The Biggest Change: Times Past
Irene Waters hosts a monthly memoir post – Time Past. The theme for this month is The Biggest Change.
My mom is the Silent Generation and I am the Baby Boomer.
I have many stories to tell about the biggest change in my mom’s life as well as in my life. For this post, I write about the biggest change in my life within a few months in 1977. The changes in culture, environment, language, and ways of life happened to me all at once.
I worked several years after graduated from college. I took the Double-Decker bus to work. It went from Kowloon to the underwater Crossed Harbour tunnel, then to Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. At that time, there were no cell phones, I did my reading on the bus.
Being busy was an understatement. I worked forty hours a week in my paying job plus twenty hours a week volunteering at a church. I did most of the mental planning on the bus. It was an advantage to take public transportation. On some of the weeknights, I went window shopping to take my mind off the working mode. I did a thirty-minute walk from Pioneer Centre Shopping Arcade to Kowloon Central Post Office on Nathan Road, then took a bus home.
It was eleven thirty o’clock at night when I went to bed. The more I tried to relax the more anxious I got in my head. Getting six hours of sleep was fortunate before I shook my head to wake up the next morning.
On March 21, 1977, I arrived in Portland, Oregon to attend school for my graduate studies. The campus was surrounded by pine trees reaching into the sky. The school owned some housings and rented them to students. Many of the nearby residents rented out their homes to the students also. I shared a cottage with two female students. It was common that the basement and the attic were living areas if they met the legal requirement. I lived in the attic, my housemates lived downstairs. I didn’t mind living in the attic because I was shy to carry on a conversation with my British English. My housemates were very friendly. We ate dinner together three times a week and took turns to do the cooking. Cooking was not something I did often in Hong Kong, so I tried to remember what my mom had done and did accordingly.
“I’m living in a forest,” I told my family in a letter.
I had never experienced such quietness. It was so quiet that I started noticing the intermittent tinnitus in my left ear. This was an extremely different environment to the one I just left two days ago. My life was from running sixty miles an hour to almost a complete stop. In one minute, I was hustling and bustling to catch the bus; in another minute, I had nothing to do except going to classes and doing term papers.
Doing a typewritten paper was a challenge to me. I did all my writing in handwriting previously. When working on the first assignment, I learned to type with a manual typewriter and typed my paper at the same time. I didn’t want to type with two index fingers. How could I learn to type by doing that? By using ten fingers to type, it was inevitable to have many typos. There was no correction tape built into the typewriter, I used correction fluid. Experience taught me to apply a thin layer on the paper, not only for it to try faster, but avoid having a white hump on the paper. Even when I typed after the fluid was dry, the dent would look like sticking the candles on the icing of a cake. It took me almost an hour to type my first page.
(Excerpt from my memoir in progress)
By the way, my first typewriter was orange. It looked almost the same as this image I found on Google search.
The Showers of Blessings 
Yes, this definitely was a huge change for you, Miriam. It seems to have worked out well for you though as you stayed in the US.
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Yes, I was offered a job and sponsorship to stay in the US three years after I arrived, so it turned out well.
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Pingback: The biggest change: Times Past | Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)
Thank you, Irene!
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Thanks for sharing a bit from your memoir Miriam. I can imagine the culture shock for you going from Hong Kong to a quiet life in the States. Typewriters are a thing of the past I imagine well and truly. I wonder if the more recent generations know anything about them.I remember the correction fluid but I used more often a strip of paper that you held over the letter and then you retyped the letter and it removed it. You could then type the correct letter. I learnt to type at evening college when I was still at school with two of my girlfriends. We persuaded our parents that it was a worthwhile thing to learn (even though none of us had any intention of ever typing anything) and now I am so grateful that I have that skill. It makes writing so much quicker than if I had not done it. I particularly like your orange typewriter. I can’t recall seeing one so colourful here.
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Yes, Irene. It was very different in the States, but I expected it. I applied to another college in Oklahoma, and found out later that it’s nicked name college town because students are the major population. Portland is a bigger city.
I remember using paper strips also. It was much cleaner and easier to use. Using the correction fluid, sometime the fluid got on other things.
As hard to learn to type as it was to me, I’m glad I learn it. Typing and using the computer becomes a big asset for me in most of my jobs. Even when I was teaching, some teachers are “afraid” of the computer as if they would ruin it by touching a “wrong key.” I asked some teachers about the computers in their classrooms, they said, “I turn it on and the students know what to do.”
I don’t remember what I did with the orange typewriter. I got ab electronic typewriter when it came out.
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Yes I’m glad I learnt to type too. It makes everything so much easier when you don’t have to look at the keyboard as you go and it makes writing so much faster. I think it is true though that kids know so much more about computers than most other people. I can do what I want to do but I know I don’t realise its full potential or even know what the full potential is. I never had an electric typewriter although I did get one that you just had to backspace and it corrected the letter without having to do anything. I thought that was a real breakthrough.
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Oh, I had the backspace and correction typewriter also. That was good. Can you transfer all the comments here to Charli’s site when the discussion goes on. I’m sure many people could relate to a certain degree.
