culture shock

The typical McDonalds meal of course is Fried Chicken and Rice right? I mean there are a few other options, but isn’t that what almost everyone orders?

Or maybe that’s just on this island! Haha.

Last night we went to McD’s and I think I only saw one person other than us with a burger—and the place was crowded!!!

I guess that’s living in a different culture!

Since I’ve been here I have been surprised many times at just how different Asian culture is from the other places I’ve been. The way they eat is different—no knives. If there is silverware, it’s a spoon and fork. The fork is used to push everything onto the spoon. Rice is a must at every meal. If you don’t have rice, it’s probably just a snack! And SPICY food is the specialty :) Also mornings start very early. Everyone is up and out around 5:30. They go to the market, sweep the road outside their house and begin cooking for the day! People and relationships are very important, and life is at a much slower pace. Things also take a long time to do here. Most of the food is made from scratch, the roads almost always have tons of traffic and it’s very hot.

I guess it’s a little bit funny to realize, but I didn’t really think I’d have culture shock. I thought, “Oh that’s what those Americans who came to Czech went through. I’m not like that though. I’m experienced.” Haha. I should’ve thought that through a little better. Each day it seems that I’m learning about how differently people live than we do in the US. Yesterday we went out to a village to the home of some friends and that was even more different. Image not having four walls but more like a half wall or two and the rest curtains—in your whole house! or replacing your toilet with a hole in the ground for starters. The roads to get there were ROUGH too, and apparently for this part of the world, they’re pretty good—we didn’t even need four-wheel drive!

I’ll continue to write about cultural differences, but I thought you’d like to get a little bit of an idea!