Culture Shock and the cost of Food!!!

2 hats

I’ll start with a photo of the cute girl. In February Amy H. in MO gave these to Nadia. She only puts hats on when it’s her choice and last night she wanted to try this one on for the first time. Then of course her “baby” needed to wear the little one.

I think I am over the worst of the culture shock – although I feel like the corners and streets of Fort Worth are just empty. I drove up to the school to mentor today and kept feeling like I needed to be watching for pedestrians and bicyclists to run out across the street. After visiting with everyone at church on Sunday I ran into the QT to get us a few soda’s and I got all disoriented because everything was in English. I had to remind myself that I can read here! And for the first 36 hours or so I kept wanting to turn the stereo on and play some pop music because we heard American pop music for 12 hours a day in the apartment – mixed with the horns from the streets.

We went to Target last night to get out of the house and pick up some odds and ends. (Joy and Janis had bought us a bunch of fresh stuff like eggs, salad and milk which was just wonderful to have in the fridge!) And after I paid I thought, “That was 350 YUAN! Do you know how much food I could have bought at the Lotus for that?” Then tonight we went up to Pappasito’s for the Mexican food we had been craving and I was traumatized by the price. My frugal little self got WAY to used to the cost of food in China. But the delicious enchilada’s were worth it! I have slowly but surely been working through all my friends’ blogs and catching up now that we are home. But I feel like I should be blogging every, single day like I did in China.

In China we would say to Nadia, “What sound does a taxi make?” And she would say, “Honk! Honk!” On our second day home I asked her that and she said, “NO!” And now she won’t do the honk at all. She always says no. It’s like she is saying, “I am over the taxis now that we are home. No more honking.” And she has continued to be just fine in her car-seat which is great.