Culture Stress

I have lived in China for 10 years. That is a long time. You would think that after that amount of time I would have everything figured out. I don’t. In fact, I still have moments of culture stress.

Last week I was in Hong Kong. While there I realized how organized and very unlike the mainland many things in Hong Kong are. People wait to cross the road until they are supposed to. They line up instead of pushing in front of each other. Most of the time, they wait to allow others off of the subway before they get on it.  Oh, and the bathrooms at the metro station...they were clean and actually smelled good. I was shocked...in a good way!

Hong Kong transportation is organized as well. It is so easy to take the trains and buses to the places that you need to go. Everything flowed seamlessly. And not only that, all the signs included English!

To me, Hong Kong seemed like a bit of utopia. I know that everything is not perfect there. In fact, I paid about 39 HK dollars for a bowl of noodles that would cost me about 6 in the mainland. 

Now I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. I love the mainland. I love living here. I love my friends and the simplicity of life. But, when I came back I was struck by the difference between the two places. When I took the airport bus (the airport is about an hour outside of town) to a location near my home, I could not get a taxi to stop for me. I then walked a ways with my luggage to a main road in hopes of finding one. No such luck. It must have been a “taxi’s are not permitted to stop for Mara” kind of day. I then walked a ways to catch a bus. Nope! They were packed and not letting people on. So I waited... 

Eventually a bus let me on. I pushed my way through the crowd to the back when I was to get off, making a few people frustrated along the way. Finally I was home.  I took a shower and opened my computer to get online. And then I realized... the internet was not working!

Thankfully, culture stress doesn't usually last long. I am now doing just fine and very happy to be back in the mainland.