How are you? Just kidding, I dont really care!

Why should I blog if I can just steal from other great bloggers? LOL

Another post from Katie China v America- http://katiemarshall.blogspot.com/
Point to note: Katie is from Oklahoma, I still think Americans tend to be friendly, its just New Yorkers that have issues lol

America

Americans are good at being everybody's friend. They want to talk to you, even if you're a complete stranger. From the waitress bringing their steak, to the cashier at the grocery store, they will always ask, "How are you?" I love this about Americans. We want to be friendly to everyone we meet. What I never realized before I left, was that it often only goes ¼ inch deep. I can talk to a stranger for 10 minutes about the movie that came out last week or the crazy weather we've been having, but I'd better not start to tell them about about the year I've had. The look on their face turns to fear if they think they'll have to emotionally invest. Keep it casual folks!

China

I just came from a place where you don't smile at people you don't know. You don't stand politely back and let them go ahead of you--you shove them out of the way and jam your elbows into ribs in an effort to give yourself the 30 second advantage. The difference is, when you break past those barriers and get to know someone, you go straight to the heart. Once someone becomes your friend, they are there for life--whether you like it or not. It is not a casual thing. Soon they're coming over uninvited, eating your food, asking you all kinds of personal questions you never wanted to answer, and borrowing your things. They are no longer your friends, they are your family and it's forever. I love the deepness, and the closeness those relationships contain despite the lack of personal space or privacy.


It came as a shock to me that the American way seems so foreign. I grew up in this land. I should know how it works. Yet I was annoyed and surprised as people asked, "How are you?" as they walked past without pausing to hear the answer. I am used to my friends coming over without calling, when I'm in the middle of eating dinner, plopping down on my couch, and not leaving. They spend 6 hours finding out how I am, instead of 3 seconds. They know all my quirks, from my habit of using hyperbole in every sentence to my crazy need to be better than everyone else at speaking Chinese. They know that "How are you?" can't be answered simply. It can't be boiled down to 2 words.

Great relationships take time to build. So though I reminisce about the deep friendships I left behind, I need to keep in mind the fact that it was almost a full year before those friendships were born. But like Tom Petty said, "The waiting is the hardest part."

Boy can I relate to this

Original post by Katie Marshall : http://katiemarshall.blogspot.com/
我离开中国一年多前。

If I were to be completely honest--which I'm not convinced is possible--I would admit that when someone asks me for a blog post, or tells me they check my blog daily because they love reading it, I shine inside. Fireworks shoot out of the ends of my hair. I grow to be 6 feet tall, and could run 1,000 miles without taking a drink of water.


Then I sit at my computer and stare at the page for a few hours, hoping a brilliant thought will crawl out of my ear and onto the keyboard. That's what I've been doing for most of today. The result has been a few scratched out sentences in my notebook, and a lot of coffee flowing in my veins.


When I write, most of the work is done before I ever sit at the computer. I carry a notebook with me and I observe things while I'm inhaling smoke on a train, bouncing down rutted mountain roads on a bus, sipping coffee in a cafe by the river. I no longer do any of those things on a regular basis, and I've lost the habit of soaking in human behaviors around me. I left China over a year ago, and somehow don't feel like I've moved at all since then. It's time for that to change! The future is mine for the shaping, and I will not let it pass me by.




"The mission of life is to live [your] potentiality. How do you do it? My answer is, 'Follow your bliss.' There's something inside you that knows when you're in the center, that knows when you're on the beam or off the beam, and if you get off the beam to earn money, you've lost your life. And if you stay in the center and don't get any money, you still have your bliss."
-Joseph Campbell


"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
-Howard Thurman