Feel Our Culture Shock!
around May, 1997
"... in quietness and trust is your strength..." (Isaiah 30:15 )
During the last few months, we are thankful for lots of things. However,
there are many things which we have to adjust to. See this list to experience
with us our own culture shock:
~ 1. Who are we afraid of ? ~
We can slowly adjust to many things, except that we are both very scared
of cockroaches. There are lots of cockroaches in our apartment. Fortunately,
they are relatively small compared to the ones in Hong Kong. We haven't
seen any flying ones yet, which are even scarier!
~ 2. Turn off your tap! ~
After each shower, our bathroom was flooded like a fountain. Our neighbors
immediately below us will always knock on our doors and shout out loudly:
" Turn off your tap!! My ceiling is leaking!"
~ 3. Real HOT Showers! ~
For awhile, our tap only offered hot water, without any cold water to moderate
the temperature. Have you ever tried one like that?
~ 4. Sleeping on the floors ~
Beds are a luxury here. A second hand bed is worth about US$150.00. That
is equivalent to a professor's 3 months' wages in this country. Most ordinary
citizens can't afford to buy beds. Therefore, they typically sleep on the
floors. And so do we!
~ 5. A door knock at 4:00 am ~
Some stranger(s) knocked on our doors at 4 am in one morning. We were shocked,
but we didn't open the doors. A colleague had already warned us about not
opening our doors to strangers, and not even police.
~ 6. Policeman or Puh-lease man ~
The policemen here have a very bad reputation. A friend's cassette deck
was stolen when a policeman got into her apartment. They can give the foreigners
a hard time to hopefully get some cash.
~ 7. Enforced environmentalists ~
Plastic bag is a luxury in this place, too. So each time we shop, we have
to bring our own bags. We can almost rival the die-hard environmentalists
here!
Please continue to pray for us