Kelvin, The Nelson Gang

Kelvin, like so many immigrants, has a survivor’s spirit. After thirty years spent living in Hong Kong, he realized he just couldn’t continue on the way he was. He was getting older and realized that the exhausting long hours—many times overnights—that he worked at his engineering job in China were unsustainable. In China, no matter how much you give, it’s never enough. Mental health was not even a term in his vocabulary.

“But I am not so young anymore,” he says. “My body cannot do this.”

As I am talking to Ming about how China is viewed in the US, she says “We Chinese are told what to do from birth. All the time, we have to do what parents say, then teachers, then bosses. We never get choice. You think these people are going to take over the world? No, we cannot even ask to take our lunch!”

This is what makes it so impressive that Kelvin made a choice. He decided to disconnect from this way of life, this exploitative soul-sucking slog. He moved to New Zealand to study a masters and rediscover why he chose to be an engineer in the first place. He tells me about his thesis which examined the soil properties of a river in Christchurch and how he enjoys his job here with its relaxed pace and more flexible schedule. He plays tennis on the weekends and is a vibrant member of the flat.

I am in awe of Kelvin’s courage. I admire his tenacious spirit that wouldn’t let him hand over his humanity to a corporation even when everything around him was telling him that that’s what he should do. How many people are able to identify when a situation isn’t working for them? How many people are able to find and follow through on a solution? How many people are able to leave their homeland, their family, their culture, their language, their history, and the comfort of being surrounded by people who look like you? Self conscious over his English proficiency, knowing no one and knowing that he might face racism and prejudice in New Zealand, Kelvin booked a one way ticket. I imagine that he, like me, was unprepared for the enormity of the experience of leaving home and didn’t truly realize what it entailed until he was already living a different life. I imagine it took quite a bit of courage and a dash or two of desperation.

Well guess what, Kelvin? This is just the beginning of a bright and fabulous future. Your life and your time are your own now and you get to do whatever you want with them. You get to pursue happiness.

I am pleased when Kelvin pushes his boundaries to hang out with us on my last night in Nelson. He has never been out at night and definitely not to a bar so we kick off the night by playing pool at a country bar. He is good at it but the rest of us are terrible. I get bored of things I’m not immediately good at and besides, the music is too loud, so I make us leave and we run across Nelson to climb trees around the obelisk in the middle of town. I’m sure Kelvin is extremely baffled by how westerners have fun because our next stop is the beach to chase rabbits and climb the rugby pole before heading to a nearby field to pet the goats and wade through a storm drain tunnel.

Kelvin is still trying to find his footing in his new life and understandably so. How do you build a fulfilling life when you have been denied the foundations for it your entire life? How do you begin to find personal fulfillment when you have been told your whole life that your only purpose is to contribute to the collective, and that your happiness does not matter? It’s one step at a time and Kelvin has already tackled some of the biggest obstacles. I am proud of him and I am excited to see what comes next; how he will blossom with his freedom.