Sometimes it feels surreal

When you visit a foreign country everything feels exciting and anything can be a souvenir.  When we went to Germany I recall taking a sugar packet home with me because it had the name of a restaurant on it.  When we first visited China a couple of years ago we wanted to eat, see, and do things that were "really Chinese".  A foreign friend told me where to get good "American like" t-shirts and I thought "Why would I want to buy that kind of stuff?"  But, when you live in a foreign country your mentality can easily go from feeling loathe to return home, to longing for it in every way.  Now every little thing you have from your home country becomes the souvenir.  From my Dr. Pepper chapstick to packets of Emergen-C, what once was common place is now a special treat that reminds me of home.  If you happen to use one of these small items from "home" around a Chinese person it only amplifies the feeling.  They absolutely love to see the words "Made in the U.S.A" on a product.  This is a dangerous feeling to succumb to if you are trying to enjoy your new home.  Longing for home or feeling that where you were before was a better place will not let you fully enjoy your current surroundings.  I like to remind myself that I spent 30 years in America and in all likelihood I will end up spending more time there in the future so why not treasure every moment I have abroad?  I know someday I will look back on this time and wish I could do it again.  Today I walked outside, looked around, and thought "This is China.  I am living in China and speaking Chinese.......that's pretty cool."

American's have money

I've pretty much got used to people staring at me or randomly yelling out "Hello!" as I walk by.  But one thing I'll never get used to is people telling me I have money or asking me how much money I make.  The usual conversation goes something like this "你是哪国人？"(What country are you from?) "我是美国人。"(I'm American）"噢，美国人有钱。“ (Oh, Americans have money)  I'll usually try to tell them not every American has money but they don't believe me.  If they don't outright state that American's have money they will ask me what I do for work and then ask me how much money I make per hour.  I usually just go ahead and tell them how much I charge for one hour of teaching.  One day a guy then told me how much that should come to every month.  I then had to explain my work schedule and why his estimate was wrong.  I thought, why do I have to explain all this to strangers?  That same day I was trying to buy a pretty silk scarf from a guy with a cart on the street.  We started to have this same conversation but when he asked me how much money I make per hour I just smiled and said “我不会告诉你” (I'm not going to tell you)  He laughed.  Then his wife walked up and told him I should buy two scarves.