Dear Editor:
Returning emigrants are not worthy of our sympathy or praise. On the contrary, they should wake up to their own absurdity.
Back when you left, you hardened your hearts and cast aside your old parents and your children (such as the physically or mentally handicapped) whose health wasn't up to scratch and who were refused immigrant visas by the consulates. Off you went, thinking that it would be paradise from here on in. It was only after you arrived overseas that you realized what "starting again from scratch" really means! Then today's hardship aroused nostalgia for the good old days, and unwilling to be lonely, you went running back home.
Your feelings of rootlessness are the result of being unwilling to put down roots. Saying things like "my country suffers many calamities," and "I have a home but cannot return," are all just ways of covering up for your own failings. China's last war ended decades ago, and through all the years when the emigrants were leaving, it was by the hard work of their compatriots who stayed behind that the country has quietly been built up and grown stably, and the whole world looks up to our economic achievements. Yet those who emigrated but are now returning appear somewhat despondent. They spend all their time calculating how much they and their families can gain in one place, and how much more they can benefit if they go to another. They are not prepared to do anything for or put anything into either their old country or their new one, nor to get involved in any community. When abroad they stress their "Chineseness" in front of foreigners, but when they come back to their old home they flaunt their "foreign citizen" status in front of the Chinese. They send their offspring to study at "devil schools" (international schools), and they teach them to believe they are very different from the local Chinese children. With this approach to life, how could they fail to be "frustrated" and "sad"?
No great nation has ever been built from "drifters" and "deserters." If, as these people keep saying, they emigrated for the sake of the next generation, then once abroad they should set a good example for that generation and stand firm to overcome all difficulties and survive. They should pass on the Chinese spirit of resilience, hard work and perseverance to their children so they can benefit from it all their lives. You who return should not continue wandering. The time when you want to settle down will be the time when you "will not need to roam, In the midst of wandering, returning, Walking back and forth between affirming and denying."
Even the greatest paradise begins with a dream. You who have dared to dream! Why don't you dare to stop and build your dream into reality, step by step, in the garden of your dreams?!
Chen Tsui-ping, USA
Mourning Teresa Teng
Dear Editor:
I have been deeply grieved to read in the latest issue of Sinorama (Vo1.20, No. 7, July 1995) of the premature death of Miss Teresa Teng.
I happened to hear her voice for the first time when on a trip, last June, to the beautiful city of Chengde. Being much impressed by her melodious voice pouring out from the speaker in my driver's car, I immediately decided to buy cassettes of her songs in the local shop.
With sadness in my heart and tears in my eyes I fail to concentrate on words of one of her songs:
雲河呀雲河，雲河裡有個我…… [Rivers of
Clouds, oh River of Clouds, there in the River of Clouds am I...]
I feel I must be with the entire music loving Chinese people at this time.
With deep sympathy with you all in the loss of Miss Teresa Teng, I remain,
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Josef Kolmas, Prague, Czech Republic
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An Apology: We regret that a proof-reading error caused Wenchi Tsai's name to appear as Wench Tsai in the byline for her story "A Shattered American Dream." Ms. Tsai most graciously pointed out the mistake. The story appeared in the September Sinorama and in overseas editions in October.
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