May 18 / Home Away From Home

by Fion Teo, Malaysia 07-08
hosted in CA

Five months ago, I placed my first step on this land. People from my culture always thought of America as a land of opportunities. Being here on full scholarship from the US State Department is a luxury everyone at my age wishes for. Being thousands of miles apart from everything I am familiar with, I began to learn new things every day. Every day is wonderful. I take everything I learn as a life lesson no matter how horrible or good it is. Every day marks a new chapter of my life.

Life as an exchange student is not as easy as everyone thought it to be. Some teenagers might think it is cool to be away from their family for a few months but I do not think I would use the adjective cool to describe my experience, instead I will use the word “challenging” to describe it. Every day is different and I can not predict what will happen next. I have to adapt to a completely new environment with so many things going on at once. Besides that, being an exchange student means being an ambassador for my country. That adds on to my to-do-list while I am here.

I feel nothing is as challenging as making new friends and getting to know new people. Before I traveled here, I was told that individualism in America is highly valued. I do keep that in mind but I did not expect it to be so true. I do receive the ‘warm’ welcome of “hi” every time I am introduced to new people, but the “hi” will only continue to “how are you?” and not more than that. Rarely do I get the chance to continue the conversation. People are either too busy with their own agenda or they might just ignore me. My other friends from Malaysia were upset simply because they didn’t have anyone close to talk to in school after about 2 months. We face the same problem as we come from a culture where we are really welcoming and we like to get to know new things. Generally, we will walk up and try to make friends when we see a foreigner in our community. I guess I learned my way around this problem by starting a conversation rather than waiting for the conversation to start. It is quite difficult at first as I barely know what to say and how to start a conversation with a new person when I am in a completely different place.

I learned that it is easier for me to get rid of my shyness and try to reach out to people rather than waiting for people to come up to me, since everyone has fear deep inside their heart. They might be afraid that they will say something wrong which may hurt me but someone has to step out from the fear and try new things. I chose to step out, and that has helped me learn more every day. Here in California, I found a home away from home.

photo: Fion and hostfamily, courtesy of Fion Teo