A Date That I Never Forget - 3

The story about my first night in the US continues here. After we were all cleared at the immigration checkpoint and were issued visas, we approached to the US Customs checkpoint, before we went to the check point, we'd all claimed our checked baggages. We had almost ten baggages, most of them were checked. Almost everything in my house in Macau were in those baggages, crazy! It's the time for the Lei's family to be checked by the US Customs, because we're a family, only one customs declaration form was needed. We got so many huge baggages, so the officer near the screener gestured us to pass the checkpoint, and we were cleared. All we had to do was to turn the customs declaration form to another US Customs official.

"Thank (Sank) you," my mother was speaking broken English. Something funny and embarrassing happened then: when the US Customs officer asked my mother about the declaration form, my mother spoke out a single word, "husband". Of course, the officer didn't understand what my mother said, then she responded, "Who is husband?" My mother actually wanted to tell the officer that the declaration form was on her husband's hand, but she didn't know how to say it in English. It was an obvious case of language barrier, but I was shocked the first language barrier was happened at the airport. Anyway, we officially entered The United States of America new immigrants. We exited from the restricted area, my aunt and uncle were waiting at the arrival lobby in SFO and ready to take us to our new home...

The first night as an immigrant ended with tiredness and stress. But there were even more challenges to come! Watch out, Victor! I'll talk more about what I faced as an immigrant next time.