When my husband was working at Acer in 1989, the company had a plan to build a huge employee village in Taoyuan. That was a good news for us but we realized that we were not able to afford the down-payment with our limited savings. Now that we were not capable to invest in properties, I was thinking if it would be better to invest in ourselves. 

One day when I was chatting with my colleague Nancy, she said her learned husband declared that he already owned all the knowledge of an MBA but just didn’t own MBA degree. Then Nancy proposed her husband to study for a degree and she could take care of their kids. He didn’t have to worry.

I was inspired by what Nancy said, so when I got home I also encouraged my husband to prepare for master degree study overseas.

I said, “Firstly, prepare for TOEFL and GMAT or GRE test. In case the score is not good enough to apply for schools eventually, at least you have improved your English. The effort won’t be a waste. If you want to go overseas alone, it’s ok for me. I can take care of your father and our baby daughter. After all, the study will only take 2 years. I can get pregnant before you depart, then you will have 2nd kid when you return. It’s also ok if you want us to go with you.” My husband said, “No way! You had serious morning sick when you were pregnant. I won’t let you suffer from it alone. You had better performance in university, I think further study is more suitable for you.” I replied, “On the contrary, I think it’s more worthwhile to invest in you.”  Then he was convinced and started to prepare for the test.

In the meantime, my brother’s family was in Frankfurt Germany since he was an expatriated employee of First Bank. I wrote a letter to my sister-in-law in Germany mentioning the whole idea of study overseas. She replied a letter, “You must go together and don’t be separated since I have witnessed 2 cases here. Affairs took place when loving couples separated in different countries. “

I handed the letter over to my husband. My husband decided that the whole family would go together right after reading it.

Before I quit, some of my colleagues suggested that we should grasp the opportunity to have the second baby born in the USA.

Since we had never had that kind of intention, so we didn’t take it seriously.

We arrived in Houston in Aug 1990. My husband went school. I took care of my daughter. I named my daughter Nancy to memorize my colleague for the inspiration. I went to 2 churches weekly to learn English for an hour and handcraft for another hour with volunteers taking care of the kids. They are the nicest and kindest people I had ever met in Houston.

Family insurance was mandatory, which cost a fortune for us. One day my daughter had a fever and saw a doctor, it cost 100 USD and we had to pay extra money for medicine. Furthermore, it was not covered by the insurance at all. We realized that the only way that we could benefit from the insurance was to have a baby born there. After all, we aimed to have 2 kids from the beginning and it would be tough for me to continue my career and to have the second baby when we returned to Taiwan after study. So, we decided to have a baby there.

Luckily, I got pregnant exactly as our plan and the baby was born 2 weeks after my husband finished his study for 1 and half years. The total amount paid for the children’s hospital and the women’s hospital was much higher than the amount we paid for insurance.

When my new born baby Jasmine was two months old and we have nearly used up all our money, we moved back to Taiwan and started all over from scratch.

My American daughter Jasmine went to Oregon University to study as exchange student after study in Taiwan University 2 years ago. She got an internship after study and got retained in that company after internship. One year later she found a better job and moved to Seattle.

I think the citizenship more or less helped her to be hired.

Today Dec. 26 is her birthday. That’s why I decided to tell this story on this special day. Looking back the whole story, don’t you think it’s pretty crazy?

If you think my English is good because I stayed in USA for 1 and half years, then you may be wrong. During that period of time, I didn’t have many opportunities to speak in English. The only good thing was I did gain some confidence in church English class when comparing with other students from Mexico, China, Korea and Japan etc.  My reading ability and grammar were relatively better.

If you ask me, “Is it worthy to spend so much time and money and quit pretty good jobs to take the whole adventure overseas?”

Before we went, we knew that the risk was high and it could not promise the future occupational position and salary. We only thought the overseas experience itself was worthy.

After we returned to Taiwan, and year by year, we thought it was really worthy. My daughter Jasmine is the best gift brought back from the USA. She was made in the USA and delivered in the USA.

When I told my colleague Nancy the whole story, she couldn’t believe that her casual chat had influenced and changed my life so dramatically.