Some Impressions

Here are some quotes from a paper I just wrote entitled "My First Impressions of Beijing"

I am still getting used to the exchange rate here. Everything is so much cheaper in Beijing than in America. I don’t understand all the reasons for that – I was good at economics in high school, but I do not remember what makes currency values different for different nations. I have been quite surprised though as I wander around in the supermarket or Wudaokou and see all the items that are 1/7th the price they would be in the United States. I truly cannot fathom why this is the case – why even such necessities as food and water cost so much more in the US than they do here. It is surprising and even a little disturbing.
The food here has been quite enjoyable for me. It is very different from “Chinese food” in America. Here, there is much more variety – I walk into the dining hall and see a vast array of food, most of which I cannot even recognize. I still do not know what I ate for lunch two days ago. Most people, it seems, do not drink a liquid with their meal. I wonder why that is. Maybe it is an unnecessary expense, or maybe the food already contains enough liquid. Or maybe it’s just a cultural difference and there is no other reason.
I have noticed that there are a lot fewer obese people here in Beijing than there are in America. Obesity is a huge problem in America, with 1/3 of the population unhealthily overweight. However, I don’t think I’ve seen anybody here that looked significantly overweight. I am curious about what the reasons are for this fact. Perhaps it has to do with the Chinese diet being healthier. Or perhaps it has to do with transportation here requiring more energy to be expended than is required in America. I even notice that there are way more sports facilities on the campus of Tsinghua than there are on the campus of the University of Florida, and that these sports facilities receive very heavy use. Students are constantly playing sports, it seems. Even at 1:30 in the morning when I got back from karaoke the other night, there were people playing on the basketball courts across from our dorms.
I have struggled with making generalizations so far this trip. Basically, I have seen a few parts of Beijing, and nothing of the rest of China. However, I already want to generalize my experiences – both to Beijing and to the rest of China. I know that this is wrong, though. I know that just because something is true in the Wudaokou area does not mean it is true in the rest of Beijing or in the rest of China. I am trying to be careful not to generalize too much here and assume I know what life is like outside of my personal experiences here. I know a certain amount of this will probably happen, and is not necessarily bad, but I definitely want to wait a while until I have been able to experience more before making all sorts of generalizations about things I have not yet experienced.