flying home for a wedding + going back to china = culture shock
Autor: paulanachina | Publicado: 2012-04-16T22:23:00-07:00

Flying home for a wedding , spending just 2 weeks with my family and then flying back to China&nbsp;, &nbsp;going straight to work = Super extra culture shock ! 
Dont try that! I promisse you this is not good at all.

Living in China takes a lot of doses of patiency, cold blood and deaf ears... and when you have very little of those you are most likely to experience a super mega culture shock period. 
Im not the most patient person and all my friends know that for a fact. I have changed a lot since i moved to China and im able to cope with much more now. But i really get frustrated when people say they are going to do something and they simply DONT! or when they tell you something and after 5 minutes change their mind just because... or tell you to be there at 10 and it is 11: 30 and you are still waiting...
Cold blood is not a "forte" of mine either. I cant see something wrong without saying something, but in China you learn how to&nbsp; ignore some things and just keep moving. But again most people know that my blood can get from 0 to 40 Celcius in a fraction of seconds if you push the wrong button.
And ears.. well no need to say..im a language teacher, and after 6 years in china i dare to say that my chinese is pretty good.. so it is hard not to hear you saying that i have a BIG ASS. which i do by the way , and i m really proud of it.. but why do you have to say it aloud on day light to everyone to hear?! oh yeah you think i cant understand you!! 

So i guess you know where im going with this post! 
It is so hard to be back in China this time. I guess because the time at home was just perfect. My sister's wedding was such a sweet time. Most of my family was there, uncles and aunts that i hadnt seen in a very long time, all my cousins, plus the great brazilian food, barbecue, sun .. the SUN!!! the brazilian SUN!!!&nbsp; blue sky, nice people, beautiful people, green fields, have i mentioned BLUE SKY!??

Not only that, flying home this time had a different taste. I had a pretty tough year in China, new city, new job, new friends, a lot to change and adjust to , so when i board the first flight i was ready to go home, and i found myself enjoying every little detail of that journey. 
The first stop in London made me sure of the fact that i have been&nbsp; in China for too long. When i was waiting for my second flight i went around the airport in and out shops, but the book shop was the place i spent most of my time in, just admiring all those books.. and thinking how many books i havent read ?! how much i need to catch up!? in China it&nbsp;is really hard to get English books,&nbsp;dont &nbsp;even try to get anything in portuguese, so whenever i go home i try to buy and read a book or two, but that puts me so behind on my reading.. 

Maybe that doesnt mean much for you but for me... i grew up reading , loving books, the smell of the books..when i went to college my&nbsp; favorite classes were the ones i had to read and by that i mean british, american, portuguese and brazilian literature.. how i loved that... i used to love to discuss with the teachers the deep meanings of a book... miss that so much.. 

And when i saw all those books at the airport bookshop i missed it more.. i missed to be able to go to a libriray and pick up a good book and forget about life and time...
to
This was also the first time i flew&nbsp;into London during the day, so i got to see the whole city... beautiful!!! amazing.. must go .. 
Can you believe!? 6 years in china i always fly over places like London , Frankfurt and i never get to go out of the airport... that HAS TO STOP!


" Excuse me....please....thank you...." those are the other things i miss in China, and i guess it is there where my culture shocks starts and ends...

Still in London i had this good culture shock, when somene was talking to me there was always these keys words involved.. as if nothing more was important in the sentence my brain could only focus on those few words.. .. thank&nbsp; you madam...

Finally in Brazil all the happiness , and the good mood, all the friendness that brazilians have to share with the world got back to me. Maybe it is the sun. Maybe the sun light makes us happier, and even when our lifes are not that great we have a reason to smile. 

It was short.. too short.. didnt get enough of that SUN , didnt get enough of that happiness. Didnt smile enough.

And back i was into dirty , polluted China. Where the sky is always grey, where the life is always grey, where people dont smile, where people will never say thank you, please, excuse me, where people live only for work and money. 

Now im sitting on my balcony , it is my day off, and it is sunny outside, im here enjoying some sun, but i ask you , how many chinese are doing the same?!

Even those that have the day off, would not sit outside during this hour of the day ,they dont like the sun...
im not kidding! they cover everything to go out if it is sunny. Hats, scarfs, jackets..
The sun is bad for you , they say... well maybe.. aybe if you get too much sun it will burn all the&nbsp;none sense ideas of yours and bring a smile to your face... 


The past 2 weeks have been really hard for me. I have been irritated and the more i get in touch with the chinese around me&nbsp;the &nbsp;more irritated i get... the more i interract with them the more angry&nbsp; i get with the stuppid things i hear and see. 
for example right now i just&nbsp;saw the most common thing in china.. a taxi driver just stopped in front our building , got out of his car, and went to pee at our garden. Day light for everyone to see. So nice isnt it?! 

Writting this blog is my way of dealing with all this frustration , i dont want to give the wrong idea, China has many interesting things to offer, but this is my on way to find balance in all this crazy caos we see outside. 


Since i came back from Brazil i started looking for jobs , and by that i mean anywhere but China. If when i went to Hongkong last time i knew i had to start thinking about a new place to go, to find a new passion a new home, now that i have been to Brazil I know what kind of place im looking for, and im open to your suggestions.

I dont need a place where i can make loads of money, i dont need fancy nor amazing...i just need a place where i will be able to see the sky, smell the flowers and hear the birds. where people will say thank you and please, where people are still valued for who they are and not for what they have, where i will be able to keep teaching and touching people's life and being touched. A place to settle down and call home,&nbsp;a place taht &nbsp;at the end of the day i can&nbsp;drink a cup of coffee at a very quiet coffee shop without having someone staring at me and saying that my ASS is big.