Top 10: What I Will Miss About America

10. Having the Right of Way as a Pedestrian
Dodge car is not the safest game.

9. Convenience
Amazon.com has restrictions and can only ship certain items to Taiwan. This makes me sad. In American, yahoo is yahoo.com. Google is google.com. Anywhere else, for example Taiwan, it's yahoo.com.tw and google.com.tw. English/the US rules the Internet. I have a feeling this will confound me for quite awhile.
And that's just one of the many examples of the conveniences I will miss dearly.

8. Swimming Without Swim Caps!
Swim caps are required at most pools. Something about not having hair fall out and making the water dirty, from what I've gathered. Also, a lot of swimming pools require guys to wear speedos. As in, swimming trunks are strictly prohibited. Skinny Asian guys with virtually nothing on...hot? O.o

7. Dairy
For some reason, it appears that Asians never really got into the whole milk, cheese, and yogurt thing. Nowadays, yogurt is starting to become an eating fad, especially with the girls. I don't really know how to explain this, but I can say I did not know what whipped cream was until 7th grade. I also grew up drinking formula, not "fresh milk" (that's the literal translation of what we call milk here in the US. 鮮奶.)

6. Not Using/Seeing Umbrellas, rain or shine.
Americans aren't too worried about running from place to place in the rain, playing Ultimate Frisbee in the rain, or sometimes just sitting in the rain. In Taiwan, almost everyone carries an umbrella on their persons at all times. There is also some weird desire to be more pale like white people, traced back to something like how in the ancient times, the nobility stayed indoors and did noble things, while the pesants worked outside and did peasant things. Therefore, the paler the girl is, the hotter she is. Something like that. This leads to many people, especially the female kind, carrying umbrellas in BROAD DAYLIGHT (with really nice weather and blue skies). To protect themselves from the evil, evil sunshine. I really don't get it.

5. Grass - Fields. Frisbee. Freedom.
Ok, that is a little overdramatic. But as you can imagine with all cities, grassy fields are extremely limited. I'm going to miss all the random pick up games and just running with the soft touch of grass against my bare feet :)

4. National Holidays; All Their Crazy Glory
I am going to miss 3-way weekends dearly, such as Memorial Day, Labor Day, President's Day. The only real break I have is Chinese New Years; there will be school on Christmas day for me this year. I am going to miss Black Friday shopping (come on, that's almost a holiday in and of itself), and I might even miss hearing Christmas songs on the radio as soon as Thanksgiving starts.

3. Dryers
For some reason, everyone hangs their clothes to dry in Asia. I didn't even know dryers existed until I moved to the US in 3rd grade.

2. The Return Policy
As a general norm and rule of thumb, you don't return things after you purchase them. I know that probably sounds really strange to Americans and must seem like the Taiwanese offer horrible customer service, but I was blown away when I discovered that items can be taken back to stores for a refund. Crazy!
I'm not sure how more expensive items like electronics work, but with clothing, handbags, and literally every other item I've purchased in Taiwan, I have not been able to return. It's not like I tried, though. The thought never occurred to me, and it would've been really strange if I attempted to return something I bought and maybe even used.
So, here is goodbye to "I'm going to get this shirt, and that skirt, and these jeans, and this necklace...and decide if I like it/if it fits later and then return it if I don't!"

1. My AT&T Phone Plan
700 min shared family plan, $10/month for my line. Plus, unlimited texting family plan, $35/month, which means $8.75/month per person. $18.75/month for unlimited texting, unlimited calls at night and on weekends, and some minutes to use during the day.
In Taiwan, it's approximately $26 USD, individual phone plan. 2 hour outgoing talking time. (In Taiwan, you only get charged for the calls you make; if someone else calls you, you are connected to that call for free). Yes. That is 120 minutes we're talking about. And that includes nighttime and weekends. 120 for the entire month. Um. Crap.
As for texting, it's the same thing. You only get charged for outgoing calls. My plan lets me text users with the same carrier for free, and all other outgoing texts are charged per message sent.
I just may implode and die.


Disclaimer: The list is not in any particular order.