What an interesting place... After having lived here for over a month and a half now, I'm starting to feel like I understand the people better. The things that make them happy, the things that stress them out, the obligations that feel they need to fulfill.
The pace is no doubt faster than most parts of the US that I've been used to, people walk, run everywhere. Subways are incredibly efficient and always on time. People walk around with these deadpan expressions and give this appearance that they exist entirely in a world of their own. Individual non-intersecting spheres and yet I've encountered many circumstances, where the way that they care and the way that they express it is very different from what I'm used to in the States.
I remember this one evening, I was coming home from working at the libary all day. I walked by the market on the way back, bought tons of fruit and was carrying several bags in both hands. I walk up to my apartment building where there is this keypunch security lock at the door and find that there's this girl already holding the door for me. No smile on her face, just deadpan and holding the door, looking at me.
We walk in and both take the elevator up. Once I walk in, she asks me the floor, but again, no eye contact, no smile. Her floor arrives before mine and as she's walking out, she punches the |>< | to close the doors back up, so I don't have to wait til they do it automatically. That one detail struck me. Maybe I'm hung up on this, and this was so automatic, but I left like there was the thought and then the concern and then the action that revealed the thought, that she cared.
And there are so many examples of this. Not the expression of caring through long monogues about what the other person means to you or declarations to buddies bout what a "great guy" a friend is, just actions. And it fascinated me to no end, since in America I've gotten accustomed to expecting people to express those types of things verbally so much that it affects my mood.
