I’ve been home for two weeks now after spending five months in China, and I’m still readjusting to life in the U.S.
It feels strange driving a car, drinking tap water and sleeping on a bed that doesn’t feel like concrete — all things that I never did in China. It took a couple of days to adapt to the 13-hour time difference, but it’s taking longer to reorient myself to American culture.
Though Western influence has grown dramatically in China since my first visit 25 years ago –- from cars and clothes to music and food – most of the country remains worlds apart from middle-class America.
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Kitchens don’t have stoves, toilets can’t handle paper, refrigerators don’t make ice and clothes dryers are virtually unknown. Power outages are frequent, cigarette smoke is unavoidable, the Internet is erratic, traffic jams are endless and air pollution creates a permanent layer of smog that blocks out the sun.
Still, I miss many things about China, including cheap massages, delicious noodles, adorable children, respectful students, reliable trains, ancient traditions and an optimistic outlook that life is going to get better.
I’m looking forward to teaching another semester at Henan University of Technology, where I’ll explain baseball, Thanksgiving and Shakespeare to my students and they’ll explain tai chi, the Dragon Boat Festival and Du Fu to me. Hopefully, we’ll all be smarter in the end.
