Jaclyn Liu

Engl 100

4/20/2005

My Mom

I have interviewed a special person in my life who doesn’t have an interesting life story. The whole interview process was basically asking question about her childhood life because that was the life I never knew about. After I was born I know all her life story because I always eavesdrop when she is talking to her friends or family members. And other times she would be complaining to me about her problems.

My mom’s original name is Kuo Kit Ling and after she came to America she change it to Penny Kit Ling Kuo. This American name was given by my aunt when she first arrived. She was born in Hong Kong on June 25, 1965, According to the encyclopedia, “Hong Kong was a British Colony until July 1, 1997.” In the Chinese Zodiac she was born on the year of the snake. She has eight brothers and sisters. During her childhood life, she lived in two different places but both of them are in New Territory of Hong Kong. One is called Wo Hop Sac and the other one is called Ping Cher. The encyclopedia also said, “Hong Kong consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. The New Territories is connected to the mainland China. New Territories was made up of agriculture.” She attended Ping Yang elementary school and Fung Kai secondary meaning middle and high school. The most memorable event in her life was when she had a competition but someone hurt her last toe. Because of this incident, she was not allowed in the competition. In other competition she had won first place in short run. It is kind of like school Olympic.

She has never worked when she was in Hong Kong but after coming to America she has couple of jobs. Her first job is at Sun Tung Yan which is a company that makes beef and pork jerky. Her job is to pack the jerky into packages with a minimum pay of $4.75. Her second job is a waitress in Hong Kong Flower Lounge Seafood Restaurant. It also pays her $4.75 but she gets extra from tips. Her third job is at Future Paging and Cellular where she is supposed to enter customers’ data into the computer, send out bills to customers, and additional office duties. This time her salary was $5.75 because minimum wage went up. Her fourth job is at my aunt sewing company. She only got $5.75 but this time she wasn’t really working for the money. She was kind of helping my aunt. Her fifth job is working at a company call Oakland Corporation where it is also data entry. This time it is different from her other data entry job. This one she enter insurance information of people who works for some kind of government own business. Her sixth job is the easiest job out of all because it is a job as a housewife. She did nothing except house choirs and taking care of her children. Her last job is the one she currently working for at Casino Artichoke Joe’s. She works as a dealer where she has to deal all kinds of card game available in the casino. This is the highest paying job she has ever had.

She have marry twice once with my dad and once with my stepfather. She married my dad when she was eighteen. My grandmother said the reason why she had married when she was eighteen because she wanted to stay out of my grandmother’s house. I came to earth when she was twenty. And brother came to earth when she was twenty two. The worst thing that can happen to my brother had happen. He past away when he was four. He had some kind of cancer that only one in a million boys can get. He was the unlucky one. After my brother past away my mom had to leave my dad for a new life so she can stop thinking about it. Then she met my stepfather and they got married when she was twenty six, in 1990. My first stepsister name Evelyn was born on January 30, 1991; the second one name Mickie and she was born on July 14, 1995; and the youngest one name Rachael and she was born on September 25, 1998.

Her daily life is really boring, nothing excited. She work even more when she doesn’t have work. The first thing she does is to bring my sisters to school. Clean the house while they are gone. Then she has to wait for them after school and make them food. She watches them while they are doing their homework and she prepare for diner. About 7:00 she starts to make diner. Washing the dishes after diner and put them to bed. That is basically her daily life if she doesn’t have time to do her hobby. Her favorite thing to do is playing MahJong. Google define MahJong as, “A Chinese game played by 4 people with 144 tiles; Also a gambling game. The Chinese word for MahJong means ‘hemp general’. In Cantonese is mean ‘sparrow’.”

This interview let me know about my mom more before I was born. I gain some experience how to interview someone but I feel really awkward when I was interviewing my mom because I have to hold back some question. Those question are something I know I should not ask even though she I know she will answer me. If I have another chance to redo the interview, I would interview someone other than a family member.

References

Google. (2005). Google, define:mahjong [online]. Available http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q=define:mahjong [May 3, 2005].

Wikipedia. (May 1, 2005). Wikipedia. Hong Kong [online]. Available http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong [=may 3, 2005].