Culture Shocking

Dave and I figure that 4 months is not long enough to experience culture shock upon return into our own culture. That coupled with the fact that we are hyper-aware of the differences between Shanghai and St. Louis has maken our re-assimilation quite simple. Food tastes better, company seems sweeter, beds and towels feel softer, but otherwise life feels much as it did before we left.

Except for the news.

Our second day back, the television was interrupted to let us know that a shooter had entered a Lane Bryant in the Chicago city of Tinley Park and killed six women.

One week in, the St. Louis Post Dispatch runs the front page story that six were dead after a shooter entered a Kirkwood City Council meeting.

I have certainly not heard any news like this over the last few months, and innocents' are not shot nearly as regularly in China. Well, except by the government - and that's not reported by the press.

Shocking.