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I never thought I would be a restaurant owner before I moved to the United States. For six years I have owned and run a fancy dine-in Thai restaurant on Long Island. When I first became a restaurant owner, it was not easy. I felt very stressed every day in the first few years, but eventually everything started to run smoothly. Despite the long hours and often feeling exhausted, I was happy because my restaurant paid my bills and took care of my family. I thought my life would continue like this until I retired, but one day everything changed.

In early 2019, a lawsuit was filed against my restaurant by one of my former cooks who had worked in my restaurant for a year. He claimed that he never got overtime pay. Unfortunately, I didn’t have certain records to prove that I had paid him overtime because I didn’t know that much about the American labor laws. I was shocked and full of regret. Why did I have to choose to be a restaurant owner? How could I be so stupid to open a restaurant without understanding the labor laws in this country? I hated this guy, who I felt was unfairly suing me, but I hated myself more. I couldn’t stop thinking about this horrible mistake. I couldn’t eat and sleep well. I was living in a daze. After I did a little research online, I realized that the only thing that I was doing wrong was that I wasn’t keeping daily time-in and time-out records for each employee.

I suddenly woke up. I told myself that I needed to know more about the United States. As an immigrant, I need to get a better education to prevent myself and my family from being injured again. I needed to improve my English, so I could understand how to run a restaurant in New York. I started trying to be positive and I knew I had to move forward and try not to look back. This is when I decided to go back to school. I graduated from high school in China in 2003. I hated school.

In China, students need to memorize most things they learn! I hated this. I never forgot how excited I was when I finished; I went to karaoke with my high school classmates for the first time, to sing our hearts out to celebrate. I joyously thought I would never be a student again in my life. Life can be surprising. Who knew I would want to go back to school 17 years later? I registered for college, but I needed to improve my English skills before taking regular college classes. My first day of class, I was really anxious. I was afraid my teacher, Vincent, would call on me to answer questions every day that I wouldn’t know how to answer. Also, I was about 10 years older than most of my classmates, so I felt extra pressure to do well. I was confident about my listening skills in English, but I had almost forgotten everything I knew about English grammar. I struggled with myself every day, but I knew that I couldn’t give up.

This feeling lasted for a while, but gradually I started to really enjoy both going to school and learning. I started to prefer studying to running the restaurant. As my English improved, I moved to a more advanced level. I found that study became completely different and more interesting than what I’d experienced before—especially in my teacher Jennifer’s class. I felt more relaxed and for the first time in my life, I could truthfully say I liked to study. I even felt content when we had to move to online learning because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In Ms. Jennifer’s class we didn’t just study English. She also taught us a lot about the difference between personal and public health, what public health professionals do, which I found really interesting, and how public health professionals help prevent outbreaks through research and education. I was fascinated to learn how public health professionals work quietly in the background of society to keep communities safe. Learning how public health professionals are like “cool health detectives” really captured my imagination.

Through this class, I not only learned English, but I also discovered that I could have a totally different career, and I didn’t have to be a business owner forever. Now, I would like to be a public health professional because in this profession, you can make such a difference to the health and safety of people in a community. I love that I have found a new career opportunity. I have found purpose in my life again. I’m surprised that so much good has come from something so bad. If I had never been sued, I would never have gone back to school, and I wouldn’t have found a new career direction for myself. Now, I fully understand the meaning of the phrases “a blessing in disguise” and “every cloud has a silver lining.” Sometimes adversity truly is a blessing in disguise.
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Hua Lin was born in Fujian, China. She immigrated to New York in 2004, became a business owner, and resides in Flushing, Queens. She dreams of international travel when she retires. She is currently a first-semester student at Queensborough Community College, where her teacher is Jennifer Ault.