American-tinted Sunglasses

After hearing Haike talk about his recent 'American life' conversation with his parents, I thought it was time to post about all of the little things he finds amusing/entertaining/fascinating/comical in American culture! Time for a list!

* TV commercials. This is actually one that Haike never talked about but I noticed! If the TV is on, he hardly pays attention to the shows (unless it's "Winter Wipeout" :) but he always tunes into the commercials. Half of the time when the commercial ends he laughs, shakes his head and mutters something like, "Americans!" It's not an annoyed murmuring, it's pure entertainment in his eyes!
* Pulling the string to stop the bus. I actually didn't know about these strings either because I never ride a bus in the states! We happened to take one to the Bulls game and when someone pulled the string to request a stop, he whipped around and asked me, "Do we need to pull that!?!"
* Driving. You'd think that after driving in China with 1.3 billion people riding their bikes or walking in front of your car, Chicago would be a piece of cake, right? Wrong! There are a lot more rules rather than mere driving suggestions here and it always trips him up. Driving can be so stressful! Along the same lines, he can't believe how important having a driver's license is - and how it's used as the main type of ID.
* Drive-thrus. Restaurants, coffee, pharmacies, even banks! Everything can be done from the convenience of your car.
* Internet connection. Going through cable instead of a phone line....I have no clue that this is any different (ha!) but he said he was surprised.
* Mail. Our mailman drops off any packages we have in the mail room on the lower level of our building. Haike can't believe that it can just sit there without anyone worrying about it being stolen!
* Voice volume. Everyone is so much quieter here - no raised voices (tones) on the train, in restaurants, on the streets.

Of course so many other things are different for him - buying a car, opening a bank account, paying bills, juggling credit/debit cards and definitely his classes are hugely different! If we think of more later, I'll put them in the comments or in another post.

Some people have asked me to write about our decision to move back to the states since it wasn't mentioned in any previous blogs. That was intentionally not mentioned for visa reasons but now I think it's okay to talk about. My next post will run through some of the reasons/ways we came back!