You Might Have Been in America Too Long When...

We have now been back in the America for over 10 months. 10 months! That is by far the longest we have been here since we got married 11 years ago. When you spend that much time in your own country, you start adjusting your behaviors and expectations, until America starts to seem pretty normal.

You know you have been in America too long when…

1. You say, “I don’t really feel like Mexican food today.”
2. You find yourself drinking ice water – IN THE WINTER.
3. You start to take closets for granted.
4. Burger King is not the best burger you’ve had all year.
5. You send your child to school in one layer when there is frost on the ground, and nobody even scolds you.
6. You don’t even stop in the cereal aisle.
7. You complain that the door locks aren’t working...in your temperature controlled, shock-absorbing, faster than 30mph, fully enclosed and locking CAR.
8. You don’t go into fast food and gas station bathrooms thinking, “This is so much nicer than my bathroom.”
9. You think that drive thru and grocery pickup and prepaid mailing labels are quite normal.
10. You stop wondering what the neighbors will think, because you don’t have a couple hundred of them seeing and hearing all the screaming through windows, walls, and floors.
11. There is only one Chinese person at the park who is eyeing you...because there is only one Chinese person at the park.
12. Nobody comes up and awkwardly asks you in English, “Hello! Are you American?” but you go up to the Chinese person at the park and awkwardly ask in Chinese, “Hello! Are you Chinese?”
13. It seems normal to have so much stuff you need an attic, a basement, and/or a storage shed in the backyard.
14. You start to take for granted that you can send your kids off to school where someone keeps them all day and is responsible for making sure they learn everything – for FREE!
15. Your kids get super excited about rice and even more excited about jiaozi (potstickers).
16. You start thinking of all these ways you will HGTV and Container Store your apartment when you get back.
17. Your kids have twice as many toys and yet somehow still have less than most of their friends.
18. You feel annoyed when it takes a minute for the water to heat up in the sink, even though you have hot water in the sink.
19. You take for granted the DISHWASHER.
20. You stop noticing when other parents take their babies out shockingly under-dressed.
21. You start getting all paranoid about safety, even though your kids have probably never been safer in their lives (school shootings not-withstanding).
22. You don’t eat avocado every day.
23. Your family hasn’t flown, even domestically, in NINE months.
24. You think it’s a pain to drive 45 minutes to get immunizations, even though in the past you have taken 24-48 hour round-trips to get immunizations.
25. You start thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be too weird to live in America.

But then you go back to China and everything rights (or possibly wrongs) itself. It all depends on your perspective.

See also You Might Be a Chinese Foreigner If...