I have finally settled in China and have been in xiangton for a couple days now and wow talk about a culture shock!

The first thing that really caught my eye was the traffic rules here. What surprised me is that there are none! Driving in your lane is just a suggestion. The average person is swerving between multiple lanes or driving just on the dividing line itself. You don’t wear seatbelts, don’t normally use your blinker and… Honk at EVERYTHING you see. Which is just crazy to me, but it’s normal to them. Back home if someone honks at you there tends to be some anger on the road of yelling at each other or flipping people off through your window.  But here, no one even reacts. It’s so interesting that that’s their norm. Along with that, when the cross walk shows the green man for you to walk, cars are still driving.. So you risk getting hit everytime you walk the street.

Another interesting thing I noticed here is at the dinner table there are no drinking rules. No rules of showing your i.d. to be served alcohol or anything. So kids can be drinking alcohol with the adults. Also, smoking cigarets indoors is allowed at the dinner table. And, remember the saying “no shirt, no shoes, no service?”. Well you can fo rget that. Because men don’t always wear shirts in the restaurant here either.

Lastly, this week we had such amazing lessons on Chinese massage and different types they use to treat different cases.  We were taught techniques on how to massage properly and learned what the color of your skin represents of your health.  I volunteered to be the one to have cupping done on me and my back is bruised from it but I loved it so much.  Makes me very intrigued to learn more about Chinese massage and what your body tells you about your health.

This experience has already been truly amazing. I love that I am expierencing such a culture shock, it makes me feel like I’m truly taking in China. And it’s very interesting to be able to look at their norms. And compare them with ours. I am looking forward to many more fun expierences to come!