Homecoming

pending years in a foreign country changes everything.Many things change while you’re gone and you change as well.All of your old friends have continued their lives, while you started a new one that they cannot even start to comprehend.At times I now feel strange back in the United States, because I’m looking at things from a new perspective.

First let me start with the new popular trends that are out of control over here.The no carbohydrate diet has taken over the supermarket shelves.Everything from bread to salad dressings has “low carb” written on the packaging.The funny thing about Americans is we can’t seem to figure out why we’re getting fat so fast.Yet our entire lives center around the automobile.We won’t walk even one block from our homes.If that’s not bad enough gas is through the roof at $2 a gallon.Now many people have woken up to the unhealthiness of fast food hamburgers, so instead we eat salads topped with dressing that’s almost equal in terms of unhealthiness.Rather than changing our diet we think eating the same things is okay if the package says reduced fat.

Perhaps these are not new aspects of the United States, but I can see some new things clearly in myself.For one thing I am bored out of my mind.In China there’s such an abundance of people that you’re never alone.Looking back to when I first arrived in China that was something that bothered me.Newly arrived foreigners in China will often experience a loss of privacy. Now that I’m back in the United States it’s scary to be alone for extended periods of time.I got used to people constantly calling me and enjoyed the constant company of my friends.Now it seems that I have to find a friend to do anything.Yesterday when I decided to go to the bookstore to do some reading, I found myself picking up the phone to ask a friend to come with me. In the United States there are long periods of silence when you are sitting in your home.For me, friends in China constantly surrounded me.Now that I’m back in the United States I really miss my Chinese friends.Night after night I find myself chatting with my friends back in China -- I’m dreading the arrival of the phone bill at the end of this month.Another aspect of friendship in the United States is that every person is responsible for his or her own happiness.My friends here are not constantly trying to cater to my every need the way friends did back in the China. Americans tend to look out for themselves.There’s also a sense of pessimism that permeates American society, which I can see manifested in my friends.At times in China I felt that people were babying me when they tried to help with simple things.However, now I miss that expression of kindness.

In the United States I live in a vast development in the midst of South Miami, yet it’s not impressive to me.The building I live in is lavishly landscaped, with a parking garage attached to the apartments. When I drive on Interstate 95, the huge infrastructure doesn’t turn my head.Construction projects in the US are often viewed with disdain, causing traffic delays and excessive noise.In sharp contrast, China is a developing country where every newly erected building and bridge is greeted with happiness.While in China, I took careful notice of new building projects and marveled at even slight improvements.The difference here is not the development in the two countries, but rather the attitude.We’ve had this sort of development in the United States for so long that we almost take it for granted.In China this sort of development is a relatively new thing.

Another possible explanation for how I saw things in China might be that I was inexperienced in China.Every person that I met was a key to understanding Chinese culture.Likewise, when they met me they saw me as a key to understanding my culture.In the United States, the comfort of familiarity does not lend itself to adventurous or exploratory instincts.Everything in China was a learning opportunity.

After leaving and coming back I sort of feel like an outsider because I learned so many things about China and myself, yet no one around me in the United States could start to understand.The greatest irony is that after so much difficulty in being literally understood in China, I return home to a different kind of miscommunication.Everyone here at home understands what I say, but cannot understand what I am thinking.I am facing culture shock in my own culture, unsure of how to assimilate myself.