AFS High School Senior from Hong Kong
February
18, 1997
When I was about 9 years old, I heard about the AFS exchange program on a TV show. At that time I thought it was just a dream to be an exchange student. The reasons that I thought this were that you should be smart, outgoing, and the best student in school. So, I never thought that I could be an AFS exchange student and of course, I wanted to be. The goal seemed too distant and unobtainable. But my dream has come true. And I find that it is not difficult. It is really easy to be an AFS exchange student. Most people think that to be an AFS exchange student, you must be really smart. This is not true. Just an average good student is OK. The only requirement is that a person would like to learn about other culture, about other people’s lifestyle, about other places, and about new things. In fact, I cannot tell how much you can learn because all people are different but I am sure that you can a lot more than you think. You cannot imagine it.
Before I came, I did not expect much. I just knew Hong Kong, my country, is different than the United States. People, languages, and other differences. So, I thought I would learn only about English, American lifestyle, and Ohio. But actually, I did not learn only these things. I learned a whole lot more. By my interaction with exchange students from all over the world, I learned about many people and many cultures. More importantly, I learned even more about myself, my relatives, my friends, and even about my own country. This was a great experience for me.
My greatest concern was that I did not know what to expect from my host family. I am sure that other exchange students feel the same way because we had never had any experience with people from other countries before. But immediately when I met my host family, my fear was gone.
Some of the first things we did was to take a tour around the vicinity to see the horses on the farm, a neighbor’s ostriches, mother and baby pigs. We saw the courthouse, visited the Fayette Veterinary clinic, toured Spectrum Analytic soil testing lab. We went to the Ohio State Fair and went shopping. I went with mom to grocery shop at Krogers which seemed like a very big store. When I came here, one thing that impressed me was that everything is so big and spread out. Also, the first meal that I ate in a restaurant was big. The salad that I was served first was so big that after finishing it, I did not have room for the rest of the food.
One of the things I miss most is food from home. For my birthday, I knew that there was no cake like we have in Hong Kong. So I tried to make a cake as similar to those cakes as possible. Unlike in Hong Kong, here I was given a big birthday party. And I enjoyed it a lot.
At Christmas in USA, children usually make up their Christmas list and parents try to get everything that they want. My mom tried and tried to find a "Tickle Me Elmo" for her little grand-daughter. Finally, she found one just before Christmas. In Hong Kong I never had a Christmas stocking and I always wanted one like I got here. Also, here we had a very large Christmas tree which was such a big project that it took 2 days to put on the lights. I got a lot of presents and liked that very much.
The last thing I want to say is that our family started out very good but needed a lot of work to adjust to each other. I have learned that here I must communicate in order for things to go smoothly. This has made us closer as if this were my real family. Also, I really appreciate the rest of my AFS family which is made up of many, many AFS volunteers. I give special thanks to our local representative Mike Helfrich and thanks to Mike for sending my application to the family that I have come to love.
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