distance, and time that was more cruel than distance.

Finally, time passed day by day, my language skills improved a bit, and I made more friends.

This made Mi Xiaoran's life in the United States more convenient and she got used to it, but the pain of homesickness did not get better at all.

Because during this period of time, she watched the morning news and evening news on the three major channels, but only saw two pieces of news about her motherland.

And what she misses is not just the caress of her family and the friendship of her friends, but everything related to her in the entire culture. Cultural isolation goes far beyond language barriers.

She wants to understand, accept and adapt, but instinctively rejects and resists.

This feeling may be difficult to understand for those who have not experienced it personally.

Even international long distance calls must be connected through a dedicated telephone number in the telephone building.

Mi Xiaoran's only way to cope with missing her family is to write letters home that report good news but not bad news.

Then there is a daze and random thoughts.

Gradually, longing and longing turned into a subconscious.

She often dreams about relatives and friends, and feels empty when she wakes up in the morning.

Maybe this made her develop the habit of rushing into the shower room as soon as she got up, as if she wanted to wash away all the emptiness and confusion with water, then pick up her schoolbag and go to the classroom.

But fortunately, her husband Zhao Hanyu, who loved her deeply, gave her another opportunity to welcome a new life.

Under her constant and intentional inducement, Zhao Hanyu gave up his playfulness and stopped helping his family manage the business. He started looking for a job.

Finally, on the day before New Year's Eve, he received an employment notice from a financial loan company based on his excellent academic qualifications, with an annual salary of 20,000 US dollars.

So on New Year's Eve, at eight o'clock in the evening on New Year's Eve in Beijing and seven o'clock in the morning on New York's New Year's Eve,

It is very different from Master Mi, Aunt Mi and Mi Xiaohui's family watching the color TV and eating New Year's Eve dinner.

Mi Xiaoran, who was in New York, couldn't care less about missing her family. She was trying her best to pester her husband Zhao Hanyu in bed, asking for her New Year's gift.

"Please, my dear, after today, can you tell your family? No matter what, you must stick to our decision, okay..."

"Okay, okay, don't worry, no matter what, I will definitely take you with me when I go to work in Manhattan. I also hope to become a two-person world as soon as possible. I won't lie to you, I have already started asking agents to look for houses... "

Zhao Hanyu's answer somewhat reassured Mi Xiaoran.

But to be honest, this Spring Festival is probably the most difficult Spring Festival for her.

Because the Zhao family will never let them live according to their own wishes easily...

"Please, my dear, after today, can you tell your family? No matter what, you must stick to our decision, okay..."

"Okay, okay, don't worry, no matter what, I will definitely take you with me when I go to work in Manhattan. I also hope to become a two-person world as soon as possible. I won't lie to you, I have already started asking agents to look for houses... "

Zhao Hanyu's answer somewhat reassured Mi Xiaoran.

But to be honest, this Spring Festival is probably the most difficult Spring Festival for her.

Because the Zhao family will never let them live according to their own wishes easily...