Similarly unaccustomed to and still with appeals of freshness are beliefs such as: America is the land of opportunities and champion of freedom, equality -- to simply put it "the shining city on the hill" as president Regan once said. The hodgepodge of American history that David learned from time to time simmered together and formed his American dream of that night.

His dream first started as Dr. Martin Luther King stood in Washington DC giving his famous "I have a dream speech": "… Despite of all the difficulties, I still have a dream that all men are created equal". Then a voice from the above said: "all American men are created equal. American women are created differently. For many other men with passports and citizenships from other countries, they were really created with sub par standards and we really don't give a damn about them …" Then Dr. King continued to say: "today we come to the capital of the nation to cash a check ..." the voice outside of the dream started speaking again: " how could any immigrants ever cash a check in the country that does not acknowledge their existence? They would be lucky if they were not branded as criminal . . ."

Then his dream drifted to a tiny place called Point Pleasant, Ohio about 5 miles west of Cincinnati along the Ohio River where he saw a small ill repaired nearly abandoned house that was labeled as General U.S. Grant's birth place. The "rag to rich" general was the perfect example of an American citizen rising from humble roots to the highest pinnacle of the American dream. He described himself in his dying bed as: "I wonder if a man's next life is as unpredictable as this one. I never wanted to acquire ranks in the regular army, yet they came. I never had ambitions in politics, yet I was twice the president of the United States. And now I am writing a book". That was a book that would be labeled by Mark Twin as "a book that will always be remembered by all Americans as long as the Mississippi River flows to the sea". Some historians said "American needed the Great Civil War between brothers. A horrible fire that had never been seen before welded America into a nation stronger than ever". There were more facts about the leader of the union soldiers fought for the so called "emancipation of the black slaves". He was a son of a butcher born in a state considered back than as a frontier state. He was an average student who never liked West Point, but only graduated with an average grades and generally regarded as a failure before the age of close to 40. He was as common as an American there ever could be. If he showed passion and sympathy towards slaves, southern soldiers after the war or even horses through out his entire life, he did not like Chinese at all.

After the attempts to build equalities of races, at least on paper, through freeing slaves, Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, which listed Chinese along with lunatics, idiots, and leprosy patients as types of people not allowed to become US citizens no matter what kinds of contributions they have made in US. Even if General Grant didn't particularly disliked Chinese personally, but since others wanted to pass some law to exclude Chinese, what did he care? One day he wanted to banish all the Jews from serving in the Army, and he did that personally, what did he care?

It took another hundred years for former slaves from Africa to achieve fairly descent equality in the US and true equality for immigrants from all origins is not even on the agenda and probably never will be because of human nature.

Another voice ran across the dream voice with the quote from Malcolm X saying, while other people are enjoying the American dream, black people are experiencing American nightmares. Then there was another voice from Paul Harvey news and comments running cross the radio: "Jonathan Brown a US citizen of Wichita, Kansas was denied health benefit after unemployment while Jose Gonzalez of Orange County California a legal immigrant continued to gain health benefit after his unemployment. Can I become a legal immigrant? Paul (sounded like the word "Poor") Harvey, good day!" Oddly, David dreamed of himself talking to Mr. Harvey in the secondary interview/interrogation room in the airport, asking "Mr. Harvey, how do you like this room every time you want to enter the United States? I would be more than happy to let you take my legal immigrant status."

After waking up, David decided it no longer worth the trouble going to United States to look for further economic opportunities and he only wanted to try to apply TN-1 for the last time with the same documents plus a resume as officer Gurretz requested the previous day, however ridiculous the request was. If he still got denied entrance, he would have to tear apart the contract that he had signed with Bud Westwood and Burrito House and simply asked to go to his hotel room in Houston to retrieve his cloths and dirty laundries and start looking for work in some other countries. Last time he checked, it was still quite free for Canadian citizens to enter United States for visits as long as they don't "work", which always made Department of Homeland Security and this Trade or Border Protection agency allergic.

The next morning at the border, David ran into another average looking older agent who granted his entrance out of the reason: "since you have been here two times yesterday for this TN-1 visa, I am not going to give you any more troubles". It was a welcome change for David, but this made him even angrier about his being denied entrance the previous day. Did that mean the law could be compromised if an applicant tried multiple times or did it mean officers Curretz and Gurretz were simply picking on him even though he was a legitimate Canadian Chinese born business man trying to enter US for normal and legitimate business activities? He showed his resume to this new average looking agent for review and was quickly dismissed as "a resume does not mean anything. It does not have official stamp or signature", which was also the reason David thought it ridiculous when officer Gurretz asked for it the day before.

