Weird things in States

      Before I came to the United States, all the information I learnt about this country was through the movies. At that time, I thought America is just like New York, D.C., Boston, and LA with welled urbanization. However, as the aircraft was about to land at the runway, what was that? I barely saw a high building, and that was Chicago. As I live here for a long time, I have realized more fun facts about this country I have never known about in China before I came here.

 1. “What’s up” means how are you?

 Believe it or not, before I came to States, I didn’t know that “what’s up” is a phrase for people to greet and people don’t really expect you to respond to that. I still remember like the first several month I lived here, people ask me “what’s up”, I was literally looked up to the sky and tried to observe what the hell was above my head, and said sorry I don’t know.

               

    2.  American food size is enormous .

        In China, when I hang out with friends and go to a restaurant for food, we usually count people’s heads to figure out how many dishes would like to order. The size of dish depends on what you order but in general is relatively small portion of size. I did the same thing with my friends here. Once, I hanged out with my friends, and we went to the cheesecake factory. The burger was even bigger than my face. Considering I ordered the combo with fries and large coke. O my god, I couldn’t finish it. From then, I learnt a new lesson “if you go to cheesecake factory, remember to share your food with your friends.

  3. That is not how we dance in China

     When I went to my first American party, I got  really shocked. “What are they doing? ” “American people call it dancing” . That was really weird. In my opinion, what happened over there was some guys took off their shirts and waved it and “jumped around”. Although, in China we do have night clubs, but I never seen that before. After I attended several  American parties, and talked to my local friends, I realized that people here don’t really care how well you are able to dance but did you have fun or not. Now, I have adapted to be a true American hah

  4. Americans put cheese on everything.

 I didn’t realize that how Americans are so crazy about cheese until I came here. They put cheese on everything like macaroni with cheese, cheese burger, cauliflower cheese, cheese hotdog, cheese omelette, even the apple pie with the cheese on top. It seems like Americans consider the cheese as a secret recipe like whenever they think the food in front of them is not tasty enough, adding more cheese would make the dish taste much better. I mean that I am fine with cheese for a small amount of time, but if that is what I have to take for the whole month, I am going back to China.

5. The Age System doesn’t make any sense

In U.S., 18 is considered the age to be adult, and you can start to drive when you get 16. you can smoke when you are 18 but at the same time you are not allowed to purchase tabacoo products in a lot of states until 21. In MA, once I got sick, I went to a CVS pharmacy inside a Target shop, they refused to sell me the medicine because I was not 18 yet. It doesn’t make any sense, because it is quite common that teenagers would get sick while their parents are not around them. What should they do? In addition I don’t understand why the States set up the legal drinking age so late. You have to be 21 to drink. In China, there is no age drinking limitation, and it is quite normal for teenagers to drink in China. Personally, I started to drink during the middle school age. After I came here I was told that I have to wait for five years to drink, I got so confused.

Perhaps, for you guys what I just post is the common sense, but I got quite confused when I come here. Comment below, and share your thought with us!