Interview: Chinese Delivery Man 'Charley' Interview

Although Charley says it has been difficult, he is proud of the work ethic his delivery experience has given him. "I'm also much more frugal than anyone else I know my age, because I think, whenever I spend money, how long it's going to take the restaurant to earn that money back."

Liu's father and mother were not in the restaurant business before they came to America. Liu's parents were both engineers, and met when they were going to the same university. However, they were not able to transfer their qualifications to the United States. Charley only vaguely remembers going to school in China, and says he has never gone back to his native country. However, someday he would like to return for a visit, and to see the family members he has only heard about, never met.

For his parents, the hardest transition to America was learning the language. Charley says he quickly picked up English in kindergarten, and often was asked to speak or to translate for his parents when they were engaged in more complex business dealings. Because the restaurant absorbed so much of their time, Liu said, neither of them had achieved the fluency in English which they hoped to achieve at the time they immigrated to the United States. However, they were proud of their son's bilingualism. Charley said that what he liked best about America was the fact that his parents had been rewarded for their hard work; what he liked least was the fact that because of the language barrier, he felt that people did not always appreciate his parents' intelligence and accomplishments. After all, they had lived the American dream and come over from China with nothing, and built their own enterprise in a difficult industry. The loss of family and job security was hard for the Liu family, but they struggled and overcame these difficulties.

Charley continues to work in his family restaurant, while he attends a city school part-time. He hopes to get a degree in engineering and says that while he enjoys working for his parents, he does not want to make a permanent career in the restaurant business. The hours are often long and tiring, and sometimes he is afraid of the potential dangers of delivering to customers late at night, given that he has heard about some delivery men getting severely hurt. He always carries a cell phone and calls someone at the restaurant if he feels at risk.

Charley says he has no time for a girlfriend at present, but perhaps when he graduates from school and gets a job with more regular hours, he might have time for a steady one. He lives with his parents to save money. Although his friends and interests are more diverse than his parents' he says that he accepts the demands of his time-pressed life due to the respect he feels for his family obligations and culture.