So David got granted a TN-1 visa to enter the United States for a year. He traveled to Houston for two weeks and came back home to cross the border again. He got sent to the secondary interrogation room for further questioning again, this time after a TN-1 visa. Since he had done everything he could, according to all the US/Canadian border legal documents he had read, including the TN-1 visa based on hearsay from some border agents, he totally ran out of clues as to what to do next to be able to travel like a normal business man. He waited outside of the secondary interview/interrogation room, closing his eyes and started thinking about the Korean movie 大长今. Since it was a movie about food and health along with good 'o politics, one of the lines was particularly refreshing in his mind. It was a doctor teaching a group of medical students saying: "if you want to be a good doctor, the first thing to do is to keep yourself healthy, so you can treat others. The first thing to keep yourself healthy is to learn how to breathe appropriately. Remember to breathe out as long as you can until you can no longer breathe out, then all the bad mood and bad karma would be gradually pushed out of your body. Then you would breathe in by natural tendency because air is one of the basic human needs".

David closed his eyes and tried to breathe out as much air from his lung as possible, until his lung started automatically breathe in because of the newly formed heavily negatively pressurized vacuum inside. It didn't take but seven or eight times, before he almost fell into sleep, when he heard a female agent waking him up, instead of the usual loud speaker: "hey David Chen, trying to fall into sleep on me?" David was surprised at such an opening dialogue and was almost going to say: "I do not try to fall into sleep on any female except my wife", but he quickly remembered this is the US/Canadian border and an airport. As one bus driver said before when approaching a US/Canadian land crossing: "you are approaching the US border, please take all your bags with you and go through the border before carrying them back and put them on the bus again. Remember, border agents do not have sense of humor and that is why they do what they do. Don't joke with them".

In almost any airport in the United States after 9/11 there are always loud speakers repeating "airport security is a serious matter, any joke concerning security may result in your arrests". One New Year's resolution for David in the year 2005 was not to joke about anything in any airport. Treat airport as a Chairman Mao's portrait in the era of Cultural Revolution in the 1960 and 1970's China. Those are a few things more Texas than Texas to be messed with.

The female agent with the last name of Johnson took David out of the secondary interrogation room and told him that too many people were already there; therefore she wanted David to step out of the secondary interview/interrogation room to conduct the secondary interview. Outside in the usual lineup where every passenger waited for the usual primary interview, agent Johnson closed her booth and asked David the usual questions, such as what he was going to do in this trip to the US. David gave the usual answer that he was working on a project trying to build a POS (point of sales) system for the Burrito House in Houston, Texas. The Q and A session continued on. At the end of the interview, David asked: "Does every Canadian business man going through the border to conduct business need to go through what I have gone through lately? Do you 'randomly' select them to the that secondary interview room 8 out of 10 times whenever one makes a trip to spend a weekend at home?" Agent Johnson paused for a moment and then said: "I see. You do get into this secondary interview process a lot. What can I tell you? You have one of those names that make you suspicious". David wondered which "Da Chen" from China or any Asian countries had made the news before, but couldn't remember any. To avoid name duplication, he wondered whether he should legally change his English name into the European style of "Wagnalee Kagnachi Woogentaden" or the Asian style of "Fa Kem Eethey Kan Tej Jo", both were names when he try to say "f*** them if they can't take a joke" in the "no tiki no washee" style Chinglish that he learned "from the environment for the environment".

But David wasn't going to get too hang up about the name this time and he asked: "I know that after 9/11, many visitors from many countries are required to press their fingerprint at the border if they haven't done so before. I am sure my finger prints are filed many times in your computer systems over the last 15 years. But it does not look like my fingerprints were ever used to identify me". I am always misidentified as or obscurely identified as one out of 200 people with the same name as mine. Is the finger printing requirement merely a matter of formality that looks good on paper for PR purposes or is it only used to trace where terrorists entered the border after problems happened? Does the Department of Homeland Security and Border protection have any plans of using fingerprints to actually use them practically, before terrorist attacks actually happen?"

David was afraid that he went too far on irritating agent Johnson, but to his surprise, agent Johnson found an answer for him once and for all. "Oh, speaking of using fingerprints, it is not as accurate as using iris of one's eyes as identity. Have you considered applying for the Nexus Air program? It is the kind of program designed for business persons like you. You don't have to wait behind the regular lines which cost valuable time waiting for the same questions over and over again. You could simply blow pass the line and get to the security screening part, which I imagine for you, time is money right?" David was slow into believing the existence of such a program and expressed his doubts about suggestions of applying for yet another travel document: "I have read the brochure about the Nexus Air program before. The pamphlet said it is still a beta program which will end in the April of next year. If I apply for it what will happen when the program ends?" Agent Johnson replied patiently: "well, it actually will not end next April. The only reason it is a beta program is because there was no budget to found it under none-beta programs and the money for the program had to come from somewhere. But don't worry, the program would be extended indefinitely, I am sure of it".