We stayed in China for two long and exhilarating weeks in some nasty dorm rooms infested with bugs. Everyone had to sleep under mosquito nets and some of us couldn’t even take showers because mosquitos would come swarming out of their faucets. The only good thing we got from the dorms was the food in the mornings. They made the best noodles ever. My teammates and I would race downstairs as early as possible, trying to be the first one’s there, in order to get some noodles.
While we were there the team and I got the chance to have dinner with the head sports chairman. We ate in his private dinner hall with some other important figures as well. They brought us out so many weird foods that you would never even think of having in the United States. A couple foods I really remember were roasted duck and squirrel liver. The roasted duck was basically a cross section of a duck, cooked to almost burnt, and then chopped into pieces. My friend James and I were the only two willing to pick out the headpiece. He had the left side and I had the right. We were sitting there with chopsticks picking out the brain and other parts of the body in a duck. We even made one of my friends throw-up. Now, the squirrel liver was the most interesting piece of food I had the whole time in China. The liver pieces were orange colored, rough textured, and slimy. The funny part about them is that you could sit there all day and night trying to chew this thing or tear it apart with your teeth and not make any progress. You have to swallow it whole.
Staying in China showed me many different viewpoints in life. Seeing all the dogs, cats and ducks being cooked on the side of the road, along with the fat rats running along the streets, made me really understand how lucky I really am to live in a country as great as the United States. In the United States, we never actually sit back and realize how fortunate we are to have valuable goods and services available to us at all times. Here in America we have grocery stores and food markets that supply us with packaged food and quality tested products that are available at any time of day for us to purchase. In China, the food is home grown and sold on the streets along with all the smoke, dirt, and grime. I also cherish the ability to have a car and drive easily and safely anywhere I wish to go. In China there are so many taxi’s that you can get where you want to go faster by walking or riding a bike, provided you don’t get hit by a taxi. They don’t care if you’re in the way or not, they’ll still hit you. Trust me, I have personal experience. Instead of Rent-A-Car places, they have Rent-A-Bike with hundreds of bike’s lined up. We’re lucky to have such strong law enforcement and I like the fact that they are there to protect the good from the bad and keep the bad off the streets. One time in China, I saw a man lying unconscious with his head busted open and a big splatter of blood on the wall. Everyone was just walking by and not giving a hoot that the man was laying there. This is why I’m thankful for all the help and aid we receive from the police, hospitals, military, and fire departments. I am grateful to live in the strongest nation in the world.
Even to this day whenever I feel like I’m not being treated fairly or that I’m not getting what I want, I think about what it would be like if I lived in another country. Although we do not have a perfect government system, it is still considered by many to be the best in the world. In addition, human rights are of paramount importance in the United States. By contrast, citizens of other countries are strictly controlled by the government and in some instances are not allowed to own a business. This is part of the American dream and it’s these differences that really make you appreciate what we have in the United States.
