a New home : Jackson, Michigan (1)

The last two weeks i have been staying in the US. I spent 3 days in Dc and then fly to Detroit, Michigan. I will do my fellowship program in Jackson County, its about 1.5 hours from Detroit. I know nothing about Jackson, not at all. When I google Jackson the first thing that shows up was prison. Jackson has state prison and they used some part of it as a museum. It makes me wonder, “really? a prison?? What the other thing to do in Jackson?”

Jackson county, a small county 160.000 people. At first i though that Jackson is really empty. They don’t have traffic (which is good). They have so many empty space, front yard, back yard, park, lake, forest, green area and just a place i would love to lay down all day reading a book. at some point, with this kind of situation, i get bored. live in Surabaya with 2 millions people and noise, traffic and people talking, i miss all of that. Jackson is really different from Surabaya.

I stay in Holiday Inn hotel outside of the city so people have to come pick and drop us back every day. Jackson is not walk-able, being a city were the cars are manufactured, nobody walk here or biking. You have to have a car to survive Jackson. This is also my main problem here, i don’t have car so basically other than work, i kind of stuck at the hotel. There are not many Asian people in Jackson, so me and Jan (my Thai friend) keep feeling that maybe we are the only Asian at town.

But the people, don’t ask, they are the warmest people i have ever known. “good morning”, “have a nice day” are the kind of words i have to say over and over again because every body keep saying that, even a total strangers. Visiting Ellesharp museum is a great place to learn about Jackson history. Jackson was a bigger city than it is now. There were a lot of factories, manufacture, and company based in Jackson. People came to Jackson for work but after several years, something happen I’m not really sure related to the workers union or something, so a lot of these company move from Jackson, living Jackson half empty. Wandering around Jackson, especially in the city will make you back into 50 years ago.

But now, the city of Jackson has rise and try to fix it self. A lot of construction at the downtown, they build several new building, torn down the old one, they fix the road and they all have the same vision to change Jackson and bring it back its glory. And indeed, Jackson is pretty, i love the green space, i love the old houses, i love the people, but i hate the weather.