To University of Minnesota

Abstract

I was twenty-six years old when I flew to America to enter the graduate school at University of Minnesota. I landed in San Francisco and stayed at the shabby YMCA on a street lined with bars catering to seamen. When I walked out at night, the strong wind blew old newspapers high into the sky. A sailor who was obviously from the countryside asked me directions. I was enveloped by a sense of liberation that “no one here knows my past,” and a pleasant tension that “there is no one I can lean on from now on.” I had experienced various twists and turns, but now I had been given the chance to reset my life in America. I felt that I had touched deep in my heart the unfathomable, frightening quality of this country of America. The next day was full of California’s sunshine. My mood turned completely optimistic.