Yet Another Adventure
Alrighty folks, it has officially been over two weeks since the end of my Global Fellows placement in Yangzhou, China. Lets look back and reflect, shall we?
Since my placement ended, I jumped straight into two completely different cultures and this has allowed me quite the vantage point to observe each culture. First, my travels took me to Hong Kong for a few days to visit my fellow Global Fellow, Onno! This was an amazing trip to say the least. It was so nice to see Onno again and hear all about his experience and travels in Bolivia and South America. Even though Hong Kong was once a part of mainland China, it is now its own international state and natives get a little irritated if you count Hong Kong as a part of the mainland of China. Trust me, just don’t do it. Because it is international, it was quite different from Yangzhou. The first thing I noticed is that less people noticed me for my skin color. In Yangzhou, there really aren’t many white people at all, so stares were commonplace for me. I was relatively relieved to melt back into the crowd and become more invisible than I was in Yangzhou. Culturally, I would have to say that Hong Kong is pretty similar to mainland China, it’s the lifestyle that is different. In Hong Kong life is very fast paced. You sit down, get your food, eat it, and get out. In Yangzhou, there was much more time to chill in my experience. Overall though, I would have to say that in my experience, the cultures are very similar; everyone is polite and respectful, are very curious about western culture, and love to have a good time.
From Hong Kong I hopped on a flight to my study abroad location of Lund, Sweden. This was the culture jump that was the most significant for me since arriving to China. In my experience, if you can get passed the language barrier and general shyness of the folks in China, people are very eager to either test their english, ask about western culture to compare, or just chat with Americans in general. Swedes are a different story. Swedes have some sort of paralyzing fear of inconveniencing people, so even after the ice is broken, conversation is hard to maintain sometimes. A lot of the people I have met so far are international students. The true Swedes are much harder to find, but I will not give up!
Cubespace was an amazing experience for me. Small town Idahoans like myself tend to give up on the idea of going abroad because its very expensive, a very scary and daunting task to venture into the unknown, or very often both. Cubespace let me explore a different way of life, look at how a business runs under a different set of laws, and be a part of something much bigger than myself and my own cultural identity. Looking back, this was truly an amazing experience that I would not trade for anything in the world.
