My parents weren’t pleased when I told them that I wanted to move to California for university. They didn’t leave everything behind in Taiwan and Malaysia for a new life in England for their firstborn to move even farther west to the US. What could I say? This was my American dream, and I wanted to “make it”.
I applied to US colleges I had heard of in films. I studied SAT books and got a good enough score to attempt the admissions process. Things started to happen. I bunked off sixth form to attend interviews. In films these are huge moments of plot development, but it was difficult to feel that the rest of my life would be determined by a Yale interview in a Starbucks. Harvard and Princeton also took place in coffee shops, Stanford in a hotel lobby, and Columbia in a members’ club. The interviews felt anticlimactic, and I never checked the online application portal to see if I had been admitted, because I didn’t want the dream to end.
But this was the year that the University of California, Los Angeles made a mistake with its admissions process. It sent out an email about housing to candidates before they knew their applications had been successful. I called the hotline and the agent gushed: “I’ve never done this before, but congratulations, welcome to UCLA.” I hung up the phone in shock and sat on the news for a week before telling my parents, who grudgingly agreed to let me go and have this expensive adventure.
The campus was eerily pristine; if there was a leaf on the ground it would be swept up almost immediately. No wonder, because the campus was literally a film set. This was where Buffy the Vampire Slayer went to college and Elle Woods checked into Harvard in Legally Blonde. Hip-hop dancers had dance-offs in car parks and the marching band practised on the athletics field.
I rushed a sorority, meaning I tried to join one. They had an elaborate invitation-only process: interviews, a fete, then a formal reception. The sisters wore matching cocktail dresses and sang their sorority song in quavery, earnest, off-key voices. I tried to catch someone’s eye but no one else thought this was funny. Clearly these were not my people, so I left before they sang any more songs.
I did, however, live in a fraternity house. During the summer they let the rooms cheaply when some of the brothers go home. My shoes stuck to the beer-stained floor and I would walk to the student union for the bathroom because the frat one was so grim.
Everyone was networking and selling themselves as a “brand”. One student wore a suit everywhere because he said you never knew when you might have a job interview. Looking at the efforts my peers were making to stay in the US, I knew I wasn’t as bothered and mentally started letting go.
LA is a tricky place – full of good-looking people who are a big deal in their home towns and have moved to Hollywood to try to make it in the entertainment industry. It’s transactional, with people always looking over your shoulder in case something better comes along. In my last summer maybe I should have travelled more, but instead I helped out at a friend’s restaurant and a customer yelled at me because her hot soy milk wasn’t hot enough.
The US government gives international students a grace period of about three months after graduation to tie up loose ends. I milked this by booking my flight back to London on the second to last day. Coming home, I refused to sleep in my teenage bedroom. I was afraid that I would wake up and feel as if the past few years had been a dream. I missed my friends, professors and the sunny California disposition, but I felt incredibly relieved to be back among irreverent and witty Britons.
Before I left the US, I applied for graduate schools in the UK. Mum encouraged me to accept an offer from the London School of Economics, as that was the school my dad had hoped to do his PhD at if I hadn’t been born and he hadn’t been in a hurry to make money. It was as if I was being passed a baton to continue some of my family’s aspirations. Ultimately it wasn’t just about my own dreams any more – American or otherwise.
Last year I went back to the US for the wedding of a classmate; she had gone on to meet her husband on her PhD course. It’s easy to think about the “what could have been?” if I had stayed. Despite having faced the reality of American life, there’s still something that draws me back. I’m happy to be home in the UK, but I’m also excited for a short trip to the States next week. It’s hard to shake a teenage dream.
Elaine Chong is a broadcast news journalist and documentary film-maker at the BBC
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