My friend, Tang, will spend his three weeks vacation back to China for the    first time, after 10 years’ arduous work and striving for success in the US. All the best wishes for him and his family!!!  

I met him at his shoddy apartment in Newark, when I paid a visit to a friend who was his roommate in the spring of 1998, only couple months after I    arrived in this country. At that time, he was a Ph.D. student on biology at  Rutgers University. We said hello to each other. He was moving some stuff around,nothing else,then we said goodbye in couple minutes. His roommate told me that he was one of those famous youth-class students of China    Technology University, a genius who went to college at the age of 15. His  GRE score was about 2200 or even higher.

Since then,we became acquaintances and met once a while on campus since the two campuses are contiguous. Hearing of his stories from all kinds of    friends of this small world, I knew that he made money by gambling on line (pogo.com); he paid his tuition with credit cards because of no scholarship after he dropped out the Ph.D. program and transferred to my school for a Master’s degree in computer science. Around 2000, many Chinese students did the same thing because the job market was so good, especially in the   computer field. Many found a dreamed job in a big company,only with a CIS Master’s degree after one year’s study. He was one of them and very lucky one comparing with others. So far, he has been in a very good shape in the First Union Bank for 5 or 6 years.His position is very stable and not affected by the economy recession after 9/11. However, everyone has his own cross to bear. He had no chances to go back home for 10 years. He must dream of home-style food for millions of times...  

Now it is his time to step on his homeland with pride, fulfillment and happiness. Congratulations to him.