Man, I feel like an American

When I wrote this title, I was singing it to the tune of “Man, I feel like a Women” by Shania Twain. I know that it doesn’t really work because American has four syllables and woman has two, but I feel like this song is a good song to go with this blog post. I mean what could be more American than a girl-power country song? Except that I just found out that Shania Twain is Canadian. How American of me to assume that she is American!

Anyways, I have been feeling very American lately. I did not realize how American I was until I went to the grocery store with my roommate, and we bought enough groceries to fill one of those giant blue Ikea bags and two other regular size bags. You see other people, even other western people, don't buy things in bulk like we do in the US. Most Chinese people go to the store every day to buy what they need for dinner, but my entire growing-up years, I was taught that this was wasteful. You should go the grocery store once a week or even every other week. You should buy everything that you need to buy at once so that you don’t waste gas and time making multiple trips a week. People in China can’t do this the same way we can in the US.

1) Most people don’t have their own cars, and it is much more difficult to buy in bulk if you have to carry things to a taxi, and it’s even worse if you have to take it on a bus.

2) Chinese refrigerators/freezers are not that big, so you really don’t have enough room for buying bulk products.

3) Chinese people use much more fresh produce than we do, so it would be wasteful to buy this in bulk because it goes bad quickly.

4) There are tons of little markets that are within walking distance, so you don’t have the need to go to the supermarkets like you do in the US.

It is so interesting to me that my view of waste is so different from someone else’s view of waste. Not only that, but they flat out contradict each other.

Another way that I have felt very American is my need for space. For example, today I went to a coffee shop with my two roommates, and we sat at three different tables so that we could work without encroaching on each other’s space. Also, on the bus to and from school, the foreigners will try to get a seat to themselves if they can help it, but the Chinese staff members will always sit with each other if they can help it.

Living overseas, sometimes it can be very easy to be critical of my own culture. However, I am very much an American. I just can’t help it.