Today marks the end of my first month in China. It seems like I’ve been here a lot longer. It’s amazing how quickly you can acclimate to a radically different culture and way of life.

Already, I’ve grown accustomed to hanging my clothes to dry, eating noodles or rice every day, drinking hot water, dodging electric scooters, living without TV or radio, losing in pingpong, eliciting giggles from store clerks when I start speaking English, watching children go to the bathroom in public, greeting people by saying “kneehow’’ instead of hello, boiling water to wash fruit, carrying around toilet paper, ordering at restaurants by pointing to pictures on the menu, using yuan instead of dollars, the magnetic smiles of Chinese children, NYC-like traffic jams, paying less than $3 for dinner, understanding strange pronunciations of English words, the surprising skill of local basketball players, meeting eccentric expats from all over the world, and the kindness and generosity of Chinese people.

If the next nine months are as educational as the first, I’ll leave China a very wise man.