history essay

Education Changes Destiny

            History is one of every human being, and no one can forget the history about our lives. During World War 2, everyone paid attention to the battleground Europe, but in China, there was also war going on with the Japanese Army, and it started in my hometown. On September 18 1931, the Japanese Army started to attack Shenyang, which is my hometown in the northeast of China without any reason. This was the beginning of the Japanese invasion of China. My great-grandfather was a victim of the war. He was not military, he was just a normal person who lived in his hometown. The war affected his family and my family for generations, and also it changed my family a lot.

            My great-grandfather was the only one in the town who had an advanced education. His family was a little rich, so his family offered for him to go to school. However, the unfortunate change happened in 1931. The Japanese Army started to attack China. During the war, my great-grandfather was trying to be nice and said he could help his neighbor to escape from the war. Thus, he helped the neighbor to give the money to the Japanese Army, so that way the Army would have the money and leave. Nonetheless, the Army still attacked to his town. All the neighbor started to blame my great-grandfather, and they were calling him a traitor and tortured him. Because the medical equipment was not great, my great-grandfather could never stand up again, he was disable even though his family paid all the money. For his treatment, he only could lay down and talk. This caused his family to los the backbone.

            Since my great-grandfather couldn’t work, my great-grandmother had to work a lot to support the family. At that time, women couldn’t earn that much money to support a family, so my grandfather gave up on school and started to work, in order to help my great-grandfather. My grandfather worked a lot, but he didn’t give up on my father. My father was doing great in school, so my grandfather didn't lose hope. He worked much more than before to support this family and pay for my father’s education. He believed in wartime, only education could change everything, and he always told my father: “No matter how hard it is, don’t give up on education. Just study well, then our family will be better. This is the only thing I expect.” My father always remembered it. He didn’t disappoint my grandfather. My father even though became a secretary of the government after he graduated from the university. Therefore, our family situation started improve.

            A few years later, my family decided to move to the city because of my father’s job. In addition, he got an opportunity to work in the US, so my father made a decision to come to the US alone. When my father was working in the US, he found out there was a different social community, and education was different from China. Hence, he thought maybe it can bring his son to get better life in the US. He did some research about western education before he went back. After he came back to China, he was excited to tell everyone how great it was when he was living in the US. He also pitched an idea about letting me study abroad. My grandfather was first one to say yes because he still believed the education could change everything, and all family members thought I was diamond in the family. I was too young to think about this, and I thought I should look at the different world. Finally, I came to the US in 2010 and started a new life here.

            My great-grandfather always told my family: “we can’t change history.” My grandfather always told my father: “only education can help this family, or it could be change your destiny. Three generations of people were influenced by different levels. The history may change people lives for good, like me. Without the war effected, I would be a normal college student in China. However, I am studying in the college in the US, and this is a biggest change for me. I am looking forward to the present and the future.

A shooting

 

 



May 20^th, 2010 is the date where everything changed in my life. Before living in Paris, I used to live in a small city really close to Paris: Villiers sur Marne. At the beginning, it was a nice city; however, over the years, the city began to deteriorate. There was a lot of violence, robberies, fights and breakages. Nevertheless, people of my city never thought about huge violence like a shooting. Everybody in my city will remember this day. It started with a chase between robbers and the police and it is finished with a shooting. Many people were hurt and a young policewoman was killed. Since this day, the violence in the city has gotten worse and it began to affect the security of my family and others citizens. Today, five years after this shooting, the fear is still here despite of moving to a better city.

 

 

After this terrible shooting, people did not feel in security anymore. The violence began to get worste and the police could not control all the violence which happened in my city. There were fights in the streets, rackets, robberies and break-in every times. This city began to be controlled by the criminals and the police could not do anything, and it is affected people’s freedom. Young people could not go out at night alone after 9 pm. Parents had to pick up their children all the time. In the same way teenagers could not stay with their friends after class because it was too dangerous. People were not free anymore and they lived in the insecurity to be attacked every time they went out and this insecurity decided my parents to move.

 

Effectively, my parents decided to move to Paris for better security and a better neighborhood. My parents choose a really good area in Paris to buy and it was definitively better than my previous area. There was a better police presence in the streets, and I was starting to feel more secure compared to my old town. I began to rediscover my freedom. I could go out with my friends at night and come back in total safety; I could stay with my friends after school without being afraid to be attacked. It was because of my good neighborhood, I could walk quietly in the street with the light-hearted. This was never happened in Villiers sur Marne. I was not afraid to be attacked on my way to go home. My parents’ decision to move to Paris for a better was an excellent decision.

 

 

 

However, the fear is one of the effects of the shooting that is still here and may never go away. In my area in Paris, I am totally in confidence, free and not afraid. But, when I have to go to another area that I do not really know, my fear and insecurity come back. I am starting to be afraid and paranoid. When I am alone, at the nightfall or the night, in the street and there is a man who appears on the corner of the street, I start to panic and my heart starts beating really fast. I hold my bag strongly and I start to walk faster. I am afraid to be attacked. I am beginning to feel in insecure just like in my old town. This shooting taught me to be really prudent in the street the night. When I am not in my area and when my fear come back, I put my phone at the bottom of my pocket, I keep my keys close to me and I have a spray in my bag in case someone attacks me. I walk fast and take the streets where there is the most of people. Today I am more carefully when I walk in the streets.

 

After this shooting, I used to be in insecure, but my move to a better city and a better neighborhood, helped me to rediscover my freedom and be more in security. However, even in a good city, bad things happened all the time. It can be minor event like robberies and fights but it can be a major event like the attempt to the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, and at these moments my fear comes back.



