Homesickness

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There is only one country that I've ever really gotten homesickness in before now, Costa Rica. In Costa Rica I got homesick really badly. So much so that I lost my temper and insisted on being allowed to go home. But the reason was primarily due to my relationship with the family that I was staying with. I was staying in very bad conditions and the family was treating me like (what others later explained to me) a slave. Once the school where I was taking Spanish classes found this out they changed me to a different home with a wonderful woman who I will never forget and I had a great time. In the end it was extremely hard for me to leave Costa Rica.

I've only been here in China for two weeks and I already get homesick. It's not the culture shock that I got in India and it's also not the problem with my living situation like it was in Costa Rica. What makes it really hard is the language. I constantly feel like I'm extremely lonely and extremely anti-social because my vocabulary level doesn't allow for me to talk to anyone. I can see that many people here are very nice and there are people that I say hi to all day but that's all I can do, say hi. No conversations with anyone unless I really need something or am in the classroom/school or am with people from the classroom or school. Everywhere I go people want to speak English to me and if they can't speak English they don't talk to me. It's very frustrating and a lot of the time it feels like a huge weight on my shoulders. I need to figure out a routine very quickly so I can take more classes and learn more Chinese.

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