When I was 16 I moved to China with my entire family of five. I was born and raised in California and had only been to Mexico and Canada as a child before I moved overseas. I had no idea the shocks, wonders, and hilarious episodes that where in store for me when I first stepped off that plane onto Chinese soil.
Episode 1. The Pregame Match
The day before we left for China, everything packed and the resolve to leave America in place, my brother and I decided to throw around a football. As someone who can't even catch or throw a bouncy ball, I awkwardly caught one of my bro's throws and felt my finger pop. I told my brother I needed to wait for a minute for the pain to go away. But that never happened so there I was ready for a China with a lot of suitcases to help carry and a broken finger.
Episode 2. The Hunger Games
No one in my family actually spoke Chinese before we moved to China. We new that the produce could have a lot of pesticides. What we didn't know was how to properly clean the produce or bargain and pay for it. We couldn't even order off a menu, as there was no English to be heard or read in our new city. So food was a rare commodity the first few weeks. When we did manage to get a bowl of noodles or a rice dish, it was so spicy for us we could hardly eat it.
Episode 3. Chopsticks
We finally made it to a banquet put on by the university my Dad worked at. I couldn't wait to dig in to the feast. I had totally underestimated my chopstick skills, however, and was finding it very difficult to get rice and noodles into my mouth. Whenever I finally did manage to get a morsel of food close enough to taste, one of the dinner guests would stand and propose a toast. We in turn had to acknowledge the toast and drink whatever we had. Unlike the U.S., drinking a fair amount of alcohol is actually expected at a lot of work dinners. So toasts were common and we were all expected to participate in the toasts.
And no I wasn't drinking alcohol. C'mon guys, I was sixteen. . .
Episode 4. WWNY: World War New Years
The Chinese celebrate Chinese New Years for about two weeks to a month. And the celebration isn't only in the evening; it's all day and all night. Fireworks, firecrackers, car alarms, and barking dogs go off all over the city. I went to a park on the actual night of New Years and felt like I was in a war zone of explosive cardboard. People were setting off full scale fireworks all over the park.
You can get money for cardboard, so people were also running at the leftover boxes as soon as the last firework shot into the sky. At one point, someone ran to grab the box before they realized there were a lot of fireworks still lit and ready to blow. He jumped when one shot into the sky and accidentally knocked the box on its side. Fireworks started shooting out directly at us! We were blasted by cardboard debris and sparks and found ourselves covered in this roasted dust when it was all over.
