Lesson learnt in a US inner-city neighborhood

Even before I left China in 1992, I was fascinated with the idea of working in a Chinese restaurant in the United States. That seemed like such an essential American experience for any Chinese immigrant, at least according to such popular novels as Beijinger in New York and Manhattan's China Lady.

Soon after I landed in Miami for graduate studies, I began searching for a restaurant where I could fulfill my dream of illegal unemployment (those of us on student visas were not allowed to work off-campus). There were plenty of job listings in Chinese-language newspapers, but transportation was a drag - the medical school where I studied was in Civic Center, an area of concrete buildings, far from everything else.

One day, zigzagging through the city on a bus for an hour, I arrived at a stately hotel right on the beach with a posh Chinese restaurant on the first floor overlooking the ocean. The manager needed help. I needed my experience. We struck a deal.

When I came out of the restaurant after the interview, I noticed it was getting dark. I saw the high-rise medical school in the distance and decided to walk straight ahead to take a shortcut to it.

As I kept walking, fewer buildings seemed to appear and the street lights too became dimmer. I was approached by bums in rags asking for change. I did not dare comply. Soon, I found myself standing in front of a block of low-rise apartments, all dark except for a lone street lamp casting a yellow glow on the building. Clusters of people leaned against the buildings, raced along on bicycles, and generally hung around.

The scene reminded me of my childhood when we kids would gather at street corners after dinner. It suddenly dawned on me that I was in an inner city neighborhood, and those figures were not my buddies but idling black people. Oh! all the horrible stories I had heard about American inner cities!

I felt weak with fear. The medical school building seemed as far away as when I first started to take the shortcut back. Suddenly, several kids appeared from nowhere and pushed me to the ground. Before I could react, they had snatched my leather briefcase and raced away on their bicycles taunting, "Go find your help!"

I staggered up and walked on. I could only hear the echoes of my own footsteps in the dark street.

"What are you doing here?" called out a voice from a window above me as a black woman in her twenties stuck her head out. "Don't you know it's dangerous here?"

I said I had been robbed and was lost. She asked me to come upstairs. I could barely move - a black woman in an inner-city neighborhood, I thought - would she rob me blind like the others? Before I could make up my mind, the woman came down holding a little girl. "Why are you walking in this neighborhood?" she asked. I explained that I was trying to take a shortcut to the medical school.

She shook her head. "Let me drive you home," she insisted calmly.

She did not say much during the ride. The little girl studied me closely from her car seat even as I studied her mother behind the steering wheel. Her skin was of the color that could easily dissolve into the night, a color that until then had been strange, almost intimidating, to me; yet there she was, helping a complete stranger get home safely. I wanted to apologize for having hesitated to accept her help.

"I hate those guys too," she said.

Since then, I have learned to use the term "African Americans" instead of "blacks". I made African American friends in business school and celebrated holidays with inner-city families. I have learned to appreciate the kindness in all of us despite our drastically different skin color and backgrounds.

That night, I had an eye-opening American experience