Don't judge a book by its cover: my childhood memories

A few years ago, a friend was complaining about his life to me. He said, 'I'm not like you, I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth.' I laughed and said, 'I know what it's like to be poor.' I proceeded to share my story about growing up in Michigan when my parents were studying. They were poor international students who had to rely on food stamps. I remember lining up with my dad to wait for free flour, butter and sugar. The line was very long and I was mostly bored; however, I enjoyed walking around the different rooms of the house where they were distributing the food. It was a yellow house with a beautiful garden. To this day I don't know who owned the house and whether it was a government organization or a charity that was helping to give out free staples. We were grateful for the food.

The swap shop

My sister and I did not get new clothes for five years. We had to wear hand-me-downs from friends or go to a place called 'the swap shop.' The name of the place suggests that you are supposed to bring something to swap for something else, however, there was never anyone there monitoring so we just picked out what we wanted and left. Most of the time, there weren't many things in our size and we ended up wearing baggy clothes or bringing back dirty teddy bears. The place was very small, musty, and dark but I had fun rummaging around. It was a good place to spend a couple hours on the weekend. It gets very cold in Michigan during winter and the school actually gave my sister a credit voucher to buy snowboots because they knew that we couldn't afford new boots. I remember being very excited about going to the mall and picking out new shoes with my sister.

Free lunch

At school we were offered free lunch because we were from a low income family. I remember some of my classmates had to pay for the lunch and I felt sorry for them because it tasted so horrible. The hamburger was particularly awful. When you opened up the bun to look at the beef patty, you could see bubbles on the pale, brown piece of meat. It did not have any cheese or lettuce, but I think it had two pickles. The pizza was not any better. The so-called cheese did not taste like cheese at all and there were no toppings. There were often food fights in the cafeteria and the peas were the weapon of choice. It was a chaotic place everyday. After the hot food was served, the kitchen staff staff would bring out a tray full of snacks. You could buy these for $.25 each. I would envy the children who had money to buy the Twinkies and other goodies. Years later when I told my mom about this, she said, 'you should've asked me for money to buy the snacks, we could've afforded it!' Even as a kid, I did not want to ask my parents for money.

Free music lessons

Despite these financial difficulties, I enjoyed my childhood. There wasn't much homework and the school even offered free music lessons called early-morning strings. I chose to learn the violin and had to get up every Thursday morning to take the bus to another school at 7 AM. We were allowed to borrow the instruments and practice at home and at the end of the year I performed a duet on stage with my friend. It is a pity that I did not continue learning the violin after I returned to Taiwan. The school I went to was very multicultural. Most of the children were sons and daughters of international students as well, so I think we were all poor to a certain extent. I did not feel others looked down on me for my secondhand clothing. We enjoyed running around and playing in the playground.

I developed my love of reading when I was about 9 or 10. I am thankful to the teachers who read to us after lunch. The books were so interesting that I wanted to borrow them from the library. The public library didn't seem to have a limit on the number of books we could do borrow, and I kept pulling books from the shelves, not thinking of the long walk we had ahead of us. Luckily we ran into my fifth grade teacher and she offered to give us a ride home. I am still in touch with her after all these years!