this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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Really exhausted the last week up until like two days ago, no idea if it was the flu or something but I'm feeling better
The... currently global happenings are a bit nerve-wrecking for me as a new immigrant/expat/whatever, but otherwise things are alright. I'm trying to schedule more weekend trips/getaways in case things ever go down the drain, there's still large parts of Europe that I haven't got a chance to see so
Wair, aren't that user that was on a student visa and had to leave because of trump?
So like... how did you manage to get a visa to Europe? Transfered your studies to a European university?
Also how did you manage learn another language to like... be able to talk to the people there? (cuz I'm assuming you're didn't go to the UK, right? since UK isn't in the European Union anymore)
Yes... technically not "had to leave", but I saw the writing on the wall and tried to get the heck out the moment Trump got elected. Probably a good thing because the US job market in my field tanked over 2025. And my situation is quite complicated... Not sure if this is the best place to talk about it, but here goes nothing
Yes, but that's largely because of US' broken immigration system; if I'm not mainland Chinese I would have gotten my green card several years ago. Also the stupid thing about US student visa is that I haven't been a student for 2 years now, and even before that I was doing a PhD (with a salary and all that)... It's just that OPT is technically still a student visa by US standards even though some ppl on it are far beyond what most would imagine as a student
So unfortunately I don't have the easy path of just transferring over. Otherwise it's actually a known "life hack" to immigrate by attending university in Europe... The uni immigration path was so overused that some countries basically decided to charge full-tuition to non-EU citizens
I actually looked it up just a while back, but NL and Norway (two extremely attractive countries to expats) both charge non-reimbursed rates for international students so I think it's like € 20-30k/yr. Still cheaper than say US/UK/Aus, but it's not an amount that most families can just cough up like that. No idea about my current country of residence though
There's a reason I'm also on c/languagelearning, I'M STILL TRYING... I was fortunate enough that English is the lingua franca in my work field so there's zero language expectation for my job, but I do have a pretty strong pressure to learn French. Lots of ppl here speak English for daily tasks, but there is an implicit assumption that you should learn the local language if you want to settle
Respectfully, French is deceptively difficult to learn... But I think most people (barring some people from mainland China, for whatever reason) are not as bad at learning a foreign language as they would imagine. Especially if one is fluent in English, most of the Germanic languages (which is most of Europe) aren't that bad. Dutch is particularly easy (at least in comparison... it's still a challenge). If one somehow ended up in Finland/Poland then I could only say good luck lol
Damn... it's interesting to read about the struggles of others... I was just so lucky¹ to be born into a family that was already on the way in being approved for a Green Card Visa to the US.
My aunt petitioned her brother, aka: my father, before I was even born... idk the exact details... and the immidiate family (spouce, minor children) is allowed to come along... then my parents had me and they had to add me to the petition.
I was actually illegally born in violation of One Child Policy... parents have to pay something like ¥10,000 to ¥30,000 RMB in fines.... for my legal documents... because if they hadn't, they wouldn't be able to prove that I even legaly exist, and I wouldn'r have been able to get a passport to leave. So I really thank my parents for not abandoning me in China lol.
It constantly causes me existential crisis to think that, in another timeline, I might not have been born because of um... you know... the policy enforcers going around and they could've found my mom and then I wouldn't exist... 😖 ... anyways my mom couldn't have anymore children due to mandated 结扎 (tubal ligiation?) procedure... and she still jokes about wanting a 3rd child after we came to the US, because she said me and my older brother "不乖" ("not behaving"?)... yay mom you're sooo lovely 🙃 (wtf lol)
So... anyways... we came to the US in 2010... immediately got permanent residency... I was age 8.
Like I never knew how rare my situation is until later on when I found out there's a lot of people from 福州 that supposedly came here without permission... Damn I feel so bad for them right now under this administration's ICE bullshit...
So 5 years after we got here, mom applied for citizenship, and since I was under 18 and had a green card, I automatically derived citizenship under the Child Citizenship Act.
So... yea... that's my story
In my Highschool World Language class, I chose Chinese cuz I already had 2nd grade education in China, I remember had to like give a sort of "presentation" in Chinese for like a classword thing, and talk about my personal life... like where am I from, that sort of thing...
So I just said I immigrated on a greencard visa and then the 华裔 (ethnic Chinese) classmates were like: "So you just get to come legally here, that's easily" (in Mandarin)...
They were from 福州 and I think their parents came without permission...
So yeah...
That's when I realize how much harder others had it...
I feel so sorry many others have to struggle so much, I'm sorry about your situation, but know that I voted for Harris, many other voted for Harris... it's just such an unfortunate election result. I tried, my family member's few votes wasn't enough sway against the millions of racists and xenophobes...
(¹I mean if you count now having to live under trump's ICE bullshit as "lucky"... lets hope my US citizenship actually protect me, but I honest fear a 排华, constitution feels kinda fragil tbh)
I really should appreciate my life more, I feel so guilty for ever even considering suicide... I can't give up now after learning that others have it so much worse... it would be such a waste if I end it now, so I can't, I have to go on, I have to try, at least.
@zlatiah@lemmy.world
P.S.
I have aunts in China (Mom's Sisters) still have an application waiting to be processed. Mom petitioned for them when she got citizenship... Like 10 years ago... still being processed... and now with recent politics, that might never get approved... I mean they just added 75 countries to the ban list, they could add China next.
My Maternal Grandmother got approved much faster, just 1 year after mom got citizenship, so she's here with us now, recently just got citizenship.
Dad is still a PRC national tho... English is hard. Kinda feae my dad would get snatched by ICE one day... Grandmother had like dementia or something so they allowed her to skip the English test. Honestly I'm kinda afraid grandmother will accidentally leave the stove on one day and forger about it and gets us all killed in a fire... 😖 (electric stove, but still)
I never had a friend to share all this story with so... I feel like I had to share it here...
(yay, forever alone in this world cuz nobody wanna be my friend... not "American" enough to fit in, also not "Chinese" enough to feel confident to talk to those Mandarin speakers... 🙃)