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b"I've intentinoally been spending as much time alone as possible this week. nbsp;Initially it was because I was homesick for the first time since my arrival and I thought I needed some space from the noise and commotion of my normal affairs here. nbsp;It's given me time to reflect on this experience, which is now a third finished, and how it has helped me as an individual. nbsp;After Chinese class on tuesday I had a secondary goal, to practice my Chinese.\\n\\nMy Chinese class moves quickly, like everything here, and I sometimes find myself lost in the tones, fumbling helplessly to write down a phonetic pronounciation while the rest of the class presses forward with the rest of the lesson. nbsp;There are a few phrases Ican say with almost total confidence: my introduction devotees will remember from a few weeks ago, counting and forming complex numbers, handling money, and how to call a waiter, place an order, and ask for the check; oh yeah, and the all important ldquo;ganbei!rdquo; which serves a clever and crucial role in getting myself and anyone else at dinner mercilessly drunk on baijiu (rice wine). nbsp;I can also do this rad tongue twister that goes like this: \\u56db\\u662f\\u56db\\uff0c\\u5341\\u662f\\u5341\\uff0c \\u5341\\u56db\\u662f\\u5341\\u56db\\uff0c \\u56db\\u5341\\u662f\\u56db\\u5341\\u3002 Which translates to 4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40. nbsp;I'm impressed even if you aren't.\\n\\nAs far as practical skills go, I can order food, yes, but I can't actually read the menu. nbsp;When the convenience store clerk asks for ba kaui wu, I know he wants 4.50 yuan, but if I wanted to tell said clerk I thought he missed something, I'd have to foolishly point and gesture at whatever it was until he got the picture; or if all I had to pay with was a 100 kuai note I wouldn't understand when he told me I needed something smaller. nbsp;I recognize a few characters, but not enough to read the sign telling me the power in the dorms will be off between 9AM and 6PM tomorrow. nbsp;Luckily I have kind roommates and helpful friends.\\n\\nIt was partly because of these sumblings that I wanted to spend more time alone. nbsp;I wanted to try fending for myself and mostly I wanted to feel like an individual again. nbsp;I wanted the satisfaction of proving my ability to live here on my own, to prove that if I had to I could get by on my own. nbsp;After four weeks of clinging to my friends to interpret menus for me I was ready to cut the cord and take some control back.\\n\\nAs it turns out I am doing better than I thought. nbsp;It's surprisingly easy to get by with pathetic gestures and broken chinese. nbsp;I get the impression that it's almost expected that I will know about as much as I do and little more. nbsp;This gives me some comfort because at least I'm living up to their expectations , but upon further recflection I realise just how high the expectations are for foreigners back home, and ho much lower it is here. nbsp;Back home there may be a menu in Spanish, and a few chinese joints that have menus written in Chinese but the general sentiment is that if you're coming to the US, you're going to communicate with us in English. nbsp;Surprising for a country with so much diversity, it reinforces my long held conviction that the WASPy majority in the United States deserves absolutely nothing: no pity, special treatments, or any other kind of ldquo;helping handrdquo; in the United States.\\n\\nThis is not to suggest that China may not have it's own problems with its ethnic minorities in relation to the majority population. nbsp;I have not learned much about the subject, only that China has over 50 ethnic minority groups living peacefully together as one Chinese nation (which fact nearly every student here knows and quickly and energetically recites for me at every opportunity). nbsp;I am merely making the simple point that it is probably easier for someone who does not know Chinese to live here than someone who doesn't speak english to live in America.\\n\\nAll of this is coming into focus just as the election is wi..."