returning to America after a semester in China

Okay... so it's already almost April of 2003, but I wanted to post up an entry about my feelings and thoughts after I returned from China. I apologize cuz it's pretty long...

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I started writing this the day after I returned from my four months studying abroad in China. However, my desire and determination to formulate and record my feelings and thoughts on paper/computer quickly waned. I regret not writing this all down because it is impossible to look back and recollect the feelings and emotions that I had felt upon returning to America. Attempting now to formulate my thoughts just really doesn¡¯t cut it¡­but, I will do my best. Better now than never, right?

Technology is amazing, isn¡¯t it? No, I¡¯m not commenting on the marvels of the Internet or even Xanga persay, but I¡¯m talking about airplanes. (Yeah, yeah¡­so I¡¯m a bit out of touch with my generation). It¡¯s great. I hop on the plane in Beijing on July x, of course taking into account the time changes and all, and arrive back to New York on July x, the same date, and at an earlier hour than I had left. Now that¡¯s what you call not wasting any time!

Next thing I know, I¡¯m in the San Francisco airport, ready to collapse because of the ridiculously massive backpack carry-on I was shouldering. You know how the weight limit for checked in baggage is 65 or 70 pounds? Well, I would bet that my CARRY-ON weighed just about that much, well, maybe a bit less, but pretty close. So I make it through immigration, go to my brother¡¯s apartment¡­

My initial reactions upon my return to America:

1) driving is much faster and civilized here, at least in suburban type areas

2) what people say is a crappy, tiny apartment in the States is comparable to quite a luxurious place in China

3) toilet paper in America is so much softer¡­ my poor tushy¡­

4) Chinese people don¡¯t all speak Chinese in America

5) Chinese restaurants¡¯ menus are written in English and I could read and order food by myself

6) Censored news in China is really not all that bad.

Prior to going to China, I looked down upon these governmental controls as restricting the freedom and rights of the citizens. However, after arriving back in America and turning on the TV, and being immediately bombarded by crime, kidnappings, war, terror, my opinion changed¡­just briefly though. I just was not ready to be suddenly attacked by the realities of society and the world, especially after four months of separation from the society of which I had been raised.

I felt oddly out of place after I came back, to some extent because I had no idea what was going on politically and socially in the world, but more so because I felt estranged from my friends and society itself. On March 1, 2001, with uncontrollable tears rolling down my face, left my parents, embarking on this adventure to China. March passed, April, May, June, and then July came around¡­my life had changed during those four months, but the people who knew me best prior to my departure in March and whom I returned back to in July, knew very little about the good, the bad, and the exciting I experienced my past four months. My new environment was an adventure full of new things and new people entering my life, while my friends back in the States, continued with their routinized life that rotated around their academic/work schedule. My four months were far from being routinized into daily tasks and ritual deeds. Rather, I was learning, constantly growing and changing.

I returned back to the US with that same yearning for knowledge, for change and excitement, but instead, was confronted with reality. Home is home. The only thing that had changed at home was my room¡ªleft it strewn with clothes and toys that I couldn¡¯t stuff into my suitcases and now it was much, much cleaner¡­thanks to mom and dad.

Anyways, it¡¯s hard to explain my feelings in words. We had a talk about reverse culture shock before our program ended, and well, I guess I was experiencing it. Basically, I felt out of place. I felt as if I had fallen off the face of the earth, or into a four month long coma, and had now returned, awoken to a society that had barely changed. It¡¯s not that nothing changed. Remember, I left for China the semester following the disasters of September 11, 2001. Moving from life in NYC following the terror attacks very aware and vigilant of the global state, to China, a place where news is under censorship, was quite a jump. I had four months free from worrying and stressing about Al-Queda and terror and shootings and crime. Immediately upon my return, I was welcomed by kidnappings, shootings, war¡­the list goes on forever, airing 24 hours a day on television. Whatever¡­it was silly, illusionary, of me to think that the things I secretly ruminated and stressed over throughout the day living in NYC, would just somehow vanish into thin air upon my return from China four months later.

To further elicit my feelings of estrangement from society and people, let¡¯s move to my confrontation with old friends. Very understandably, I was constantly being asked, ¡°So how was it?¡± My response: ¡°It was good, it was awesome.¡± End of conversation. Quite a vague and unsatisfying response, but how am I too answer such a question? It¡¯s not that I wanted to hide anything from the person, but more of an issue of how to sum up a 4 month experience into three minutes of talk time, and how much this person truly cares to know about your whole adventure. To give the question justice, I would have to cover all facets of my experience, including 1. living in China; 2. going to school in China; 3. meeting new people there; 4. traveling through the country; 5. being a Christian there¡­ the list could literally go on forever ¨C clearly an hopeless endeavor.

Gosh, there was so much that I wanted to share with people, but just could not, save boring them to death. Only the friends I developed in China would understand and find pleasure in the things I wanted to talk about. If I had to sum up my experience in one sentence, well, it was an adventure that alienated me from the comforts and stresses of home, forcing me to explore a new environment and culture, create new friendships, and undergo an introspection of self. Simply put: it was fun and I learned a lot.