Adjustments

Jia has now been in the states for a little more than three months. Everyone has been asking how she's adjusting to life here (of course, they asked similar questions when she visited for the first time last year).

I'll admit that it hasn't been easy, but my wife is adjusting to the differences of life in the US. Of course, the process would be easier if we had full-time jobs and our own place to live--with any luck that'll change soon. Fortunately, we have the support of my family.

One of the biggest adjustments for Jia has been that she's learning to drive. She took a few weeks to review the New Jersey driver's guide (I made her read it in English instead of getting the Chinese edition), and she passed the written test easily. Practicing driving is another story--just because you know the rules doesn't mean you know how to operate a vehicle. I signed her up for lessons, but those weren't quite enough. She admitted that she expects things to jump out from the side of the road, and she's surprised when other drivers follow the laws and actually understand the right of way. Traffic doesn't run the same as it does in Shenzhen.

What she enjoys most about living here is the amount of green she sees. My hometown is fairly small and there are some wealthy neighborhoods nearby--and plenty of small parks. And she certainly liked our short hike through the Delaware Water Gap last week. Though she is frightened by the number of black bears we've encountered--one was a little more interested in eat garbage when she went out for a walk on her own.

She's also enjoying the food here. We have a great Asian market where she can get the ingredients she needs to cook (and she's learning to cook quite well). Plus, I've been introducing her to foods that were extremely difficult to find in Shenzhen. Jia keeps wondering why these foods don't exist in China. For some reason she now wants me to introduce her to American junk food (like Drake's cakes). And yet, we've both lost weight since moving here--part of that is due to our regular visits to the gym.

I just hope she continues to enjoy her time in the states. And I hope we can move somewhere that will make it easy for us to go without driving much--I think we'd do pretty well with just biking around a place like Jersey City.