THE University of California in Berkeley is beautiful, and its students are of diverse nationalities. On the streets around the campus were students, active and restless. Many were hippies. They were dancing, singing and smoking. At another street near the gates were several students chanting anti-Vietnam war slogans.

       What I was seeing were simply too “liberal” things for me. I was undergoing some “culture shock” with what I was experiencing.

      The following morning, Mr. Tao took me to San Francisco’s Chinatown for breakfast. I was surprised to see a lot of Chinese on the streets. I could tell that they spoke Cantonese.

      Chinatown had many stores that sold all kinds of goods and souvenir items. These products represent diverse peoples and backgrounds. So this is what makes the country great, I wondered.

      After lunch we rode the cable car on Power Street, visited the Fisherman’s Wharf, and San Francisco State College, where I planned to study.

      It was February. There was a lot of time before school began. I told Mr. Tao I wanted to find a job to make a little money. We went back to Chinatown to an employment agency.

      I talked to an agent, a middle-aged woman with thick glasses and heavy makeup. She looked at me and talked to me in Cantonese, which I did not understand. She kept saying the same things, and I was just  staring at her.

      Finally one of her colleagues came to my rescue. She translated what the woman was saying: “You are Chinese, but why don’t you speak Chinese?”

      In those days, many the of Chinese living in the United States came Canton, China. So the Cantonese thought everybody should speak the language.

      But China has more than 300 dialects, and Cantonese is just one of them.

      Because of the language problem, I had to talk to her in English. She asked me what I wanted to do. I told her I could do any job that would give me some money.

      She said some restaurant near Stafford University, located in Palo Alto, needed a kitchen helper. The job paid three dollars an hour, or about $620 a month. The boarding was free.

      The money I would earn was about eleven times in Taiwan, I surmised. I told the woman I’d like to give it a try.

      Without a car, I had to take the bus to get to Palo Alto. The next day, the woman gave me a map with bus schedules. I asked Tom to bring me to the Greyhound bus station, where I took a ride to San Francisco. Here I took another bus to Palo Alto.

      It took me all of six hours to reach the city. I had to call the restaurant owner, Mr. Chou, to pick me at the bus station. He asked me to start working immediately.

      Located near the university, the restaurant was busy at dinner time. Business was good. The kitchen was like a “war zone.”

      It was my first time to work in a restaurant. My job was to help the cook organize the ingredients he needed for a dish.

      Most cooks have volatile temper. The shout at you, and want everything ready right away.

      Because it was my first day, and because I really did not pay any attention to cooking before, I did not know where the kitchen utensils and vegetables were. But I tried to work as fast as I could.

      At night after work, I was so tired my whole body seemed paralyzed. My arm and body muscles ached. The pain seemed unbearable I wanted to cry.

      Then I asked myself: Did I make the right decision in coming to America?

(To be continued)