My daughter wanted very much to go to USA as she always watches American movies and admires the life style depicted, good education, innovation and high end technology etc available in this most advanced nation of the world. She learns piano, violin, guitar and ballet; and she hopes one day she could have a chance to study music or even ballet in the US. One day when her school teacher asked the whole class about who had been to Genting Highland, and surprisingly my daughter was the only one in the class shamefully that had never been to that common and popular Malaysian tourist spot. But she was brought to America together with the family while I was working in Juarez Mexico, just half an hour drive across the border city of El Paso Texas. For that reason, she became probably the only girl in class that had gone visiting so far away to America and also the only student that had never been to the "yet so near" Genting Highland resort. I wanted her to be "in par" with the other classmates, so finally we brought her to Genting Highland at the early part of this year 2009, a record fulfilled for her; she was 14 years old and it also means my family had never been to Genting at least for the past 14 years or so.
I did not like Genting that much because to me that is a place where people just go there for the sake of gambling, which is an activity that I dislike, though when I was younger I used to gamble with my cousins especially during Chinese New Years. Gambling then was sort of like a culture during the Chinese New Year period, a mean of socializing amongst relatives and friends, adults and children alike were allowed to gamble with their "Ang Pow" money, solely permitted by parents for that limited, legitimate period which is otherwise an unlawful and not so encouraged activity. Nowadays, Genting is not a bad place if one just wants to bring family members to a theme park for the weekend, which is comparatively nearer and cheaper. Since I had been to Disneyland in Japan and my family had also gone to Disneyland and Universal Studio in Los Angeles, we were not that keen afterall for all these years.
In year 2006, My family and I had obtained L1 visas from the company and that entitled me and my family to stay and work for 3 years in the US. I had got everything done up for my family, applied and received my social security number, tendered our termination letters to the schools etc, just fell short of buying the air tickets to go, I was given the sudden and abrupt intruction to be transferred to China beacause the Chinese operation was suffering from huge losses in the region of millions ringgit per month.
An American dream that is not fulfilled for my daughter and until now I still feel very sorry for her because she was very disappointed at the last minute changes.
I pray that if God willing, one day she will go to America again!
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