(Food first- these are the foods I've eaten since I've gotten back where my brain has just been like OMG what do i do what do i do what do i do)
Blueberries
Real yogurt
HUMMUS
Chocolate covered raisins
Trail mix
Raisin bread
Goat cheese
SALAD
Strawberry parfait with GRANOLA
- Not being able to speak Chinese and be understood
- English
- People not understanding China or the Fulbright or my Fulbright project
- Being on the same time zone as my parents and American-based friends
- Not being on the same time zone as my Chinese friends
- Being able to go on the Internet without a Virtual Private Network (allowed my to access Facebook and Gmail this past year)
- Not being able to text in Chinese
- REN HEN SHAO- The best way I can translate this is to say, "The people are lacking!" It's a commonly used phrase in Chinese when you describe a place that is not crowded. Granted, I'm in a relatively smaller town in Colorado right now, but literally everywhere I go, I'm like, "WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE????" especially when driving, at Target, at the mall, at the grocery store, in the park, ect... Well,
- It's so quiet... So eerily quiet everywhere.... where's the honking? All the people screaming into their cell phones? Obnoxious megaphones advertising the latest sale? Salespeople at the supermarket screaming about the cheapest fruit
- People are NOT trying to rip me off, in fact they're trying to save me money! I went into a Mac repair and retail shop and they were like, "Oh, you don't need a new computer! We'll just give you a new hard drive and you'll save ~$1,000." DUH. I was in a daze after that- wait, a salesperson who sells new Mac computers just convinced me not to buy a new computer... omg. Went into a bike shop. Had a 30 minute honest conversation about the pros and cons of buying a new versus a used bike. WTF CONSUMER RIGHTS? HONESTY? what is the world coming to?
- The Sky. Is. SO. Blue. and the sun is SO bright. the air is SO clean.
- Even though it's been ~95 degrees everyday here, it's much more comfortable than Nanjing's humidity.
- Where are all the bicycles? Ok, I'm sure Boulder is a biking town in the US, but it doesn't even come close to how popular biking is in Nanjing.
- Everything is so expensive...............
- Americans are fat. Just sayin'
- Where are all the McDonalds and KFCs?
- Not having to carry toilet paper with you everywhere you go because the toilet paper is already provided
- You have to recycle on your own, no one is walking around collecting bottles for you
- SO CLEAN SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN
- US politics
- I miss people
- Electric dryers (instead of hanging your clothes up on the line)
- Automatic water heaters (instead of using gas to heat the water as you use it)
- Again, the people in this country are really lacking in numbers, I have to say
- Learning to chew with my mouth closed
- People saying "excuse me" after they burp
- Table Manners... yeah, about that...
- Wearing my seat belt
- Not needing to boil the tap water before you drink it
The hardest thing is experiencing major personal growth abroad and coming back when seemingly nothing else has changed since I left. China feels like a surreal dream and I keep wondering whether or not it was real and keep grasping onto memories that continuously want to slip away from me.
A word about the Dark Knight premiere shooting in Aurora, Colorado: Shocking, to say the least. I hope this opens our eyes to other senseless acts of violence that occur all around the world everyday and that the awareness helps prevent random acts of violence in the future. My heart goes out to everyone who has experienced and been victim to violence. It's been frightening, and shocking, to be back in a country that allows people to own guns.
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