I’ve been here for over four months now, and I’m really growing pretty attached to my city. My city is uniquely known for its spicy food and hot weather, so sometimes I affectionately refer to it as Hot ‘n’ Spicy. Before this, I had never lived in a city, and combined with the fact that I’m in a third world country, it’s been very different! Let me tell you how…
You know you’re here in my shoes when:
• you walk to the supermarket at noon and develop a headache halfway there because of the thick fog of exhaust fumes
• you've learned to take the phrase "You're so white!" as a compliment
• you go for a walk and someone asks if they can take their picture with you because you’re a foreigner
• you often sniffle after eating because of the spiciness
• you can smell the public bathroom from a mile away, yet there’s not a single leaf on the pavement at 6 am
You know you’re here in my shoes when:
• you walk to the supermarket at noon and develop a headache halfway there because of the thick fog of exhaust fumes
• you've learned to take the phrase "You're so white!" as a compliment
• you go for a walk and someone asks if they can take their picture with you because you’re a foreigner
• you often sniffle after eating because of the spiciness
• you can smell the public bathroom from a mile away, yet there’s not a single leaf on the pavement at 6 am
• you don’t want to teach your friends the English names of the foods they’re eating because you think it might scare off other foreigners (intestines, black fungus, etc.)
• your bathroom is flooded with water 24-7 because the showerhead is just stuck straight on the wall and the drain is actually positioned higher than the rest of the floor
• your friends are passionately convinced that drinking tea with milk in it is bad for your digestion, yet they have no qualms about eating msg in everything
• You’re sitting on a park bench at night. There’s a woman practicing taiqi exercises in front of you, a class lecture echoing through a nearby window, and a couple whispering on another bench; and you think, “This is a good, quiet place to be alone.”
• you receive a message on your phone that says, “You today to my mother to buy beef for you day after tomorrow,” and you realize that you have to say ok, even though you have no idea what you're agreeing to (not a fictional story)
Now, I'll post some long-awaited pics. The first one is from our visit to a beautiful mountain with a friend and her uncle's family in October. The next is with the same friend while her uncle is asking a local buddhist priest to tell his fortune. They did this by drawing a few sticks out of a container and looking up their meaning in a booklet. The last picture is the family's daughter, a real cutie.
• your bathroom is flooded with water 24-7 because the showerhead is just stuck straight on the wall and the drain is actually positioned higher than the rest of the floor
• your friends are passionately convinced that drinking tea with milk in it is bad for your digestion, yet they have no qualms about eating msg in everything
• You’re sitting on a park bench at night. There’s a woman practicing taiqi exercises in front of you, a class lecture echoing through a nearby window, and a couple whispering on another bench; and you think, “This is a good, quiet place to be alone.”
• you receive a message on your phone that says, “You today to my mother to buy beef for you day after tomorrow,” and you realize that you have to say ok, even though you have no idea what you're agreeing to (not a fictional story)
Now, I'll post some long-awaited pics. The first one is from our visit to a beautiful mountain with a friend and her uncle's family in October. The next is with the same friend while her uncle is asking a local buddhist priest to tell his fortune. They did this by drawing a few sticks out of a container and looking up their meaning in a booklet. The last picture is the family's daughter, a real cutie.
Please lift us up, as well as our friends!
