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1 Reading
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2 Translation
This is a true story. I know it is true because it is about me. Or rather it is about what happened to me to change my life and make me what I am today.
My name is Catherine but my friends call me Katy. I was born and grew up in a quiet little town not far from San Francisco. My mother and father were both second-generation immigrants to America from China. But I went to a local school, spoke English to my friends and had no interest whatsoever in my Chinese background. I could barely speak a word of Chinese, and had no idea what the strange marks meant in the books in my parents’ room.
My mother sometimes scolded me and tried to teach me Chinese poems but I refused to listen to her and ran away to watch TV, or to listen to pop music by my favourite groups.
I did well at school and was happy with my American friends. I thought of myself as a thoroughly modern American girl.
Key Words:
Immigrant: Someone who comes to live in a country from another country.
Whatsoever: Used for emphasizing a negative statement.
Background: The type of family, social position, or culture that someone comes from.
Mark: A printed or written symbol that is not a letter or number.
Thoroughly: Completely
Then, one day, when I was sixteen years old, something happened which would upset my whole life. My cousin, Sam, arrived for the summer vacation.
I had never met my cousin before, and he had never left China before either. Sam was my father’s elder brother’s son. He was tall, with thick black hair, and a permanent grin on his face. He was seventeen years old, and had come to stay with us to learn about life in the West.
Key Words:
Permanent: Happening or existing for a long time.
Grin：A big smile that shows your teeth.
At first I did not like spending time with Sam. He seemed so ignorant about everything. He could speak English quite well and yet he asked me so many questions about all sorts of things: “Why are there so many different sorts of people here?”, “How do people get so rich?”, “Why is there so much food in the big shops but so few shops on the street?”, “Why does everyone drive a car and no one walk along the street?”. I found it difficult to answer his questions and I usually just replied, “Because that’s the way it is, silly.”
Key Word:
Ignorant: Not knowing something that you should know or need to know.
My mother and father seemed delighted to have Sam stay with us and spoke to him in Chinese at the dinner table while I turned my back on them and watched the Disney show on TV.
As the days went by, however, I began to like showing Sam around the town and introducing him to my friends. He was always smiling and interested in everything we did. He never complained when I ignored him and went shopping with my girlfriends. He always found something in the shopping mall to amuse him.
Key Word:
Shopping mall: A large building with a lot of shops, restaurants, and sometimes a cinema.
One day I introduced him to roller skating. Sam had never seen roller skates before and of course he kept falling over at first. But after a while he learned how to keep his balance and I took him to the park where we could skate together in safety.
We skated on the path, in and out of the trees, sometimes holding hands and sometimes keeping apart. I suggested we have a race and although Sam didn’t really want to race me he had to chase after me. As I came down a steep slope I suddenly saw that a branch of a tree had fallen down across the path. Too late! I couldn’t avoid the branch. I crashed into it and went head over heels onto the hard surface. The shock of the accident hurt me as much as the fall itself and I started to cry. Sam raced up to me and fell down as he tried to stop. He put his arms around me, held me tight and whispered into my ear: “Katy, darling Katy, it’s all right. You’re going to be all right. I’m here, I’m with you and I won’t let you go. Katy, my darling, Katy.”
And then, wonderfully, he was kissing my cheeks, licking away my tears, holding my face in his hands. I started kissing him back, and then we were both kissing each other, lying on the path between the trees in the park. We didn’t see the bright sun, or hear the calls of the birds or feel the light breeze — we were aware of nothing but each other, here and now.
Key Words:
Darling: Used for talking to someone you love
Lick: To move your tongue across something
Breeze: A light wind
I cannot remember how we got home or what we said to each other. I just knew I was happy in a way that I had never been happy before. I felt free and alive inside and I knew I wanted to be with Sam every minute of every day.
But it was impossible. Three days later Sam had to fly back to China and leave me. There was nothing either of us could do about it. I cried and cried as Sam held me in his arms in our garden on the day of his departure. He promised he would think of me and come to see me again next summer. I promised that I would write to him and visit him in China as soon as I had finished my school. We looked into each other’s eyes to see that our promises were true. And then he was gone.
Neither my parents nor my friends knew that I was in love with Sam. I hardly knew myself that this was love until the ache in my heart grew too much to bear and I started to daydream in my lessons.
I wrote to Sam every week but had no reply. At Christmas I tried to telephone him but I couldn’t get through.
Then as the days grew longer again, and spring appeared as flowers in the garden I knew what I must do. I took my mother’s credit card out of her purse when she was asleep and used it to book a flight to China. If Sam wouldn’t write to me then I would have to see him in person.
I didn’t say a word to anyone and two days later I left home for school as usual but then took a taxi to the airport instead. I checked in to my flight and a couple of hours later I was on my way.
I arrived at the airport in China very tired and scared. The long flight had put doubts into my mind about what I was doing. What would my parents say when they discovered what I had done? Would my friends think I was crazy? And what would Sam do when he saw me again?
I showed a taxi driver a piece of paper with Chinese characters written on it — Sam’s address. When we got there I found myself in front of an old farmhouse in the middle of some fields. I called out but no one answered so I walked up to the door and looked in. A middle-aged woman was lying on a bed. She wasn’t asleep because I could see her eyes were open but she said nothing to me. I turned as I heard something move behind me and there was Sam.
Silently he came to me and looked into my eyes. Then he put his face down and kissed me long and deep. “So you have come at last,” he said. “I knew you would.”
With these words my heart leapt into my mouth and I cried out “Sam, I will never leave you.”
Then Sam told me that he hadn’t written because he thought that I was too good for him. He said that my rich, modern world was so far away from his poor farmhouse with his sick mother that he felt our love could never survive.
I understood him then. I bent down to look at Sam’s mother and I saw her eyes shining with joy. “Hello mother,” I whispered.
Key words:
Leap: To move somewhere suddenly and quickly.
Survive: To continue to exist, especially in a difficult or dangerous situation.
This was ten years ago. Sam and I still live in China and we have a son and a daughter. People say our children look like me but I think that they are a complete mixture. They are both teaching me how to read and write Chinese and Sam’s mother, who has recovered completely from her illness, has taught me lots of folk songs. We have a quiet and simple life here but we are happy.
Sometimes in bed at night Sam asks me if I miss America. I cuddle up to him and tell him that I feel I am really Chinese and that by loving him I have discovered my roots.
Key words:
Mixture: A combination of two or more different things.
Cuddle: To put your arms round someone and hold him/her close to show that you like or love him/her.
