Adventures in China

1. Camping. I love camping, but it is weird to take a vacation to get away from conveniences.
2. Throwing food away. Sure, some Chinese people throw some food away, but the vast majority eat everything they buy and use the scraps for fertilizer.
3. Having lawns. Few people actually use their lawns and yet they put so much effort and resources into them.
4. Valuing cars more than people.
5. Valuing individuality. How neat is that! Even in our cars, we have an incredible variety of choices, unlike China where there are about 3 different types of car.
6. The ability to reinvent ourselves. We change job location and types. We move. We meet different people and become friends with them.
7. Not exercising but still complaining about our health. We fight for the parking space closest to the supermarket door where we will load up on fat and sugar, then expect modern medicine to cure everything from heart disease to aches and pains without effort on our parts. Basically not seeing that our actions have a huge influence on our health and taking responsibility for that.
8. Multiculturalism and acceptance of differences. While the United States still has a way to go until we are both integrated and entirely tolerant, we have achieved a significant level of awareness and acceptance.