Reverse Culture Shock

I am so sorry for the lack of updates lately. My ability to blog has definitely been deteriorating, which is silly because the content of my days would actually not have been very hard to record: work work work work panic! work work tiny bit of sleep work work, repeat. There were a lot of things that for some reason needed to get done before I left for vacation.

Currently, I am writing from the airport in L.A. It looks like I may be here a lot longer than originally planned, due to the combination of a delayed plane and some thunderstorms in Chicago. I have been awake for 24 hours already! Deciding to save $600 by going through L.A. instead of direct from Beijing to Chicago in retrospect doesn't seem like as good a decision as it did when I booked it. This may have been due to a change of aircraft in San Francisco which DID NOT show up in my itinerary (which explicitly said "non-stop"). In any case, this endless day has been dragging on at nearly hysterical length.

Well, I may not be in Chicago, but I am back in the United States. And get this--much to my amazement, I am having quite an extreme case of, what would you call it, reverse culture shock. It is WEIRD being back in this country which I am accustomed to think of as my own. It makes me feel like some kind of culture freak, because I surely don't belong in China. Do I really not belong here either?

Then Pocket of Bolts reminded me that I'm in L.A. Oh yeah, that might have something to do with it. I am known to feel culture shock in L.A. even when I haven't been in a foreign country.

1) Drinking fountains
OMG--why does anyone buy water? The water here doesn't actually make you sick! It's free and available even in a public place, and it tastes fine. I keep drinking at every drinking fountain I pass, just for the novelty.
2) How cold people act, how self-absorbed and incurious.
It took me ages to get used to being stared at all the time but now I feel like I'm in a world of zombies.
3) How bad people are at standing in line
I don't mean there is more cutting--really sort of the reverse. They assume the total impossibility of cutting and therefore barely bother to move forward at all. In general, as Pocket of Bolts observed too, people in the States are just not all that good at moving efficiently in groups. How's that for confirming stereotypes! Still, Chinese people seem much better at this somehow, with the result that even though everything is more crowded, it still feels like things get done faster.
4) Sense of entitlement!!!
I left something on the plane from Beijing, and realized it as soon as I'd got through customs in San Francisco. So I went to the Airline Help desk near the baggage claim. They were almost inhumanly cold and impersonal, but very helpful and got someone to bring my thing out through the customs/immigration point within a mere fifteen minutes. I was so pleased and grateful! (Though my gratitude was a matter of complete indifference to the guy at the desk. Perhaps this is because I look like a wreck and had been silly enough to have left something the size of a small baby behind on the airplane. Well... it was a long flight.) Anyway, while I was waiting there was this other lady being incredibly antagonistic. Apparently one of her checked bags had failed to materialize. But I actually heard her say, in tones of utmost injury and aggrievement, "Do you mean I just have to sit and wait here for FIFTEEN MINUTES!?!?!?!" I almost laughed in her face. She goes on accusingly: "Does this kind of thing HAPPEN OFTEN with you people???" I kept thinking that if it were China she would be pathetically grateful if they didn't just send her to the police department for a receipt: "Yep--your luggage is gone. Here's a receipt to certify you've been stolen from!" (This actually is pretty much the only response to theft I have encountered in China. They will certify that you have been stolen from, so you can claim the insurance money.
6) Wasting of food!!
At a food court, I got some tacos. 72 RMB!!!!!!! I almost choked when I realized how much I was paying for them. But I had six helpings of free salsa, some of which i drank as shots, so that partly makes up for it. Mmmm, salsa is incredibly good. Anyway, Someone had gotten a sandwich or maybe two, and had only eaten the filling, leaving ALL the bread sitting on the table. Those sandwiches cost like, $8-9 apiece! I felt like just going over and eating the bread but i didn't.
7) Terrorism paranoia!!!!!!
(Pocket of Bolts says, "Forgot about that, didja?")
There was a special security line at the Beijing Airport, and they were explaining to these Chinese people about this incredibly stupid thing about liquids and gels etc. They were laughing their asses off. This one older Chinese guy was like, "The more money people have, the more they're afraid to die! HA HA HA!!" I think you don't realize quite how ridiculous it is unless you have been living abroad and then come back. I had set my backpack at the table while I went to pick up my order of tacos y'know? It was even in my line of sight! But I could also see people looking at it really suspiciously! and sort of edging away. OMG, it might be a bomb, or WORSE--it might contain some of those dangerous gels and aerosols! Or horror of horrors, some toothpaste.
8) CREDIT CARDS!
Not much used in China, though the companies are trying to get them to catch on. But you know? Cash is really a lot faster most of the time. Do people need to use a credit card to pay for a magazine!? Although given the amount of credit card debt here, maybe they can't afford their magazine otherwise...
9) Understaffing of shops and restaurants
What, only two people working there? Where's everyone else?

Okay, this list could go on and on but boarding may start soon, fingers crossed, and anyway, I keep having narcoleptic fits while writing it. I am in sorry shape and no doubt this is all really incoherent. I may try to write some more catch-up posts later, but presently I can't even contemplate it. Wish me luck in the last leg of this grueling odyssey!