By Qien Huang, April 14, 2019 — When I used to work at a restaurant in Long Island, I had to take the train there. I used to work in a lot of places like New Jersey, Chinatown, and everywhere. I didn’t know how to take the train though. I asked my friends how do I use it and they would ride the train back home with me to Chinatown. I only had one day off a week. So instead of traveling back and forth daily to go home, I would only go home on that one day. I would live with my coworkers from the restaurant. My boss would help me take the train back at 34th Street. We had to keep transferring to so many trains. It was so bothersome for the both of us after we got lost. He just left me after a while to fend for myself. I didn’t speak English that well but I could recognize the letters on the train like E, F and G. I recognized Jackson Heights so I sat on the E train but don’t know which way to walk. There was uptown or downtown but they both look exactly the same to me. I was given directions to come back to work but I had no idea how to get back. I ended up at 42nd st waiting for a train. This Chinese person started talking to me asking for directions to get to the hospital to see his friend. He said he got robbed while he was sleeping so he has no way of getting there. He asked for $20 and said he would mail me the money back to my address when he got it. I wrote my address and gave him the $20 because I felt bad. He lied to me. I never got my money back. New York back then was full of crooks and scammers, even more direct than nowadays.
So anyways, I got to Jackson [Hieghts] and there’s a train waiting at the station already so I quickly hop in. It turns out that it was the wrong train. I called my work to get directions and someone nearby helped me navigate. My boss asked where I was and told me to wait. This guy who just came from Hong Kong told me to take the bus to the restaurant and told me not to run away. He gave me a paper with directions on one side and the name of the restaurant on the other. I finally got to the restaurant at 4 pm. The guy drove me there after I got off the train.