It's just that he managed to shrug it off. "When I first came to America, I was young and excluded, so I kept to myself a lot and didn't relate to others," he recalls. Back then, he faced discrimination trying to rent an apartment and even in riding the bus. One professor refused to call him by name, referring to him as "Chinaman" instead.
「我剛來的時候，年紀輕、環境又有排斥，所以很少與人來往，十分閉鎖」，田長霖回憶起剛到美國那幾年，坐車、租屋都受歧視，有位白人教授甚至不屑喊他名字，是以「中國佬」（China Man）叫他。