When Chinese-born Yan Mulligan was working for China Mobile in Beijing, she knew her language and culture and how to navigate her world. In her mind, she knew all she would ever need to know.
Then she met an America man on the internet and, after nearly a year of corresponding from a distance, married him when he traveled to China to meet her for the first time.
“He was crazy,” Mulligan says. “But he was also brave.”
Mulligan drew from her own well of courage when she left the only life she had known and in 2002 and moved to not just America but the New York City borough of Queens to be with her new husband, photographer Rob Mulligan.
Suddenly, Mulligan recalls, she knew nothing. The language, the culture, the way people navigated the world around them – even the sounds she heard and the air she breathed – were foreign to her.
“People love America; everyone wants to come here,” she says, her voice just a few notches above a whisper. “But I didn’t know what I was getting into. It was a completely different world.”
In an effort to soften the transition, Mulligan’s spouse suggested they visit Chinatown, where she could be around people she understood. But once they were there, she was still lost.
“I’m from the north, and most of the people in Chinatown are from the south, so they speak a different language. They even eat different food. So I was in two strange worlds; one was southern Chinese and the other was American.”
Mulligan learned English in school growing up, but she says anyone who has struggled to learn a foreign language will understand it involves more than learning to read, write and speak unfamiliar words; it also entails becoming familiar with the culture of its native speakers.
Essentially, even though Mulligan could understand English, she needed to learn to speak New Yorker.
“I needed to learn more than English, I needed to learn how to communicate with the people around me,” she explains. “I needed to learn the dirty words and the American jokes.”
Mulligan’s husband lent a hand with the jokes.
“He would tell me when I should laugh, and I would tell him when something wasn’t funny to me because Chinese culture considered it to be serious.”
As Mulligan strived to assimilate, she experienced her share of awkward moments she says are common among foreign-speaking immigrants.
“I had a hard time understanding even ‘good morning,’” she admits. “I would go, ‘Uh, huh,’ because my brain was still processing what the person had said.
“I was nervous all the time. I always felt like I didn’t catch what someone had said and I was afraid of misunderstanding someone.”
Faced with language and cultural barriers, Mulligan did the only thing she could: She drew more courage from her well and started fresh.
“I had some life experience, so I knew I could learn how to deal with these things,” she points out.
Yan says the first thing she tried to do was “melt in.” Immigrants don’t have to change themselves completely, she adds, but they do need to embrace their new culture.
A job as a translator for a large dental insurance company provided Mulligan with her best opportunity to “melt in.” Each day, she met people who had arrived from China, knew only a little English, and were as lost and nervous as she had been, and helped them to navigate obstacles.
The work gave Mulligan her footing on American soil, as well as a purpose. “Helping new immigrants made me really happy,” she says.
As Mulligan slowly acclimated to life in American, she clung to the parts of herself she didn’t want to lose, including the way she interacts with others.
“There are things I will never change,” she says. “I will never raise my voice or argue with people. Chinese people don’t like to fight or become loud. That sometimes gives people the impression that we are shy or reserved, but what is the point of arguing and becoming mad?”
Mulligan shares a Chinese word that expresses her response to conflict better than any of the English words she knows: xin shi ning ren, which she says means to calm down and minimize an issue, which in turn helps the other person to calm down.
“In other words, don’t throw gasoline on a fire,” she clarifies. “Arguing is not always the way to solve a problem.”
Critically, Mulligan also held on to her love for Chinese cuisine. “I am not into American food,” she says with a rare laugh.
After 10 years in Queens, Mulligan had once again learned how to navigate the world around her. Although she was still discovering new things every day, she felt confident and comfortable interacting with the people around her.
And then the American man Mulligan had met on the internet said he wanted to return to his hometown of Chattanooga. After agreeing and moving south with him, she once again discovered she had much to learn.
“The southern accent,” she says, shaking her head. “Oh, boy.”
As in New York City, Mulligan’s work gave her a foundation on which she built self-assurance and learned about the strange world around her. Instead of serving as a translator, though, she handled administrative tasks related to her husband’s real estate photography business.
In time, Mulligan became interested in becoming a Realtor herself and, at the end of 2018, she earned her license and hung it at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Realty Center in Hixson.
There, she learned the meaning of the term “southern hospitality.”
“Everyone was very helpful. Whenever I had a question, no matter how simple it was, or even if it was silly, they would take it seriously and help me with no obligation,” Mulligan reports. “I had question after question after question, but they were patient and continued to help me.”
Although Mulligan serves many Chinese-born clients, she says it’s been her pleasure to serve clients of many different ethnicities.
“I don’t see a person’s race, I see my client,” she says. “I don’t see that someone is this color or that color. We are simply two people coming together to help each other.
“I help you find your dream house, or I sell your house and help you buy another house, and that helps my business. Every transaction makes our lives better, so I’m happy to being doing this work.”
Mulligan says she has encountered difficult clients (she says the word “difficult” twice, emphasizing it more the second time), as well as problems with a transaction, but when this has occurred, she’s relied on one the unfailing concept of xin shi ning ren.
“I turn around, breathe, turn around again and continue my work,” she says. “If you don’t throw a temper tantrum and are open to talking with the other person, you can solve any problem.”
Mulligan clings to this part of herself, even when she encounters what she says she believes is discrimination. While she has not suffered any of the extreme expressions of racism her friends in New York City have experienced since the beginning of the pandemic, she says mild forms of discrimination are ever-present in her work.
Even so, Mulligan says she has not allowed this to change who she is.
“My husband and I were talking with our kids about this, and I said the world is getting better every day. Do I think it will ever be perfect? No, but I told them to try their best to make tomorrow better than yesterday.”
To do her part to build a better tomorrow, Mulligan devotes some of her free time to volunteering with the Chinese Association of Chattanooga. In addition to serving as a board member, she teaches a Chinese language class.
“A lot of people need help, and I want to provide it.”
A chance meeting on the internet swept Mulligan away from her native country and brought her to a strange and foreign place. But she pressed through each challenge, adapting to a new culture even as she held on to who she is.
And today, she proud to be an American citizen and to be helping people make their dream of owning a home come true.
“I love America. If you haven’t lived under a communist government, then you won’t be able to understand how much I appreciate my freedom.”