Friday, August 13, 2010

My Final Light Fellowship Post-Top Tens

It's been about a week since CET Hangzhou ended and while I'm slowly adjusting back to reality (relatively speaking since I'm still in Europe and on summer vacation so not quite reality) and life away from China and all of the wonderful people I met there. I realize that my blog has been overwhelmingly positive (because my experience was incredible), but for fairness sake, my last post will attempt to be a little more balanced.

With that said, I've painstakingly created two top ten lists about my experience. The first list is things I missed while in China and the second, things I will miss about China. The order doesn't reflect importance. I can't include everything here, but hopefully it'll give you an idea of some of the lifestyle differences.

Enjoy!

Things I Missed While in China
1.) Salads (I definitely started to eat cucumbers mixed with vinegar everyday when I got sick of stir fry.)
2.) The ease of lining up (or rather, the existence of lines)
3.) Fair and consistent pricing by shop vendors
4.) Clean air and less-congested roads
5.) Not having to use VPN to get on Facebook and other sites
6.) Not going overboard with blunt honesty (at times, Chinese honesty can be too much)
7.) Having 9 AM classes at Yale (8 AM everyday and then 6 AM gongfu?)
8.) Not having to worry about food sanitation (not that I really worried, but you know that food is much cleaner in the US)
9.) Napkins (such a small thing, but the cafeteria rarely had them and at cheaper restaurants they just give tissues)
10.) Finding places to recycle (granted when you throw your bottle in the trashcan, it's going to be picked out a few minutes later by someone who will sell it for money, but still)

Things I Will Miss about China
1.) Cheap food prices (and yummy food!)
2.) Night markets, day markets, and stores where bargaining is routine
3.) Majiang
4.) The nightlife (Chinese clubs are definitely more fun, less sketchy, and open longer)
5.) Milk tea (so I'm still not a tapioca person, but you don't have to be in China!)
6.) The ease of public transportation
7.) Tip does not exist (not even for takeout) and food comes out extra fast
8.) The ease of paying for bills (family style makes for extremely easy bill-splitting)
9.) All of the fun places to explore!
10.) Using Chinese all the time and fitting in

Playing majiang!

Culture meets city. It's definitely an experience living in such a rapidly developing city with so many scenic and historical sites.

1 comment:

  1. Excellent Top 10's! Looks like you had an amazing summer. Well done. =)

    ReplyDelete