My mom always says a Chinese saying: “Travel thousands of miles, read ten thousand books” which means traveling is same as studying and reading, you can know many things from either traveling or reading. When I was a little kid, my parents always brought me to travel in different cities or small villages. During that time, my father was working in Shanghai, and my mom and I went to visit my father once a month, which was very different from other kids in my preschool. From that time I start to love traveling. I like to see different culture, different history and different landscapes from my hometown. But in 2000, I began to look wider of the world; I started to think what it looks like in the other side of the world.
Later on in the year, my mom told me that my aunt, uncle and my cousin went to America from Japan because of my uncle got a job in Boston. I started to ask my mom: “Why my aunt and uncle go to there? Why they are not staying Japan anymore?” My mom told me, “America is the strongest country in the world and everyone wants to go there.” After that, I started to wonder what kind of country that is and how a country can make so many people yearn to go there.
September 11th is the first time that I had close look of America. The terrorists have destroyed the two buildings in New York, and these two represent America, new technology, and power. Americans could use these two samples to proud of. I was watching the live Breaking news on TV with my mom and my grandparents together until mid night. That was a deep impression of America for me during that time.
In the end of 2003, I heard my grandparents were planning to visit my aunt and my uncle. Later on, in the next March my grandparents got the visas and they went to America. After few months, I told to my mom that I was missing my grandparents so much and I wanted to go to America. I wasn’t missing them that much I just wanted to go there and to see what kind of country America is. My mom agreed my idea of visiting America, but she said the basic condition is I have to get good grades on the finals. Fortunately, I did an awesome job on it. For my mom she also fulfilled her promise and she was going to apply the visas for us. In that time, it was extremely hard to let Chinese people to get a visa to America. Because of the 9.11 attack, American started to upgrade their security levels and American blocked the most of immigrations; for visitors it was really hard to get a visa.
At the beginning of the summer, 2004, my mom and I were preparing to go to the U.S. embassy and hopefully can get the visa. My mom made me prepare the answers for the interview in the embassy, because of I was just a little kid and I didn’t understand many things. I prepared those possible questions for almost one week, and then my mom and I went to the embassy. Unfortunately, my mom got the visa but I didn’t get! The most incomprehensible thing is the officer didn’t even tell me why.
My mom was so pissed-off, she kept asking the officer: “why you just give me the visa but not for my son? We are going to visit and travel in America because my son wants to go, but you didn’t give my son a visa, otherwise you just give me a visa and for me useless!!”
No matter what my mom said, the officer didn’t change his mind. I was so disappointing about this refused visa and I almost gave up the trip to America, also that gave me a bad memory for America. But my mom is a person that never changes her mind.
When we finished the interview and we were on the way back to home, my mom taught me an valuable listen: “when you are having a tough time with something, then you shouldn’t stop, instead you should keep going and try your best to overcome those troubles! After this, you will become a successful person!”
After few weeks, I went to the U.S. embassy again, and this time I got the visa! The visa said I could go to America in next 6 months with multiple-entry. I was so happy about that, cause my dream became true. I could go to America, I could see what does the strongest country looks like, and I could travel the world when I’m just 8 years old!

In August, my mom and I were on the way to America. It was a longest flight that I had ever taken at that time. Finally, I heard the airplane’s broadcast was saying, “Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to Los Angeles, local time is now 16:35, the temperature is 88 Fahrenheit…”