Life in Colorado

[NickF]

ChunMei seems to be settling in nicely here. She's been a little lonely when I'm at work, but was filling her time by exploring our neighborhood on foot, and doing house cleaning. Last week we decided to walk down the street and watch the Highlands Ranch 4th of July parade. She wanted to get a full experience for her first US holiday.

 

During the walk down there she expressed her disappointment that there are "no Chinese people in Highlands Ranch." I told her not to worry; that there must be some.

 

While watching the parade a man came up to us and started talking to ChunMei in fluent Mandarin. Boy, was she surprised, because he wasn't even Asian. A could of minutes we were joined by his Chinese wife and their 6 year old daughter. Turns out he is originally from Germany, but lived and worked in China for 10 years, where he met and married his wife. And they live in the apartment complex across the street from us.

 

ChunMei and his wife got together for the afternoon last Friday, and yesterday we attended a service and BBQ picnic at a church about a mile from our home. About 90% of the congregation is Chinese! Services are conducted in Chinese and English. ChunMei met a bunch of new people and had a couple of new friends, and she's very very happy now. And if she's happy I'm happy.

 

It makes me feel much better that she will have friends apart from my friends, and I think it will help her adjust to US life. Especially with friends who live a 5 minute walk from us.

 

We've scheduled our wedding for 6 August, but it looks like we're going to sending invitations by email since there's so little lead time.

[dnoblett]

What you need to do is seek out the local Chinese communities you your area as well as make friends perhaps visiting the local Asian groceries.

 

Denver: The two strongest concentrations are around Federal/Alameda and Havana/Parker with the latter being a bit more dispersed. There are also some wonderful large Asian grocers.

 

http://www.city-data.com/forum/denver/65903-does-denver-have-chinatown.html

 

Here in Rochester NY the communities tend to be on the south side, and we have made many friends, the key to combating home sickness is to get connected to the local communities.

 

 

[NickF]

Dan touched on the subject of home sickness - it is coming to a wife near you. Having a way to contact family back home, new friends here and keeping busy will ease the degree. Local Chinese churches are a good place to meet other transplants if you have one in your area. They tend to serve more as social clubs than anything else. Personally, I prefer Buddhist temples.

 

Whatever you do, enjoy the construction process of building a new life for you and your wife.

Homesickness has been an issue, but it's better now. The first 2 weeks she was here she ran up a $650 long distance phone bill calling her friends and family. Then we got an ITalkBB VOIP account where she can call as much as she wants for $25 a month. And also gives her a local China phone number so her friends and familuy can call her when they want.

 

She really misses her son, but we're seeing if we can get him into a college here in Denver after he graduates from college in Nanning next year. He doesn't want to live in the US, but a year of foreign study makes it easier to get a good job in China these days.

 

One nice thing about the church we went to yesterday is that members come from all over the city, so she can meet people from all over.

 

Now that we've located the first resource (the church) we'll have all sorts of options. We do a fair amount of shopping at the alameda/Federal Blvd stores, but's a major trip for us to make that drive. And Aurora's almost Kansas from where we live.