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This is Belle Chiu 

Belle Chiu was a first grader living in Taipei, Taiwan her whole life when she received a letter acknowledging her she was applicable to go to the US thanks to the help of her grandmother, who had been in US before for her own reasons. Life in Taiwan had been great, there were schoolmates, that she considered as friends having been with her for 2 years. Still, she felt she was different there. "I didn't have many friends, I felt like I'm an outsider," she says. She was very fortunate to have nice parents, although her mother was more strict in Taiwan than she is now. On weekends she would do workbooks which now she does not do so anymore. School lunch was considerably better, comparing to the school food in the US. "Healthy," she calls it. On Wednesdays, though a odd combination, they would serve spaghetti and steamed bread.

After six to seven months of preparing, they were ready. Along through the plane trip came her doll, and some stuffed animals, which she charitably gave away. Her cousin was already living here, so she, her sister and two other cousins occupied one room, while her parents occupied the other.

 Life in the U.S. is okay, neither good nor bad for Belle. "Everyone considers [people from Taiwan] as a Chinese, not a Taiwanese," she says, "people consider all asians are from China." She resides in Rowland Heights currently. Before, when she first came here, she went to Jellick but she skipped third grade. She met her best friend, "Sunny" in 4th grade where they met from both having a lot to talk about. Now 13 years old in 8th grade, she currently goes to a middle school called Alvarado. For thoughts on going back, she's willing to go back to Taiwan for vacation, but not willing to stay permanently in Taiwan, staying here for this length of time has taken away the ability to write Chinese. For the "life lesson", here in the US is full of spiders, she was minorly afraid of spiders, but being here has hopefully taken away the fright. She also learned the ability to cook. According to Belle, "learning English the best you can" was the best way to adjust to the US, "As a student, learning is the only things that you can do."