Everything changed in October, the third month since I came to America, a terrible thing happened to me. I am a high school student from China, and through
my 2014-2015 school years, I came to America as an exchange student. Eventually
everything turned out well, and I am happy that I attended this exchange program. I
always think it was worth my sickness on the plane during the 13 hours to cross
the Pacific.
My horrible experience relates to my former host sister, so let me introduce her
first. Her name is Tina, she is a tall girl in age of 22 and always dresses up super fancy.
She likes to wear a lot of perfume, honestly, it choked my nose. She gets her nails
done three times a week and changes her hair style ten times a month. Her bedroom
is never picked up, she never does dishes, she never shows up to family activities,
she never stops complaining, she never…… but anyways, those bad habits don’t stop
my from host mom spoiling on her.
Tina does everything she wants, such as always stays out over the night or comes
back in the morning, turns the music on super loud and I am always woken up until
she goes to bed. Those kinds of thing happened a lot, some time, she will take
shower in the morning before I go to school, but she doesn't go to her work place
until noon, and she will turn the music on and shower nearly an hour, she acts like
nobody is waiting for her to get out and use the bathroom, those kind of selfish
actions happened a lot and really really bother me, it is like she is the center of the
world.
I still remember once, my host mom had to go working on Saturday, and before
she left, she asked Tina to take me to the mall. First time, Tina just ignored it, and
pretended not to hear it. Then my host mom asked her second time, then she
responded it unwillingly, and said we were going to leave in 30 minutes. After got her
response, I started to get ready, and it was about time, but she hadn’t been ready
yet, so I was sitting in the couch and waiting for her. An hour passed away, I still
couldn’t tell if she was ready or not, so I knocked her door and ask politely if she was
ready, and she didn’t even come to open the door and said she has work to do and
can’t take me. So I was super mad at it, at least she should tell me she wasn’t going
to the mall! But I didn’t say anything.
I was super confused, is this the way Americans treat other people? They don’t think it is kind of rude? Is it normal? And I was also worried that I will have to face this kind of situation the whole year. I felt so sad but I keep telling myself it is the normal way Americans do. I was thinking, why I am here, what am I here for?
One day, my host mom got a phone call from Tina’s friend: “Come to the hospital
now! Tina is in danger!” So my host mom ran out and headed to the location. After
that, we knew everything from her friend: When Tina was in work, suddenly, she
freaked out, she started to scream and yell to people, throw things and cry. So her
friends sent her to hospital and then called my host mom. The Doctor said, because
of wine and drugs, Tina had mental break down, she had to stay in hospital until she
got better and needed parents’ care all the time. For that reason, my exchange
program moved me out of their family. Lately, my “last” host mom said Tina was
better and better, but she still has some strange emotions, she hides things, refuses
to take shots, hits nurses…… Now she is totally recovered, home and had a normally
life, but she still relies on some medicine.
Now I live with my second host family, everything goes well and peacefully, my
host sister is a freshman in the same high school, she is a good kid and we have a lot
of the same habits. Whenever we do stuff together, she always shows a lot interests
in it. Last Saturday, I was trying to make Chinese food, and I even didn’t ask her for
help, but she just came down and started to help me, and asked me a lot questions
about Chinese stuff that she was interested in, like what our tea culture is, how my
city look like…… and I am also willing to tell her. So we always enjoy being together. It
has been a wonderful year for me.