It's an entirely different environment from what I'm used to; talk about departing from my comfort zone.
The culture, the people, the way things are done.. everything seems so strange. The food is oilier, saltier, comes in larger portions and have quickly grown boring.
The locals are difficult to get to know as the vast majority seem to only possess a rudimentary understanding of English, and many of the more fluent ones are only better in an academic sense. Conversing with them in Chinese poses the reverse problem- my Chinese is way too basic to keep up with them, limiting our interaction to either me breaking my English sentences down and explaining certain individual words, or them doing so with their Chinese. Safe to say that this pretty much prevents any kind of deep conversation.
The internationals are essentially the opposite of the quiet and reserved locals, but at the same time many of them are much wilder than I'm used to, and me being the non-drinking, non-smoking, non-clubbing stiff that I am presents another obstacle. This is of course a generalisation, and there are exceptions to this rule. I'm sure that there is more to many of them than just this one glaringly apparent dimension, but the avenues available for seeing these "other sides" are severely limited, therefore making it exceedingly difficult to get to know the actual individual person.
I think that's the difference I feel the most- not having met any new friends I can have a proper, meaningful conversation with; or conversely, someone I can comfortably be with in silence and not have my mind struggling to fill the void with irrelevant and superfluous words.
I just need one person.
Just one.
Shouldn't be too difficult now should it?
You'd be surprised.
