The Power of Hard Work
I believe in the power of hard work. I was born Chinese and raised American. My father moved here when I was three while my mother, my brother, and I were still in China. We were living with my grandmother in a little house in the city. When my father moved here and got a job, he worked in a restaurant as a chef. He started sending us money every month. Eventually we moved out of our grandmother’s house and got our own larger house. My dad came back home once in a while to visit us, and brought presents too.
A few years later my mom, my brother, and I moved to America, to finally live with my dad. After we first got there, we landed in New York City. My other grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins lived there at that time. So my dad came to New York City to pick us up. We lived and went to school there for a year, and then we moved to Peru, Illinois to live with my mom’s brother and his family. They owned their own little restaurant and wanted my parents to work there, and so they did for a couple of years. My mom was a waitress there and my dad was a chef. They worked twelve hours a day and got one day of break out of the whole week. I still remember to this day that my dad had Mondays off, and he always took my brother and me fishing on the Illinois River. My mom would take us shopping and buy us all these clothes. My aunt and uncle were very nice to us too; they always gave us fun birthday parties.
My parents finally decided to open their own restaurant in a small town called Princeton, and so they did. It took a long time to renovate the building before it could finally open. We traveled from Peru to Princeton, thousands of times it seemed.
After a few months it was complete. We finally moved to Princeton. While my parents work at the restaurant, my brother and I go to school. We have a nice, big house and everything we need thanks to my parents hard work. From watching my parents work their way up, I learned that hard work pays off. I love them so much for all they have done, and I hope that one day I can follow in their footsteps.