1 September 1885

It’s the first day of a new month; the day when I send home a check, the day when we receive mail from home. This morning I received a letter from my mom, Shee-Lin. I became a dad 3 weeks ago when my wife, Nee-Sing, gave birth to a son. Somehow, she had gotten pregnant before I left. What a blessing, a son on the first try, I still can’t get the feeling of happiness out of my system. Times have been so hard here in Hawaii that I forgot what it felt like to be happy. Some days I feel isolated and shamed by the world I live in. Nothing lucky has really happened to me so far, expect for my newborn son. About a week or two ago on a very humid afternoon, I accidentally lost my jade ring when I was breaking the ground, so that we could plough the rice fields. I started to crawl around on the ground and search for it- the ring was of great importance because it was given to me by mom for good luck. But then a farmer ghost came up to me and started to ask me about what I was doing. I looked down as he spoke to me, but I guess I made him upset because then he whacked me across the head. I still can’t understand why he hit me, I did not do anything disrespectful. You aren’t supposed to look anyone in the eye as they are speaking to you, if it’s a teacher, elder, or a superior, because it is very rude. Then, it dawned on me that in the American culture, if you don’t look the person in the eye, then you are being disrespectful to the person because are acting like you aren’t listening to them. I tried to apologize to the ghost, but he just told me to ‘shut up’ and go back to work.