Mendy's wonder land

In my last blog, I talked about that Americans love to stay in the countryside and this is quite different from that in Shanghai. The most probably reason to this is that, to some extent, the transportation here is far easier than that in Shanghai.

Almost every people in American owns a automobile. Since not only supermarkets but also hospitals or any other public agencies are far away from where people live, it seems that owning a car here is irresistible in people's daily life. However, although every family here may have at least 3 cars, the traffic situation is not bad. There rarely has traffic jam even at the rush hour and the high way is extremely advanced that people are able to access to the downtown from the countryside within an hour.

On the country, since there are so many people in Shinghai, the government do not encourage citizens to use personal cars. But the current situation is that there are still more and more cars have been appearing in Shanghai and although the roads in Shanghai are widened again and again every year, we may still feel rather desperate when catching a traffic jam on our way to work at the rush hour.

But it is lucky that the public transportation system is far more convient in Shanghai than that in Richmond. In Shanghai, it is said that we can go to anywhere with 30 miniutes in the downtown by taking one bus or choose one of the 5 subway lines. On the country, since we are new here, we find that we are almost locked in VCU coz we don't have a car and nearest supermarket is about 30 miniutes walk. It is impossible for us to go to the downtown to have a good meal or go to the shopping mall ourselves coz they are so far away and there is no subway, cab or even bus in this city!!! However, it is lucky that our interns are so kind that they never tired taking us anywhere we feel like to go to by their cars.

All in all, what cause the situation here is because almost everybody has his own car and they don't need any public transportation. It is said that the situation in New York may more like that in Shanghai coz it is also a giant busy city with a large population. We are told that the subway in New York is extremely developed since it has a nearly 100 years history, and the yellow cabs are all over the city. I don't know if it is overtalked, but I can witness it myself this weekend. I'm looking forward that!

Before I came to the USA, I had already known that Americans loved to live in the countryside rather than downtown. This of course impressed me most when I arrived here and witnessed it myself.

In Richmond, the intern tells us that there maybe only two kinds of people live in the downtown. The rich live in the apartment near the James River. Since the view there is quite good, the price of the apartment is also pretty. The other one is those single people or those who have a lower salary, because other apartments in the downtown are smaller and maybe cheaper. Those who we called middle-class people would like to choose to live outside the city because the space there is wider as well as the air is more fresh.

Because of this, while driving into Richmond, we can find that the center of the city is filled with writing-office buildings, banks, and government agencies. Meanwhile, those blocks are a bit desolate. Since more and more people are moving to the countryside near the city, we also find lots of nice communities along the highways out of Richmond.

This is quite different from that in Shanghai, where most people choose to live in the downtown while only those millionare may have villas in the countryside, because of the high price of both apartment and house in Shanghai. But the apartments in Shanghai are much more wide than that here. Of course, those rich people also own their apartments in the city and they go back to the countryside only at the weekends.

On the other hand, living in the downtown of Shanghai is far more convient than that in Richmond. We are access to various kinds of restaurant, super markets, hospitals, and giant malls within one mile away while these facilities might be totally far away from where you live in the USA.

It is sure that there are many other reason that might cause the differience of the choice in living places between Americans and Chinese such as traffic problems, However, this is another problem that I would like to talk about later.

to be continued......

We went to Virginia and Lorenzo's home two days ago, and maybe experienced a part of American's ordinary life.

It only took us about 20 miniutes to reach their house which located in the countryside--not far from downtown. The first thing that was special to me was the number of the church. Along the road to their house after we entered the community, within about 100 meters I saw 3 churches! At this moment, I deeply felt that American was a country of religion.

Their home was a ordinary two stories house built with red bricks and a white roof. Like other American families, Virginia and Lorenzo had a one-year-old doggy and two older cats. The dog was kind of friendly and a bit naughty. It enjoyed licking our knees and following us. On the country, the cats were a bit arrogant, they always skipping you seemed that they were the king and the queen of the house.

Although the walls in the living room were bare since they were changing the house, it still wasn't bothered us enjoying the interests in making vegetable salads ourselves. Then Becky, Lee, and their little girl came. It seemed that the host and the hostess made great efforts because Lee was a senior in a Chinese company and had been to China for several times so that we might have some commen topic. The little girl was cute but always had a serious face, may be she would becoma a cool girl when she grew up. Becky and Lee brought some fried dumplings, Americans called all these kinds of snacks dumpling, but in Chinese, only those boiling ones were called dumpling while these fried dumplings were called GuoTie. Anyway, they were delicious and we missed them so much!

Before dinner, their son Daniel and his friend David who was a adpoted Taiwan boy came. They were all in their twenties and since we were the first people David had met that could speak both English and mandarin, we talked a lot about Chinese things.

