Good friends on the production line:
Some people may have thought the Western way she speaks and acts seemed a bit freakish in a conservative factory environment, but it was not long before her colleagues were infected by her. and gradually let down their "mask." After work on Saturdays, she likes to find someone to go out with, for instance going to see the adult-rated movie Damage with two other girls from her office.
But these few 'quirks' notwithstanding, there is a side to Amy which people admire. Three days before starting her new job, like other new recruits she first went for some practical experience on the production line. "Most people just go through the motions, but she isn't a bit stuck up like other college graduates. She fitted in very well, and didn't hold up our work at all," Manufacturing Section Chief Timmy Chen says sincerely. And she made firm friends with two of the women production workers, who she eats lunch with every day, chatting with them about anything and everything.
"The office workers mostly don't have much to do with us in Manufacturing, but she comes to see us of her own accord--she's not like the rest," says Li Kui-ying, a production operative. She says that Amy doesn't mind turning her hand to anything; she'll try to find a way of moving even the heaviest materials herself, unlike most Taiwanese girls, who often like to be waited on.
The other girls in the office admire the way Amy isn't afraid to demand what she considers to be reasonable deadlines, "Not like us, we mainly just put in some unpaid overtime to get things finished."
A new member of society in two ways:
Amy has gradually adapted well to everyday life in Taiwan. Every day after work, she likes to go to a book hire shop near the factory, where she hires a cartoon story book to read. Not only has her Chinese progressed so far that she can read kung fu novels, but she has also made good friends with the owner, Liang Mei-Yun. Through Mrs. Liang, Amy was able to find a small rented apartment with a television, fridge and kitchen equipment, for no more than she had been paying before. And as she adopts more and more of the local ways, she even had Liang Mei-Yun consult an almanac to choose a lucky day for her to move house.
But as a new member of society in two ways--having returned to Taiwan from abroad, and entering the world of work after graduating from college--the real problems Amy has had to face in adapting to life here have been at work. At the moment she has six or seven projects in hand, but only one of them has been accepted. Her supervisor says that her work is quite creative, but she doesn't understand the local market, so her designs have not been quite right.
In this situation it is no use trying to make excuses--she just has to go back to her drawing board. She is well aware that as an emigrant returning to her native land to work, although she has various natural advantages such as knowing English, making friends easily, and being more easily forgiven if she speaks out of line, on the other hand she has to become accustomed to things which other people are already used to, learn the demands of the local market, and overcome the difficulties of communicating in a language which she only half understands.
Homesick nights:
Although rationally she can accept all these factors, emotionally they are a heavy burden. Recently her colleagues have found that she hardly laughs any more, and is no longer as vivacious as before. They guess that she has already "assimilated. " But Research and Development Manager Sam Chen says: "An R&D department needs diversity; I'm not happy to see this change in her."
Naturally, Amy herself doesn't want to be "assimilated." "I want to have my own individual style"--but what is that style? Wasn't the very reason she came back to Taiwan to find that part of her which is different from her Canadian classmates? She feels frustrated and at a loss.
On another night spent missing her family, Amy is surprised that she has finally started to understand what it means to be homesick. And the last time she phoned Canada, her mother actually said she missed Amy too. As she writes a letter home she thinks of her cat, and of her younger brother, who still wants to lie on his mother's bed when he has a stomachache, even in his third year at university. "Oh well, I'll go back to see them in July; no, why not June. . . ?"