Culture Shock

Many people misinterpret culture shock. It is not that initial phase of traveling a completely foreign place when a person feels mystified by all the new and exciting differences. No, instead it is the week after that initial phase, called the honeymoon phase, when everything actually starts to feel like a hassle, and the negative aspects of some things really start to get under your skin. It is when you start missing food from America, and other aspects of American culture you never thought you would ever miss kicks in, that you know you have hit the culture shock stage. And it is when you are the most homesick and the most emotional. 
I have just gone through culture shock and am now finally driving out of that storm. One thing that I really miss is American breakfast, some eggs, potatoes, bacon, omelets, and fruit. The breakfast here are dumplings and porridge, or buns with red bean paste inside. This is not the ideal breakfast for me, so I have stopped eating a substantial breakfast, which is probably not the most positive thing.
I have gotten tired of the traffic here, one will literally get hit on the street if they step out in any close quarters of a car or motor bike or wagon, or anything with a motor for that matter. I want to be like the Sandra Bullock from Miss Congeniality and slam my hand down on a car and say, "Hey, I'm walking here." But I know that I would get hit, and that would not be a pretty sight, so that has not been attempted yet.
I realized some major things about collectivism. I thought that collectivism would be better than Individualism, but I realized that I like Individualism better. And maybe this thought will change once I get back to America but the thing about Collectivism is that it makes the in and the out-group existent. The in-group is the family and friends of a person, and the out-group is everyone else in the world. So therefore, people treat the general public pretty badly, and people are very unfriendly. But in America, the in and the out-group don't exist. People are pretty much treated equally, even if you are a stranger. Now this is not to say that EVERYONE in these two cultures act like this, this is just a generalization of the public, and not meant to be harmful, and an observation made by me with some literature from Lin Yutang's book My Country and My People to back me up, which by the way, you should read (even though he can be sexist and racist at times through out the book).
Another thing that is better in America than in China - our legislative system, our rights, and our laws. People are sometimes afraid to get involved with things that they see on the street because they don't want to be sued or blamed for the crime. It is a complicated issue here in China, but it has to do with the government, obviously, and I don't know enough about this topic to talk about it more, but it would be interesting to look up if anyone is curious.
Those are the few things that I have been missing. Every week however, I explore something new that I love in China, and now I am liking it just as much as before.


End of the story is - Culture shock is hard - but then you get over it and life gets better again.