 



Separation and Reunio

Yanyuan Chen (Yvonne)

ESL 100

Cause & Effect Writing

2/28/2015

Separation and Reunion

       Every time I look up and see a plane in the sky, I think I am so lucky living in the age of freedom. Even though I live in Chicago now, the distance can’t separate me from my family in China. However, in 1950s China, the Taiwan Strait made many people lose their families. Taiwan Island split off from mainland, China when the Kuomintang fled the mainland after their defeat in the Chinese civil war in 1949. In the meantime, there was no shipping between Taiwan and Mainland China, and communication by letter or phone. My grandmother was one of those people who lost her family members at that time. She went back to mainland to visit her grandmother without my great- grandparents at that time. However, at the same time Chiang Kaishek fled to Taiwan, and he cut off all of the relation between Taiwan and Mainland China. My grandmother separated with my great- grandparents from then on. I can’t imagine how my grandmother lived without her parents. The separation of Taiwan and the Mainland not only changed the country, but also changed the fate of my grandmother.

       At the beginning, the separation made my grandma become an orphan and she had a painful childhood. When my grandma separated from her parents, she was only seven years old. She was not mature enough to live independently, so she could only live in her relative’s home. However, almost all of the rural areas in China were very poor at that time. There were eight people in her relative’s family, and they didn’t have enough food to give my grandma. Due to the situation, my grandma couldn’t attend school, and she had to work hard with her relatives in the fields. She had to work hard to feed herself at her early age.

       The second effect of the separation was that it made my grandma become a child bride. My grandma became a child bride when she was twelve years old because her uncle died. The other relatives had no ability to raise her, so my grandma was sent to a poor family to become a child bride. Many families had no money for their sons to get married at that time, so many people had to raise a daughter- in- law as a child bride. My grandma got married with my grandpa when she was sixteen because she had no choice. She had no right to choose her childhood and even marriage.

       The most important influence of the separation was that my grandma never saw her parents again since the separation, and it had changed my family values at the same time. After the separation, my great- grandparents couldn’t return to their hometown, and they had to stay in Taiwan. They missed their daughter and homeland, but they couldn’t contact each other at that time. Even after Taiwan and China normalized relations in1987, my grandma still didn’t see her parents again. Even though she was grown up and a mother of three children, she still felt sad and helpless. My grandma often taught my father and every family member to cherish every minute that they spend with family members. She often told me that it was the regret of her lifetime that she couldn’t reunite with her parents.

       

     Today, I am in the United States. There is a long distance with my family, but it can’t stop us from reuniting. Every time when I see a plane, I feel I am luckier than my grandma, because I live in a free and peaceful world. My grandma’s experience has deeply affected me until now, and it teaches me to cherish every minute that I spend with my family members because sometimes a separation is for a lifetime.

The escaped

Ngoc To (Jade)

English 100

Final  draft

                                                The escaped 

The War in Vietnam 1954- 1975 was a disaster for the Vietnamese. On April 30,1975 the entire of country declared independence and became a communism country. At that moment, all those who opposed the communist government were arrested and went to the jail.  My grandfather also went to jail for eights years because he was an admiral who worked for U.S. army. After getting free from jail, he could not find jobs, even a simple job  because the government wrote on his application that he was a traitor. At this time, he upset and disappointed, so he decided to escape the country with other fellows by boat. At the result, his escapes succeed, but it influenced to half of his life and opened new chapter of his family’s life. 

My grandfather believed that his life was going to change after the escape. He thought the Vietnam was an inane communist, so he wanted to find freedom and better life for his family. As he was running from the land to the boat, which was anchored, and waiting him at sea, he got a shot on his left leg by a Vietnamese solider. Finally, he got into the boat, but his injured from the shot kept bleeding. Someone on the boat removed the bullet without surgical instruments and medicine. After three days of floating on the sea, his boat finally arrived to Thailand. In Thailand, he had a second surgery and the surgeon tried to keep his leg as much as they could, but it was unsuccessful because the left got infected when he was on the boat. At the end, the surgeon was able to keep his left leg but he lost all sensations and feeling, so my grandfather became a disabled person for the rest of his life.

After my grandfather left the country, and his family. The circumstances of family were more complicated. My mom was a provider of the family, so taking care his family was a huge burden. My mom decided to quit school at 16 years old, and she found jobs to help her mom. Additionally, it let her two brothers have the opportunities to go to school. She worked with two jobs. Waking up at 4:00 am, and then going to work a cow farm was her first job. Her second jobs was picking fruit was from 12:00pm to 6:00 pm. Her schedule repeated everyday, but the salary was not enough to cover everything for her family. Sometime, she wished she had two more hands and more than 24 hours a day, so she could make more money.  Her sacrifice meant that her other brothers graduated high school and found better jobs than her. Watching her brother go to school was her happiness.

After twenty years of separation, my family finally had a chance to reunite with my grandfather. The new chapters of his family also opened when they came to the U.S. I am a lucky Vietnamese woman in the U.S. because my life is fluent and better a chance to get a good education. My mom and uncles also found good jobs. Twenty years of separation was not a short time, but the members of my family have never reproached my grandfather and asked a question “ why did he leave his family?” We thought that his decision was always right and thought about his family’s lives more than himself.

War is inevitable to each country around the world. My grandfather always says that the Vietnam’s war was serious reason what made him lose a left leg. Eventually, his decision affected himself and his relatives. In fact, when we see him walk, we love and understand more of his sacrifice. Even if I was born at that time, I would not have enough strength and sacrifice for family like my grandfather. My grandfather is my hero.