Even after living for several weeks in Beijing, I continue to get surprised. I was at McDonald’s one day getting an ice cream. I saw the green colored ice cream on the picture menu, and craving mint ice cream, I ordered it. However, it was far from mint ice cream. It was green tea flavor. (I had to throw it away).
Or for example, I am still in aw of what people drive in the streets. Once, there was a girl on the back of a motorcycle who was dragging her suitcase behind her on the road (as shown in the picture). Or once, there was someone who was literally driving a small boat on wheel. It even had a license plate!
These small contrasts still catch me by surprise and never fail to make me laugh. It is something I definitely am going to miss from Beijing.
As my time in Beijing is coming to an end, I’ve been reflecting on my time here.
Experiencing living in a new foreign country is amazing. It made me appreciate my parents even more because for the first time in my life, I experienced a fraction of what they must have gone through when the left India, left their home, their family, and all they’d ever known behind to start a better life in England. Sometimes in Beijing I would get really homesick, but it was okay because I would be home in X number of weeks. But for my parents, this new place was their home now. This experience made me appreciate the journey my parents went through because as amazing as living in a new city was, it was still hard, and it was only for eight weeks.
Beijing has been amazing to me, and I can’t wait to come visit again.