Culture Shock

                                                                   

An airplane landed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. A woman looked like college age girl carried a suitcase slowly walking down the airplane. She looked at around in surprise as if this was a new world to her. That girl was me, and I always longed to experience a different culture. I was curious about a western life. Therefore, I prepared one year for this exploration. However, my fresh year here disorganized because I had to confront different food culture, inconvenient transportation, and unprecedented solitude. Because of these reasons, I had to face the intense culture shock in Chicago.

The first thing that I had to bear was different food culture. Specifically, since I came from Hunan province, Hunan is known for spicy food. In Hunan, I used to go to a restaurant which is called Shan Shui Ren Jia. Every dish there was spicy if there were levels of spiciness, I believe that could be hellish spicy. My friends and I went there every week, and we all so enjoyed the food. Thus, we had a lot of enjoyments there. However, Chicago, I could not find real Huan cuisine because many dishes have adopted the that many Americans desire. Finally, I’ve found a restaurant in Chinatown named Hunan Family, but I was disappointed. It was not the real Hunan cuisine that I had expected because the sauce tasted too sweet and greasy. Afterwards, I decided to explore some local food, so I went to a couple of local restaurants. I observed that most of the dishes had cheese and sugar in it. However, high-calorie food is my less favorite one because I prefer keeping my body in good shape. Due to this reason, I missed my hometown food even more.

Beside the food culture, the transportation facilities in the suburbs of Chicago are inconvenient. Living outside of the city of Chicago is not like downtown Chicago because in downtown Chicago, people can easily take trains or buses to many places. Because of this reason, it was very difficult for my daily life. Some people usually say that if you do not have a car, you do not have legs. I thought that was very true for me. When I went to work or a grocery store, I had to take a cab. Sometimes, the cab took so long to come my apartment, so it caused me occasionally to be late when I had work. Especially, when the winter came, the lack of public transportation made me feel even more painful. In China, however, trains, buses, and taxis are everywhere. A bus station to next station is only walking distance. Sometimes, people only have to wave their hands, and they can get a cab right away even if they are in a small town. Hence, people who live in China do not need cars, and they can easily go anywhere as they like. As a new immigrant in Chicago, I believe that was the one of inconvenient issues for me.

In Addition, I had to face the intense solitude. In China, I have a lot of friends. When I got off from work, I often hung out with them. We have explored our city, and we knew where to find a good place to enjoy our spare time. However, everything had changed since I came to Chicago. My first year here, I lived north side of Chicago, it was difficult for me to meet some Chinese friends for most of them living on the south side of Chicago. Furthermore, due to the language barrier and different social etiquette, I could not meet any of native speakers either. In China, despite that there are many local languages, people all also speak mandarin and making a friend is much easier. In the United States, the social etiquette is totally different. There is word that exists in the united states, call “privacy”, but it is not common in China. For instance, In China, people can talk about their personal lives without causing offence anyone, but it might not apply to American people. For American people, everyone is an individual, and people rarely talk about their personal business unless their family or friends. Therefore, during that time, I had no friends, and no one I could talk to. I felt extreme loneliness, so I really missed my friends in China.

To sum up, looking back those days, even thought I had to overcome the different food culture, difficult transportation, and extreme loneliness, I survived after getting through these unexpected culture shock. During that time, my stomach from the strange food. Meanwhile, I felt that it was like as if I was living of a city under siege. In addition, I had to face the solitude alone, and it was the most difficult thing that had experienced at that time. Despite that there were some inconvenient situations, I still live here since I understand that every place has its own special features.