Dinner was in a quite American way: we had pasta, salad, galic bread and a kind of pie. Before dinner, Lorenzo-the host led us to make the prey around table together which seemed to be a totally new experience to me. Then, we took what we want from the table in the kitchen and seated anywhere we prefer in the dining room. This was pretty different from that in Chinese, in my hometown, we loved to cook a lot and put them all on a round table around which we would be seated.

After dinner we played a kind of card game which could help us to remember English words. Then Daniel and David took us to the one of the oldest theatesr in the Carry Town to watch the SHREK 3. Although the movie was not the latest one, but the theater was so amazing that its decoration was quite splendid like a palace in 18th century.

The home visit was fantastic though it seemed a bit too short to us. We were hoping to see more American ordinary life in the coming days.

Foods
In my previous blog, I talked about the clothes part in Richmond, and this time, I'd like to turn to the foods that people might be enjoyed here.

As I have said in 'let's call it cultural shork' before, the most thing that I'm not used to here is the food. I do enjoy the fastfood in Shanghai if I have them once in a while. But having sandwiche, hamburger, pizza, fried chichen, fried potato, and those extremely sweet drinks everyday and every meal drives me crazy.

However, it is lucky that I can do cooking in the dorm myself, and I can find almost everything I need in the wal mart nearby. What impressed me most in the wal mart is that, no matter how tiny or how large the product that I am looking for, I can find it in wal mart. The food section is even more surprising: in addition to those ordinary food, I can find all kinds of cans including soup, pork, chicken, porridge, and etc. What's more, it seems that American can use microwave to cook everything: pizza, pasta, fried chichen, beef, and they can even use it to cook Chinese rice! Although those cans and microwave foods are quite convient and can save a lot of time, I still choose to buy fresh vegetables and meat so that I can eat healthier.

There also have some Chinese restaurants in Richmond. I went to one of them today and tried some of their cuisines. To be honest, most of them are all right, but they are not the genuine Chinese food. The taste has been changed a little to cater to Americans' flavor.

After all, eating here is no longer a problem to me. I' m gredually used to them. And after the home visit yesterday, I saw that the local American did not always depend on those fatty food, and they also did cooking themselves. The only differience between us is our flavors.

to be continued......
I'll go on living part later.

In Chinese, we conclude life into four parts: clothes, food, living, and transportation. These four parts are the most essential parts of human life and reflect the local cultural vividly.

So I'd like to start this artical with clothes part.

Clothes
When I walk along the street in VCU, I find that almost everybody is in jeans, t-shirts, mini skirts, and slippers. Compared with my shirt, trousers, and high heeled shoes which tighted me so much, those clothes make them quite comfortable and relaxed although they are not that formal. However, since everyone around me wears like that, I seem to be the one that is 'abnormal'. So I change into t-shirt and sneakers, well, it feels quite nice.

On the other hand, Americans can also be quite formal in the particular occasion. No matter how hot the weather is, the professors who give our lectures, and those white-collar workers who walk in the downtown streets are always in shirts with ties and suits.

This is pretty different from that in Shanghai. Although some of us will wear mini skirts and slippers outside the room, most of us prefer wearing a bit formal like skirts, trousers, shirts high heeled shoes and even suits.

Of course, this is only a small part that I have seen in Richmond and maybe a bit unilateral. Since I have just lived in here for only two weeks and I'm not quite familiar with the living habits here, I guess the reason to this is perhaps American is both a ego and respectful nation. When they are at work, they wear formal to show respect to others. But at their personal time, they'll wear casually to make themselves more comfortable.

to be continued......
well, I will talk on the food part in my following blog.

Last summer in the medical faculty of HongKong University, my friends and I made a project on computer addiction. During our research, we found how crazy are those addicts and how harmful will addiction do to a person. They don't eat, don't sleep, don't communicate with others,and what they are only interested in is what they like.

However, I have never meet with a addict before I came here when all my friend around me have suddenly been becoming crazy collecting those quarter dollars here. Since there are fourty five different images on the quarter dollar's coin, they are dreaming to find all of them. Every morning, one of my friend will buy a cup of sterbucks' coffee with a piece of 20 buck so that he came have pieces of 1 bucks. Then he wil go to the auto sellar, put one piece of buck into it, turn the return button and then the machine will return him four coins of quarter dollars. This is only one of my friend's one method to get his collection. During the day, they will try to get coins which they haven't yet, and in the evening, they will get together and change with each other. Although it is said that we can go to the local bank, give them 10 dollars, and we can get any kind of coins we want, they don't want to follow this suggestion because they think that this will steal the interesting feeling from them during the collecting process.

Oh my god! Sometimes they even driven me mad. It seems that I'm the only reasonable person in our group. Nevetheless, I can understand them most of the time and what lucky is that they will stop such behavior after they have found all their 45 coins.