My worldview changed exactly like that of my father's did when he came back from Germany. Not much at all. In China, there are people, they live, they flirt, they marry, they reproduce, they work, they eat, they sleep and eventually they die. There are birds and plants in China, seasons change and there are movies and television. Most of them are cliqued and boring. People like drinking and sometimes they like drinking too much. Men usually like drinking more than women.

Of course, everyone speaks a different language and the food is different (like America its spicier in the South) but China's not that exotic or life changing. People are people and they do peoplish things.

Now I have been studying on this trip. Honest. I can write paragraphs upon paragraphs in the differences in art, culture, religion as well as the political and economic disparities between China and America. But really the information I find most relevant is that the food is spicier and better in Szchuan province but in Bejing they can make a decent cocktail.

Before I came to China, I thought of its religion, its philosophy and politics. I thought of the abstract ethereal China. One of ideas and arts. A culture without people; of vague unreal images. Now when I think of China I think of the taxi drivers that won't drive me where I need them to. I think of Bakeries on the street and the Baozas (dumplings) I eat when I don't have the time to go to a restaraunt. I think of the Jasmine tea I drunk every morning and night. China has ceased to be a world of ideas and dead history and instead it has become of country of people, and sights and sounds. All in all, I prefer the latter.