My name is Shilian Yu. I’m from Shanghai, China. I speak Mandarin. I am married. My wife is retired. She lives with me. We have three children. Our first child is a daughter. Our second child is a son. They work in the United States for many years. Our third child is our youngest son. He is working for a big firm in Shanghai, China.

I was born in July 1931 in shanghai, China and lived there for nine years. Because of war my family moved to in Zhe Jiang. Our hometown is a small poor village. In the village there was a elementary school with two teachers. They taught only Chinese and Mathematics. There were no music or science or foreign language, and only when they had free time from farming. When the farming season was busy, I stayed home to work on the land, grazed the oxen, cut firewood, and caught fish at beachside. I had become a true farmer.

I returned to Shanghai in the beginning of 1946. I entered a middle school. In the beginning, my grades were very bad. After years of hard work, my grades improved enough to be in the top three of my Grade. In 1948, the civil war began again, causing schools to close. I left school and become a quartermaster for a merchant ship. We traveled mostly to Taiwan, Gaoxiong, Hualian, to Fujian’s Muwei port. We carried wood, coal, sugar, and other goods. In October of that year I returned to Shanghai to continue my education. In 1950 I graduated from high school and entered college majoring in electric technology. At the end of the year the Korean war began, I enrolled in the army and was sent to the Dalian Navy college to learn military skills. I graduated in 1954 and left for Qindao to served in the navy. Soon I was back in Shanghai to work in a textile factory as a laboratory technician. Later I went to work in a nail factory. In 1956, I once again entered WuHan Institute of Water Transportation to major in port machinery. I studied there for five years.

After I graduated, I got a job to work for the ministry of transportation in Beijing to conduct research. In 1965, I changed occupation and went to a Designing Institute to design machinery. The Designing Institute was relocated to Shanghai and merged with the Shanghai Port Machinery Plant. I worked there till 1991, there I designed, manufactured, and experimented different types of portal crane, floating crane, container crane, fork lift truck, mobile crane, and other kinds of machines.


I worked and lived in China for over 60 years. I have mixed feelings for China. I love this country, my homeland. But there are also something I don’t like: this country’s limitation in many different fields such as in clothing, living, learning, working, communication, beliefs, and so on. Categorizing human beings into different classes, causing distance and tension between people.

I came to the United States of America on August 5th, 1992. I worked in a Chinese restaurant to make a living. Every day I worked for ten hours, six to seven days a week. Although the work was tough, but I enjoyed my life. The relationship between people was simple. My hard work was rewarding, and ten years later I retired. Right now I am enjoying my life as a United States citizen. Life is very relaxing and enjoyable.

I love the freedom and democracy in America. Everyone has equal opportunity in the pursuit of job, life, and education. Here the only thing we need to do is to obey the law and work hard, then life will beautiful. The only thing I feel difficult is the language barrier, which causes many problems and difficulty. So I will double my efforts to learn English to improve my life in America.