Good, Bad and Just Different

One of the things that Stan and I discussed before coming here was the difference in things being "bad" and things being "just different". We were preparing ourselves for things we knew we would encounter in our new home and the attitude that we wanted to work on having. There are of course good things....which are just that....good. There are also bad things and some things are truly bad. However, although it is easy (or lazy) to stick things in the bad category we wanted to challenge ourselves to question our judgement and ask...."or is it just different from what we are accustomed to?" This seems to be a prevalent attitude among many of us-if it's not the way we are used to then it's bad or wrong.
So in the interest of our attitude adjustment, here are my first categorizations after 1 week here in China.

Good: Smelling and then seeing a Subway Sandwich Shop--yeah for lunchtime!
Bad: Opening Xan's bag of cheetos to discover they are steak flavored (see.... that is just bad).

Good: Discovering wonderful pastries at a local bakery (the Chinese don't bake at home so bakery was awesome!!)
Bad: Discovering that said pastries are way too cheap.

Good: Finding the neighborhood market where the locals shop.
Different: Realizing the locals don't really see a need to refrigerate large hunks of meat accompanied by a meat clever....help yourself (or did they see the need to separate it from the produce......yep...right next to the apples)

Good: Meeting new friends from all over the world.
Different: Being humbled by the fact that I only know one language....seriously these ladies were each fluent in at least 3. (and their kids in 2)

Good: An apartment with great furnishings, an oven and western style bathrooms.
Different: The crazy amount of paperwork involved. (81 page lease)

Good: The view from a 27th floor hotel room....amazing.
Bad (yes just plain BAD): Realizing the Chinese don't see that locks on windows are necessary. (I truly had a meltdown moment on this one. I had to go into the bathroom and cry b/c Xan had been playing all around this wall of windows and the "could have's" overwhelmed me and literally made me sick to my stomach) Thank you GOD for your protection!!!

Good: A job for my husband that doesn't require his presence before 9am. :)
Different: A company car and driver coming to get him and bringing him home each day.

Good: The thoroughness of the physical exams Stan and I received, compliments of the Chinese govt, in order to obtain the proper Visas allowing us to remain in country for extended time period.
Different: The rapid succession/various rooms/number of people used to complete those exams. Seriously....we each had xrays, ekgs, sonograms, blood work, and eye exams in less than 40 minutes total.

Good: Taking a taxi to "the walmart" here in Suzhou.
Different: Discovering that it was on the ground floor of a 4 story shopping mall and that the meat department contained live snakes and dried fish (smelled yummy as I know you can imagine) :)

Good: A new friend's advise on which milk to purchase.
Different: Purchasing it in chicken-stock type boxes from the non refrigerated grocery aisle. We haven't tasted it yet but I'll keep you posted.

So.....here's to continuing our attitude adjustment. I'll keep making notes on the differences and share them with you. I totally plan to include pictures when I can. I'm hoping that our internet connection at our apartment will be helpful with that process as opposed to the connection we have here at the hotel.

Talk to ya later--
Megan

Here's a picture that I'm sure the grandparents have been hoping for. This is on the playground equipment outside our apartment.