Culture shock Part I

20/09/09
FOOOOOD culture shock: the food is still a little too salty and too sweet for me…:(

My host family eats cake and chocolate milk with chocolate cookies in the morning. :( And I know lots of people like that, but it's really hard for me, because I feel sick with so much sweet food.
But I am really glad that I was extremely specific in my housing questionnaire, I suggest that you do that unless you have no problem being blunt and risk hurting their feelings later on. But yeah it doesn't hurt to be super specific.
Talking to my peers about our experiences at our new homes, it seems to be a common issue. People mention things like not being used to the sweet juice or so much red meat, or so much rice, or meat in their beans all the time, or having food heated in the microwave. And they honestly weren’t sure how to tell their families about it. People just didn’t want to hurt their mom’s feelings or like with the microwave thing, my friend didn’t want it to more generally kind of insult his family's way of doing things and really change their lifestyle. As for me, I really don’t know how to tell my mom that the food is too salty for me. But it is a really big problem-- to the point that so many times that I was eating I was thinking it is NOT possible for me to keep eating this because I feel like my tongue is shriveling up and drying and that can't be good for me. It was that intense. But that's usually only with some meats, and I think it’s because it is really heavily salted for preservation purposes. I’m still not sure, but I still haven’t figured out the best way to tell them my mom about this.
But there were many friends who had no problem with that; they loved their food it was perfect and delicious, and yeah going over to their houses and eating lunch there [many students did this] to check out some different cooking, oh I loved doing that. Especially at my vegetarian friends' places, it was really delicious and not too salty or too sweet for me, and I really got to see how different the cooking style's are. They were really very different in every house that I visited.

But, again I’m really glad that I was very detailed. Like I put down that I don’t eat a lot of meat, I have to eat plenty of vegetables, and fiber—have to have those at every meal. Not too much starch or carbohydrates like bread and rice, I am also lactose-intolerant so I also can’t have too much cheese or cow milk, I drink soymilk but I am into experimenting with new food and I love, love fruits. When I was writing all this I was thinking: oh my gosh no family is going to want me, they’re going to think I’m super picky and anal and difficult. But no, it was really worth it; i'm glad i did it because they are important things for my health, and everything that I mentioned my family is really good about. Now it's just going to be about how to tell them about what I didn't mention. ...