Dear Dad and Mom,
I've received your letter. I'm so happy to hear that Dad's axial flow fan design turned out so well. Keep up the great work!
1 But please make sure to get some rest too. It's important to strike a balance between work and life, and don't skimp on your meals.
I'm enclosing another batch of negatives with this letter. They were all taken in Philadelphia, New York, and Atlantic City. In the photos, that Indian-style building by the beach is the Taj Mahal, a casino in Atlantic City. The Statue of Liberty is located on a small island in New York City, so you have to take a boat to get there. That's why some of the pictures were taken from the water.
Work at Bell Labs is going well. I'm responsible for completing a software project. Most of my work involves designing and implementing algorithms in C++. We get paid weekly. My take-home pay is $613 a week after taxes; before taxes it's $761. So you can see they hit you pretty hard with taxes here.
2 I'll be working for about fifteen weeks, which means I should earn more than $9,000 after tax before the summer is over. I actually just got another credit card here in New Jersey with a $5,000 credit limit. They must think I'm a permanent employee! It'll come in handy when it's time to pay next semester's tuition.
Speaking of permanent employees, without a Ph.D. it's almost impossible to get a job at Bell Labs unless you're hired as a consultant like Jim. Consultants make better money, but they're essentially temporary employees rather than permanent staff, so the work is less stable. Quite a few Chinese engineers at Bell Labs are consultants, whereas the permanent staff are all scientists with Ph.D. degrees.
In my department at Bell Labs, there are only two Americans; everyone else comes from all over the world. We have people from Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, India (quite a few of them), Turkey, the Middle East, and Europe. It's pretty cool—almost like a miniature United Nations. At our department picnic, we even got to sample dishes from every corner of the world.
While I'm completely tied up this summer, my winter break should be much quieter, so I might finally be able to come home for a visit. A round-trip ticket shouldn't cost more than a thousand dollars. Besides, if I start working full-time next year, I'll likely have even fewer opportunities to go back. It's just an idea at this point—let me know what both of you think.
3
Chun and I have both agreed that things between us didn't work out. We simply don't have strong enough feelings for each other to overcome the 1,500 miles between us. As for my personal life, I think this is something I'll have to figure out for myself here in the United States.
Give my best to Wang Wei, Xiao Fan, and little Yueyue.
4
Tong
07/04/96