The longest wait

---- There is a will, there is a way. In between, there is the wait.
The longest wait in my life happened when I was 8.
After one long winter of lugging a backpack stuffed with books and lunchbox onto a packed public bus to an ethnic Korean elementary school one hour away from my home, my mom had enough and decided to transfer me to a public elementary school across the street. Besides proximity, the school was THE school for the elite in our neighborhood. Mom and dad took me there for a tour when I was ready to start the school, and I was awe struck by the well manicured schoolyard and clean desks and chairs in the classroom, and the teachers smiled a lot. I dreamed of going there, joining the elite. But there was one catch (actually there were several and the school combined them into one that seemed to be most effective in stopping many transfer students): The school only took kid who had some English language education since English was part of its curriculum. Years later I realize it is actually a ruse the school used to deny the kids from a factory where my father worked. The” factory kids” as we were called back then usually went to the elementary school funded by the factory and English was never in the curriculum. Me being an ethnic Korean and going to an ethnic Korean elementary school, I was an exception, but still the “catch” caught me since my foreign language in my Korean elementary school was Chinese.
Mom being a determined woman, and probably also from cannot stand the agony of seeing her son got home late in the night almost frozen from the bone chilling coldness in Harbin winter, she decided that we would overcome that obstacle by learning English on my own, from the radio. There was a 5:30 AM morning English radio class and mom made sure every morning I would have my family’s bulky cream colored portable radio near my pillow and I would follow the teacher in the radio to learn English. Every night on the dinner table after I finished meal I would recite to her what I learned from the radio that morning. And she assured me if I hang on with radio class until the fall I would be able to transfer to the school across street from my home.
Late Spring mom took me to the school and met the school principal, a stern looking lady about my mom’s age. She checked me out from head to toe with her icy stare and asked me how much English I had learned. Mom promised her that I would be able to follow the 2nd grade curriculum and she instructed me to recite an English lesson for the principal. Finally the principal said although she would be fine to let me transfer, she would need me to come to school later that summer for a thorough evaluation before the transfer.
The clock was on and my daily routine of early radio class and after dinner review continued with more fervent. Finally the evaluation morning came. Mom put me in a new short sleeves shirt and short and put the radio class English book in my backpack, sending me off for the evaluation.
The principal brought me to an English teachers room and told me to wait for a English teacher to give me a full evaluation. The summer session was still on and I could hear the commotions outside the room from students running into their classroom for class. Yet the room was empty, the principal said I had to wait for the test teacher to finish the class. And she left. I sat on an empty chair, waiting. The bell rang, first class was over. Some teachers streamed into the room, and were surprised to see me waiting alone there. They asked me who I was waiting for, and after hearing my story, they looked surprised and they gathered around me asking where my school was and why I wanted to transfer. Before I could finish my story, the bell rang again and all of them left for another class. I went back to my chair, waiting and looking at the well manicured school yard. The bell rang again. The teachers streamed back into the room, and this time no more questions but some hushed chats between themselves, and one of them went out and came back again, telling me to go to principal’s office. When I got to principal’s office, the principal was not in her office. I waited there for a while, then the bell rang again. Another class started. I waited in principal office for a little while, then I thought maybe I need to go back to English teachers room so that I wouldn’t miss the evaluator. So I went back to English teachers office. Two teachers were sitting in their tables. One of them, a lady with spectacles and warm smile looked up at me surprisingly, and I told her the principal was not in her office and I wouldn’t want to miss the evaluator so I was back. Back then it never occurred to me to ask for evaluator’s name from either principal or the teachers. The lady nodded her head and looked at me with a thoughtful look. Then she said, OK, tell me what you have learned on your own. I went to my backpack and brought out my radio class book, and started reading a text for her. I was nervous and made many mistakes, and the teacher was very nice and patiently corrected me. Then she said with a hesitant look on her face, maybe it would help me to spend some more time on English during that summer. I asked her if she was the evaluator, she said she was not sure and she would want to double check with principal for me. And she left for principal office. Then bell rang again. Another break and some teachers streamed back into the office. But still no principal. And that lady didn’t show up again either. Then bell rang again, teachers streamed out again for another class. I sat on the chair waiting. Years passed and what happened next was a blur. There were different versions within family. Maybe mom picked me up from school after she got off from day’s work, maybe I went back to my home alone. One thing for sure was that I waited there for the whole day and the principal never showed up again. And in the end I never got to go to the school across the street. I ended up went to a school several blocks from my neighborhood.
And since then I have had more waits in my life. Some are actually much longer. When I came to America, I had to wait for half a year for my wife to join me because of visa. When I graduated from my graduate school, I had to wait for two months without pay for my worker’s visa to start to work. And my wife and I had to wait for nearly ten years to get our green card. But that summer day’s wait feels longer, and feels like I am still waiting for the evaluator to show up, to tell me that I am good enough to go to that well manicured schoolyard across the street.