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If I can I don’t know how to do it. It has been a good conversation. I think there would be some readers that have never seen a typewriter.
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Yes, I know. My daughter probably has never seen a typewriter such as the one I had.
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I couldn’t find the memoir conversation on last Friday at Carrot Ranch, Irene. Would you go to the page and copy the link to me. I’m still learning how to navigate at the Ranch.
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Sorry Miriam. I had it in my head that it was due on Tuesday so of course I missed Friday’s deadline. Charli has it and will publish it when she has a slot but that may not be until next month now.
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That’s okay. I want to comment on a couple big changes such as seat belt law and smoking law. During the second year of being in the US, nine of us went from Portland to San Francisco in two cars, on our ways back, one car broken down and we all crammed in one car piling on top of each other to drive back to campus. It was before the seat belt law became mandated. Also, n my early ear of flying, there was smoking session on the back on the plane, even in the restaurant. Now in our working place, employees have to go 10 feet away from the workplace to smoke. At least the younger generation didn’t experience the volunteer seat belt ears.
I’ll just comment instead of making a post on those points.
So I’ll make sure to participate.
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They are great changes that I remember also. The smoking section at the back of the plane I remember well and thankfully I’d given up smoking before they removed it. I always felt it was a bit of a joke as the air was the same all through the plane though they probably filtered it somehow. Possibly people get sicker now after a flight because the filtration system was deemed no longer necessary after smoking was banned.
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I had that thought of the air also. What’s the point of having non-smoking section?
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Absolutely
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Yes. ❤
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Thanks for a peek into your life😃
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Thank you, Garfield, for reading and comment. I appreciate that. 🙂 ❤
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😃
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🙂
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That was a huge change for you, Miriam. You survived it well. Isn’t it wonderful now to have computers with word processors so we don’t have to type and retype and use whiteout? I’m sure the shares for whiteout must have dropped by now.
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Yes, Norah. It was a big change in my life during those times. These days, I can’t keep up with technologies.
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Technology is developing so very quickly, it is difficult to keep up with it all. I might, if I had more time to spend on it!
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Yes, exactly. I learned a lot of thing during my working time. I got paid to learn new technology. Right now I have many interesting things to do and con’t devote all the time to keep up with it!
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Most of my tech learning, I’ve done on my own. My young people are a good help though, too. 🙂
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I learn something here and there from my daughter. 🙂
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What an interesting post! I can imagine your feelings. 🤗
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That you, Cheryl. It’s funny that I still remember, especially using the typewriter. 🙂
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I had a gray portable royal, still have it in storage. ; )
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Wow, that’s great. I still have the first cell phone from 1994 that looks like a big walky talky with the battery bigger than the phone. It had limited reception.
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That is funny ; )
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I took it the ATT to recycle, the guy said, “Are you sure you don’t want to keep it?” I wasn’t sure, so I took it back. 🙂
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Typing is a skill you never lose.
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Yes, I agree. I do it every day since I do my posts and most of the jobs on laptop.
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This is beautiful, Miriam. It’s the first time to see an orange typewriter😁. Is it harder or easier than typing on keyboard? Or is it totally different? Glad to know more about you, Miriam.
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It’s different. Have to touch the keys harder. People had to get used to them where it was the only choice. 🙂
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Fabulous. Miriam just a great read. Loved your story
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Thank you very much, Brian for reading and comment. 🙂 ❤
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You’re welcome Miriam 😀
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🙂 🙂
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A very interesting and exciting time in your young life Miriam. Thank you for sharing. Have a great weekend,
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Yes, Kim. It was an adventure in a young life, when one has the energy and motivation to do it. Thank you for reading. I appreciate it. ❤
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I loved this Miriam, please can we have more 🌹
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Thank you, Elaine. Your comment makes me smile. I have to make time to write because I have someone waiting to help me publish. That is a good motivation for me.<3 🙂
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Seriously, write more NOW 👍
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I know what you mean, Elaine. To make the long story short, my poetry teacher’s husband just died from a spine surgery. I think the doctor nicked the blood vessel and caused him bleed to death (well, the doctor said he died of heart failure… no blood going to the heart). It just happened two days ago, it’s so sad. We have no guarantee of life, I have to do what I have to do now, as you said.
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That’s very sad Miriam, don’t put it off 🌹
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Thank you, now I let some of you know that I’m writing my memoir, I’ll have you motivate me also. That’s great, Elaine. ❤
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I will keep pushing 😉
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Thank you so much, Elaine.
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wow so interesting to read this! you made me smile! I remember typing on a typewriter too. I’m 38 now but when I learned to type i was 9, and i’m so glad I learned to do that. I enjoyed your post. xoxo
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Thank you so much. I’m glad I learned to type with 10 fingers. Thank you for reading and comment. ❤
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This is fascinating Miriam. I do hope you share more with us :):)
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Thank you for reading, Margaret. It’s encouraging to me to keep writing my memoir.
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It would be a blessing to read :):)
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Thank you so much. My theme is God’s grace for me walking through the depth of the valley, even though it’s not the title. 🙂
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