I have been back now for nearly a week and I must say that I am in some ways really glad to be back. For me the exchange experience has been less drastic than for others, for I have lived in several countries already and have moved a lot throughout my childhood. However, having never lived in a large city before it was quite a change for me. Having now returned home the differences between living in a small village in Holland and a metropolis in China become evident.
Upon my arrival the first thing I saw was a large banner which awaited me at the arrival gate at Dusseldorf airport. Finally, I was no longer a minority! I was among my friends, family and girlfriend once again! We headed over to the nearest bar to have a small celebration. I had to walk over to the bar to order because as we sat down we were not helped. It was the first real difference I noticed, for in Western society labor is a large cost for businesses while in Asia labor is cheap and service is second nature.
I didn’t need much time to get adjusted to the time, I managed to stay awake during my return trip. It meant sleeping only 4 hours and then staying awake for nearly 34 hours straight! But watching movies and playing on my iPad made the time pass quickly. I had a lot of luggage with me on the way back. Luckily British Airways allows you to bring a 23kg weighing carry-on. So my additional laptop bag weighed 16kg, the carry-on was 22kg (it contained a 6kg stone terracotta army head) and my suitcase was slightly overweight at 25kg. I was also wearing two coats and a thick jumper and luckily my dad managed to fly back my other 30kg of stuff earlier! The flight was made even more comfortable when I was rewarded with a free upgrade.
Food-wise I looked forward the most to my mum’s cooking, Stampot-rauwe-andijvie, my favorite dish! The first days I could eat whatever I wanted so all the Dutch dishes passed before me. It was nice to be home again. Handing everyone their presents and showing the pictures again and again was a nice way for them to see what I had done, but also for me to recap on all I had seen in these 5 short months.
However, life here in Elst is a little boring. I again live at home, I take the train to the University, I have my friends, my local gym, our dog and of course my girlfriend and my friends. When you come back home it’s the same as you left it. Hardly anything has changed, sure my car didn’t start on the first turn of the key and some of my friends now have girlfriends but all in all life just went on, as if I had never left.
When living in Shanghai the city was always buzzing, something could happen or one would do something or organize something on the spot. There was no one who I had to inform or check with before I would do anything, which I guess you would have in the Netherlands too if you didn’t have a girlfriend or stayed with you family, but it is different. Shanghai is crazy as we on exchange would put it numerous times. The city lives and there is always something going on. People come and people go, if you go to a bar you rarely meet the same people, everyone there has a story, everyone has something interesting to tell. Here in Elst, Bemmel or even Nijmegen/Arnhem the stories are a little dull. I do like in a sense the fact that life here is slower and calmer but having stayed in Shanghai has changed that a little. I am more spontaneous, I would like to go out more, I look forward even more than before to seeing the world and traveling. Unfortunately, I also know what I need to do to achieve that, study.
My first week back was also a little hectic; I had to register for exams and my bachelor thesis. This went all apart from smoothly, I will not bother you with the details, in the end I was right and I had successfully enrolled as I had said all along. But to those who plan to go on exchange make sure you make copies of your enrollment and always double check! Additionally I had to prepare for my exams. I had followed two courses long distance at UvT and we had been given the opportunity to take the exam later than our fellow students. So the first week back was right back into study mode!
So what has this exchange given me? It has opened my eyes, it has done this by revealing to me a whole other way of life. I have been to South America, I have been to South Africa, I am well traveled in Europe and now I can say I have had a taste of the Orient. I knew relatively little about their culture, their heritage and the people themselves. I now see the real differences between the Asians and us, and trust me they do not all look alike! I have now become more confident that wherever I will end up later in life I will manage it. I become more mature because I was dropped in an unfamiliar environment and managed to have an amazing time. I know more than ever that I wish to do business overseas and I know that competition is fierce. It is said that: “Whatever you’re good at, there is always an Asian who is better.” I believe that I now to some extent know what that means. Asians are driven by their parents and society to never be satisfied and they will not quite to excel further than the rest of the world. So they truly are a force to be reckoned with.
I now end my blog on this note but luckily there will always be memories of the dorm rooms where these ‘bright minds’ stay. The 8 to a room dorm, with no air-conditioning or heating and the fact that they go to the library to sleep and not study because it is heated or cooled. They are a peculiar people and my time in Shanghai was amazing and will never be forgotten. If I am to ever be fortunate to be able to return the first thing I will do is eat at the Muslim place. It remains for me the best way to depict my stay in Shanghai.
Zài jiàn Shanghai
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