things I learnt in china and things I started thinking about:
1) omfg my relatives are so damn rich. my uncle owns 3 apartments, one of which is a penthouse. in addition to this he drives a $500 000 and his daughter aka my cousin monica is one of the top dancers of her age in the country D: shes 10 btw. my other uncle just bought an apartment (cuz he's younger) and he stays up til 1am every night playing world of warcraft (im not kidding, the guy's like 40 and he still plays WoW like a kid. He even showed me lolll.) they're both so immature haha.
2) taxis in china are all volkswagon. every single one of them, except for 1 i saw in shenzhen but im sure that was an imposter anyway.
3) being an east-west immigrant. perceptions of things are distorted. chicken feet are delicacy in china, gross in nz. why is this? I notice that everyone was spazzing over how much I tanned in china because in the east, the paler you are, the more beautiful. Probably because it means you don't do a hard labour job in the sun all day. However, in the west it's the opposite. The tanner the better, cuz it means you have time to go on holiday. could apply in east as well? no chance, they get like no holiday time a year so... eh. this cultural difference is really annoying for me. I actually quite like being pale but living in nz somehow makes this socially unacceptable, or not unfashionable, or something. well screw your fashions ok I'll go in the sun and tan whenever i want to. which is probably... never!
4) why asian guys are so useless at asking girls out. I did some research and it is blatantly obvious to me that caucasian guys have more testosterone than asian ones. I thought that, maybe in nz, where there are more caucasian guys, the asians are more low in terms of masculinity and therefore act more like girls, which is uncertain about love and relationships and always waiting for the other person to make the first move. I also thought about if this is why there are so many metro guys and why the asian guy's fashion sense is better than a white guy's, having the whole 'asian fashion' thing going on recently.
5) couples that look alike. studies have shown that you are attracted to people like your parents. eg, if you're a girl you're attracted to people who are like your dad and if you're a guy you're attracted to people like your mum. since they're your parents you have the same genes, and if you're attracted to people like your parents, they may end up looking like your parents and therefore like you as well. that is how i explan couples that look alike. (:
6) the one child policy in china is completely defunct if you have octuplets.
7) school in china is actually really cool. I dunno why but I can't help but wonder what I would've turned out like if i was in china since I was born. know the workload is huge, but I think that since you do it regularly you will eventually become used to it...
8) the reason why people think the years go by faster when they're older may be because their brain is aging, but I don't see how this is so because when you're 15 your brain is still developing yet you feel like the years are flying by compared to when you were 5. I have a theory that it's because a year takes up a smaller part of your life each year. think about it, when you were 5, a year is 1/5, 20% of your life. However, by the time you're 15, a year is only 1/15, 6.7% of your life. Because it is smaller, it seems like it is a shorter time and it passes by much faster. A year is nothing to a 60 year old, as they have lived through 60 of them already, but it is the world to a 2 year old. Maybe this has some educational basis, probably not, but I just found it interesting...
ok i think there was more but thats all i can think of at this late hour.
Being there made me think a lot actually. I decided that I was gonna give everything a good go and try to enjoy life as much as I can. Even when I feel bored or life is boring, or something isn't going right, I'm going to try and do something about it. Instead of saying 'I'm bored' I realised that it would be much more productive and logical to actually do something that isn't boring (wow, I can't believe it took me 15 years to come to this conclusion).
Also, I can't help but wonder what's happened to everyone I've ever met. What they're doing now, what kind of life they lead. Even people you see for just an instant, or people you talk to once. From now on I'll always think of what other people are feeling, or think about where they might be, what they might be doing and what they might be thinking. Because, even if it's the cute guy on the subway who made eye contact with me for 2 seconds or the waiter at the restaurant who complimented my art and I'll never see again, or even that creepy shopkeeper (PEDO) at the mall who kept trying to flirt with me, they've all made an impression on my life, no matter how tiny. Even the people I walk past on the street and never take notice of, if they hadn't been there, my life would have been different at that very moment. There will always be people who, you realise, would never have been in your life if not for one moment, one coincidence. It's a scary thought. What would my life have turned out like if ___ had not happened, etc. I think that i'm starting to appreciate others and how they have shaped me now. Without them, I'm nothing. Without you, I'm nothing.
məl
