It feels like you had closed your eyes only five minutes ago
when a blaring horn wakes you up. You
check the clock and see it’s one freakin’-o-clock in the morning and your
Chinese neighbor’s at it again, honking his horn to wake up his wife and open
the door for him. For the nth time you
think, “Why can’t he just give her a ring on the house phone?!?!?!” You cover your head with your pillow and
start counting in your head all the eggs you’re throwing at the neighbor’s car
until you fall back asleep.
You’re startled awake, confused at the jack-hammering sound
your alarm clock is making. Then you
realize your alarm hasn’t even gone off yet; your best guess is there’s a
construction down the street, but you don’t understand why they have to start
at six a.m.! You give up on getting
another hour of sleep and spend half an hour in the shower; the cold water
helps soothe your raw nerves.
The walk through the park on your way to work is usually a
pleasant one. This morning, however,
there’s a toddler squatting and taking a dump beside a flower bed right across from
the public restroom! And his grandmother
is simply standing idly beside him, waiting for him to finish. Because you were distracted, you nearly
stepped on a puddle of slimy spit. Oh,
it’s not even nine a.m. yet and the day’s not looking good already!
You arrive at the preschool where you teach English to four-
to six-year-old Chinese kids. You go
through the morning routine and get them settled. You hear one child coughing and remind him to
cover his mouth. Another child sneezes
and you remind her what she’s supposed to do.
You feel frustrated trying to teach the children basic hygiene in school
but the habits seem impossible to instill in them when their parents don’t
follow through at home.
At the end of the school day, you’re feeling very tired due
to lack of sleep and you feel like you’re coming down with a cold. But you still have to make a stop at the bank
to deposit your check. Of course, when
you get there, there are no lines. Not
because the bank is nearly empty, but because the Chinese just can’t master the
skill of forming straight lines. Your
head begins to throb.
Finally, you’re on your way home. You take a different route because you need
to buy some groceries. Along the way,
car horns are blaring in unison as if that will magically make the sea of cars
part and cause the traffic to flow smoothly.
The throbbing in your head starts to feel more like the jack-hammering
earlier in the day, only this time its your skull that’s being drilled.
You arrive home and pop two Tylenols. You quickly whip up some dinner and you look
forward to some much-needed rest, a very early rest. After cleaning up in the kitchen and getting
ready for bed, you drag yourself to your bedroom and literally crash on the
bed.
At exactly one in the morning, your neighbor’s blaring horn
wakes you up again.
Ah, the pains of culture stress in China. Some days are worse than others; but
certainly, most days are a lot better.
There are also stresses back home in the your own country, and you are very much aware that when you’re having a
very, very bad day, every nuisance and annoyance gets magnified, completely
obscuring all the good reasons why you decided to move to China in the first
place.
Some days are worse than others, yes; but when you’re
reminded of how wonderful China can be every time your elderly neighbor invites
you to sit with him for a cup of tea at dusk and you listen to his precious
stories; or when the nice lady who sweeps the streets every morning greets you
with a warm smile; or when you talk about the future with the Chinese love of
your life, these moments can make the crappiest China day you’ve ever had worth
all the stress.
Discover tons of great information about living in China, Chinese dating,
and Chinese women on the blogs, magazine and forum of ChinaLoveMatch.net (the
home of trusted Chinese dating), where international men and Chinese women
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