Getting Out of the Bubble

Hydrangeas at Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath  The British Museum Those of you who saw me over the two weeks I was home visiting London will have almost definitely have heard me talk about what I like to call reverse culture shock. Reverse culture shock is the name I give to the feeling I got when I came back to England and it suddenly hit me how different China really is. Having seen me, my friends may not say that they think I've changed all that much (or maybe they think that I have) but going home made me feel like I'd changed. Some people said that I now speak very loudly - so I'm convinced I'm going deaf - possibly a side effect of not having to self-censor or think about other people understanding you in public; others have said that my accent has gone a bit funny, the side effect of hanging around with so many other accents and teaching American English. But the differences are more complex than that. People have always said that travel helps yo...

After 16 months in China it is still a weird and wonderful place that makes me double take on a regular basis, and keeps me asking "Why?" all the time. Almost exactly a year ago I posted a list of all the weird and wonderful things that my friends and I had noticed in China, and looking back 99% of the points still stand. But moving from Suzhou to Yinchuan has opened up a whole new world of weird and wonderful, and also highlights how diverse China is as a country. Culture and behaviour really do change so much as you move around the country, especially between North and South, and some of the things I've found bizarre in the South the Northern Chinese will find just as strange.  Case in point : recently I was in the car with my (Northern Chinese) boyfriend when a motorbike crammed with 3 men on the back drove past. Living in Suzhou, and visiting many other more Southern cities, the sight of multiple people crammed on a motorbike became normal but when my boyfriend ...