Ron's ESL Blogs

I’m unable to describe my neighborhood in the present time, but I can describe my neighborhood in Taipei during the past. I still can remember how Taipei looks like in the past, I’m not even sure how the city look llike right now since I haven’t gone back to Taiwan for many years.

In my neighborhood, I used to go to the library near my old home. That library was very big, and I still remember it very well. Because I heard a lot of books in there, and to me, it was the biggest building in Taipei. There were also a lot of places that I went to in my neighborhood, such as my favorite restaurant, bookstores, a video store, and a big park.

It’s been a lot of years that I have no idea whether those places still remained in Taipei or not. But I think that they might change a lot and even better than in the old time. But this neighborhood still in my memory forever.

Having to describe a neighborhood is a difficult thing. It is more difficult when you haven’t been there for seven years. However, when I think about my neighborhood, I see a small village, because that’s what it is. But within this village, a place that I spent most of my childhood, lies a computer center where kids, teenagers, and adults go to play games or chat with relatives that live in another country. And because of this computer center, my friends, cousins, and I could have the most fun time of our childhood.

Before my friends first discovered the computer center, we did nothing but lied around in our house all day. But once we went to the computer center, we were hooked. Because, in side, there were so many computers, not to mention the cool temperature. However, to use the computers, we need to pay money, and it depends on how much you pay to use it. Because we can only use it for a certain amount of time. For twenty minutes, it cost us one dollar in Vietnamese money. Forty minute for two dollars, an hour for three dollars, and so on. Since we didn’t get allowance that often, we had to watch the person that had the money, play. But at times, we saved our allowance so that we could all use the computers and play together.

I remember one time, one of my cousins tricked me into using the computer without paying. When they caught me, my cousin had already left. But there was one more cousin who came along, and he had to go back home and asked for money to pay them back. When we got home, we were really mad, but we couldn’t blame him because we were caught using the computer without paying. After all, it was our fault for believing in him.

In the end, we were never allowed to go back there. But lucky for us, another computer center was opened a few weeks later. But this time, I learned my lesson: don’t play if you can’t pay.

-Thai Tran

I came to the United States in 1989. When I was only seventeen years old. The first place I lived in was an apartment complex. They were twelve buildings with four apartments each. These aprtments were in the city of Highland Park. That place had a nick name; they caled it the “HOLE” maybe because it was under ground. I lived there for six years until I got married. It was like a litlle world, where people know each other very well. At that time I didn’t have a car so everytime I had to go to work or go to school. I had to walk up the steep street to take the bus. It took me 15 to 20 minutes to get to the bus stop. and that was twice a day. Because I worked in the morning and went to school in the afternoon.

I feel homesick every time I remember that place. I made my first friends there. there I found out that not only mexican people lived there. Mexican amercans, Mexicans, Central America,,and Peru. In the back of my apartment was this huge tree. I used to sit down under the tree talking to neighbors for hours.. We barbecue there so many times. My nephews used the shade of the tree to play with thier litlle “Ninja Turtles” every day, and I had to baby sit them. I sat there for hours to do my homework, I read alot of books and wrote letters to my mom every week. Every time I felt sad missing my mother and brothers, I just went to that little space in the back of my house and cried, and cried until I felt better.

I still remember that in that neighborhood I celebrated my eighteen birthday. A lot of friends came to my party. That was the first plaace I lived in. I will never forget it. I still remember the people that lived there. the nice color of the aprtments. the smell of the food when neighbors cooked. The parkings behind the apartments, the type of cars nieghbors used to drive. There was not tooo many fancy cars like today. The whole neighborhood was like a family to me. A ll the people gave me so much good advice. I still wonder what happened to all that people. Sometimes I go there and I drive around hoping someone still living there. The neighborhood looks diferent now, it is painted and has a gate. I will never forget that place, and I will keep those memories forever.

The neighborhood where I grew up is called “La Esperanza” meaning the hope. It’s part of a big,and beautiful city, very famous for its Marichis a group of musicians that play the must representative music from my country, that is well known i the world. My neighborhood was a place with a plenty of opportunities in how to spent time in different activities to keep yourself entertained.

The house where I lived for half of my life, was owned by my family since years before I was born. My mom told me that our house was one of the first ones in the neighborhood by that time.
She said ” you could see few houses around. But the time passed and the neighborhood was getting larger and populated.

I remember my neighborhood with its places like the church where I could enjoy the festivities each week on Sundays, when people assist to “the kermes” ,which was a celebration where we could enjoy rides like merry go around with colorful horses on it. Eat delicious food, and listen to the music of the marichis, and watch the fireworks.

Those moments were part of my childhood that I enjoyed the most, and it was, because I was able to live in the neighborhood that I always remember and make me feel happy and graceful for such experiences in my life.

My Neighborhood

Everyone must have his or her good or bad neighborhood. Since I have been living in the United State for almost ten years. It is a very long period. I also have been moving from place to place in U.S.A. Although I have many neighborhood, but my favor neighborhood is on Ynez Ave in Monterey Park City where I am living now.

My neighborhood is the best area in Monterey Park City. The rents of house are little high compare with other city, but it is very convenient especially for people that don’t know how to drive. There are shopping centers, Chinese markets, CVS pharmacy, post office, city hall, hospital, senior center, church, and many cafe restaurants. It’s a quiet, clean and safe place. There are many different cultures around my area like Vietnamese, Cambodian, Korean, and a lot of Chinese. There is a park behind the city hall, so everyone can go there exercise in the morning. There is also a swimming pool fro children from age 3 to 10. Swimmers crowded the swimming pool in the summer . A lot of parents bring their children to swim, and they always waited in a long line to get into the swimming pool. Every Sunday is so noisy, crowd,  parking is full on the street. People go to church, go to market, and go to restaurant. The only bad thing is no parking place for people that don’t have garage in their house during Sunday. There are also many people doing yard sale on weekends, so I always can buy some very cheap stuff for my house.

Citizens of U.S.A. are very lucky that country has places where every immigrant can go and feel at home. I am so enjoying living in my current city, and I’m sure that I won’t move to other cities. Even I’m planning to buy a house now. I still don’t want to buy anywhere beside in Monterey Park area.