woa bu xiao

3:25pm Friday, Oct 5

i feel so confused. cwy is not what i expected it to be. i expected it to be a challenge. i expected it to be difficult. i expected it to be a learning experience. and it is. but not in the way i expected.

since the day i arrived, i've thought about quitting. and there were quite a few times, especially in the past week, where i came very close to leaving. and yet, everytime i feel i can't take it anymore...something tells me to wait and see. i don't know whether or not i'll make it to china. it really is one day at a time.

it's difficult because there is such a divide between the chinese and canadians. not everyone is being problematic, but the few that have issues are infecting the rest of the group. and i'll be honest, i'm one of the people with issues.

i'm very strong willed, and as some of you might be well aware of, blunt :-P and that doesn't necessarily translate well between cultures. and it's something i'm aware of, and i'm taking the effort to soften my rough edges.

in the month i've been here, i've learned a lot about chinese people. yes, they do not think the same way as canadians. yes, they come from a different culture where they do things differently. but what i think is the most important lesson i've learned so far, if i can use the cliche, is that deep down we are the same.

we all have the need to be respected. we all want to be happy. we all want to love and be loved. whenever the canadians and chinese clash, some of the chinese people say that "this is how we do things in china. you do not understand our culture." and while this may be true, this does not mean we don't want to learn and understand.

and personally, i feel like i understand them more than they realize. i was raised in a chinese household. i went to chinese school. i only spoke chinese for the first 5 years of my life. most of my friends growing up were chinese. i don't celebrate christmas, i celebrate chinese new years. i eat chinese food everyday at home. and while i admit i am not chinese in the way that a person born and raised in china is chinese. their culture is still very much alive in me and all chinese canadians who live here whether by birth or immigration.

i don't want the chinese people in our group to feel like they need to live in this box while they are in canada. where no one understands them, or is even capable of trying. it's one day at a time.