For many of us mainlanders living in North America, job hunting is probably an agonizing experience. The door of opportunity is more often slammed shut than open. Therefore, when the door does open, one would and should appreciate the sweet and sour experience with an understanding heart.
One night, sitting up late before my laptop, I began checking my e-mail as usual. Suddenly a message captured my attention before I was about to delete it from Yahoo Inbox. I went over the message carefully. To my delight, it was a letter from a human resource officer of a company who had granted me a job interview.
On a mid-summer day, I arrived at Brantford, a city south of Toronto. Brantford, a town with a population of 80,000, is best known for its prominent citizen, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Since it was too early for the interview, I strolled into a nearby park. There was a small band playing beneath the statue of Chief Joseph Brant and his Six Nations Indians who first settled the city. I sat down near some locals, listening to the soothing music and trying to calm my somewhat anxious mind.
“You're looking for that cow place?” grinned a youngster skateboarding near the park, “It's that building right over there on that small square". He was referring to Holstein Canada, an association of dairy farmers across Canada who raised the Holstein cow, a black and white breed originating from Netherlands.
Sitting with me in the meeting room was the manager of the information technology department, a senior programmer and a woman human resource officer. On the large table before each of them was a copy of my resume. The manager, who was an experienced programmer from India, conducted most of the interview in an easy and relaxed manner. The interview was almost over when the lady asked me a perplexing question, “What do you think it is your weakness?” Fortunately I had done some homework the night before. “My weakness? Well, I'm afraid I still don't know much about this part of the country.” They all smiled.
A couple of days later, they sent me a formal letter via e-mail offering me the position of a software developer. I signed on the printout and faxed it back to the company. The human resource officer called me and confirmed the date I was to report at the head office.
In the following week I searched the online classifieds for a place to live in Brantford. To save me from travelling back and forth between Toronto and Brantford, I made several appointments on the same day.
My first potential landlord was a chubby young fellow. He told me he was working at a local bank and brought me to a place that looked like a small parking lot rather than a residential area. "Here we are," the man opened the cheap plywood door of a dismal makeshift bungalow and let me in. It was a disgusting scene inside. Dirty socks and shirts were all over the bedroom. Unwashed dishes were stacked high in the crowded kitchenette. "This guy is a pig", muttered my guide, apparently embarrassed by the mess, "I'll clean it up in no time."
"Don't bother, sir. I'm afraid I need a better place." I had wanted to tell him I would need a place better than a pigsty. When we were outside, he asked me if my employer would pay me well. I nodded. I just wanted to tell him I would be surely making more than him who was most probably a bank teller.
Then I called the second landlord. He gave me the address and told me to wait there for him. Without much difficulty I found the place, a three-story brown brick house, located in a tranquil neighbourhood. I sat on the terrace and was almost lost in thought when a pick-up pulled over. A robust elderly gentleman came out and approached me.
"Good afternoon, I'm Steven. No problem finding the place?" said the man. Obviously he was the landlord. "No, sir," I rose to greet him.
"No lock?" I commented as I followed him into the building.
"Why?" he looked at me with a puzzled expression but soon realized that I was from a big city.
"Oh, no. You just need one key." He opened the suite. It was an unfurnished unit but decent otherwise, with a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. He gave me the key when I handed him the deposit. After he left, I lingered on, wondering at the quietness of the building. Soon I would find out that the quietness was just deceptive at the moment.
The IT department was a tiny multicultural milieu. The manager was born in India but he had lived and worked in Singapore for years before coming to Canada. The programmer sitting next to me was from Kyrgyzstan. The only other Chinese was Jason Lin, the database administrator.
The first couple of months at Brantford were quite uneventful. In the office I spent most of the time reading the technical document and review the application code written by other programmers. Presently I was assigned to work with Sandy, a senior programmer, on the maintenance and modification of some applications.
Sandy, a Canadian of Scottish ancestry, was always ready to help me whenever I had a problem. Once he took me with him on a business trip to a dairy farm in Paris, Ontario. In 1876, Alexander Bell made the first long distance telephone call from Brantford to Paris. Paris was much smaller and less known than its more famous namesake in Europe. Even so, Paris of Ontario was known as "the prettiest town in Canada". I felt elated travelling along the winding road through the hilly scenery, which reminded me of the mountainous landscape of my former homeland.
In time I found out there were some other occupants in the house. A black man and his white girlfriend lived upstairs. On weekends they often played loud music. The subwoofer was so powerful that the windows of my room started shaking. I could hardly do anything with that noise pollution going on except dish-washing. In the end I could not put up with it any longer. I went upstairs and asked them to turn down the volume. To my dismay, my request went unheeded.
Sandy advised me to call the police. I hesitated at first but finally dialed the number. After listening to my grievance, the woman on the other end of the phone line told me she would dispatch some officers. Sure enough. In fifteen minutes, I saw two police cruisers stop in front of the house with their lights flashing. Two officers got off and went straight to my noisy neighbour's unit. Half an hour later, the police left. My neighbour turned on his stereos again but the windows in my room did not shake any more.
Several months passed by without any further incident. The black and white couple moved out and another young couple moved in. They did not play loud music. One morning I was still having a good dream when a strange noise awoke me. I listened. It was a woman's indistinct and muffled screaming, accompanied by a rhythmic thump. I felt a sort of scared. This was a very quiet and peaceful neighbourhood. The noise got louder and louder. Suddenly it dawned on me that the noise must have come from the new neighbours who had got too carried away during their heterosexual activity.
As it was then almost a norm, the IT department had a very high turnover. Every other week, then every week, the manager would solemnly announce the resignation of a programmer, followed by a farewell dinner, usually at Swiss Chalet, at the expense of the manager. Then one day we were shocked to learn that the manager himself had decided to quit his job.
After the departure of the manager, the new manager assigned me to work with a Ukrainian programmer. He kept on getting on my nerves, which finally stressed me out. After making several unsuccessful complaints to the manager, I submitted a written resignation.
From time to time, Brantford, one of many places I have sojourned in North America, would surface up in my memory, like a blue ripple in the lake of summer. Vaguely conscious, I could hear the chime of the church bell still resounding on that quiet afternoon.
