Hello everyone! It’s been a while. I hope you’re all doing well.
A New Chapter Begins
I’ve been busy living what I’ll call my “plot twist era”, but more on that later. First, some news: This blog is expanding beyond my personal stories! Soon, I’ll share interviews with people whose lives have reshaped my perspective:
- A friend who is my age earned $1M in 2 years
- A marketer who moonlights as a Chinese tutor and vlogger
- A single mom who moved to the U.S. at 47, learned English, and graduated college
Their stories remind me that every life is an uncharted voyage. Let’s sail these waters together.
Six Months in America: Three Lessons That Changed Everything
When I left China, I thought moving to America for graduate school was just about accounting textbooks. Instead, America taught me to unlearn old habits and embrace messy growth. Here’s how:
Lesson 1: Relaxation Is a Skill (And I Was Failing It)
The Old Me:
- Carried my laptop everywhere, even to bars
- Bragged about multitasking at clubs (yes, really)
- Mistook exhaustion for ambition
The Wake-Up Call:
During a beach chat about Bitcoin, my American friend asked, “What do you do for fun?”
“Reading and working out,” I said.
He blinked. “Do you ever…just do nothing?”
I realized: Chinese hustle culture had wired me to treat relaxation as a checkbox (“Okay, did 30 minutes of ‘fun’—now back to work!”). But here, I watched classmates:
- Take sunset walks without counting steps
- Laugh over coffee without checking emails
- Say “I’ll handle it Monday” without guilt
My Experiment:
I went to Las Vegas and left my laptop behind. For three days, I:
- People-watched at slot machines (I’m doing human behavior research)
- Ate tacos without analyzing my stocks (It’s actually called focus)
- Slept around 7 AM (yes, what matters is being awake in the morning. It doesn’t matter whether you binge-watching cat videos or sweating over textbooks at 5 AM)
The world didn’t end. My inbox survived. And I finally understood: Rest isn’t laziness—it’s the fuel for better work.
Lesson 2: Patience Isn’t Passive. It’s Rebellion
What Tested Me:
- Professors taking weeks to fix roster errors
- Repair crews “fixing” my dorm TV a month after it broke
- Bank tellers philosophizing about life mid-transaction
What Changed:
I used to see delays as failures. Now, I’ve learned:
- Slow ≠ Broken: That “inefficient” cashier taught me small talk builds community.
- Lowering Expectations = Liberation: My dorm TV saga became a running joke—and a lesson in creative problem-solving (hello, projector rentals!).
America forced me to trade my “urgent” mindset for curiosity. Turns out, watching paint dry can be…kinda peaceful?
Lesson 3: Open-Mindedness Is a Muscle
Cultural Shock Therapy:
- Privacy Redefined: No more “Which university? Job? Partner?” as icebreakers. Here, even asking “Do you have a boyfriend?” can offend.
- In China, most people don’t maintain much personal distance. They often ask what Westerners consider private questions—this helps build connections, but can sometimes unintentionally overstep boundaries.
- Normal Gets Rewritten: Divorce, blended families, and unconventional life choices are met with shrugs rather than shock here.
- At a campus entrepreneurship event, instead of polished startup fairytales, a former hairstylist who’d abandoned his tech startup dream to build a haircut empire shared his origin story—complete with clippers, chaos, and a pandemic survival playbook. His rough-edged, relatable, and radically hopeful journey packed more practical wisdom than a decade of MBA textbooks.
The Moment Everything Clicked:
I joined a consulting club during my senior year of undergrad. When I asked the founder why he’d built it, he simply replied, ‘Just for fun.’ I froze. My whole life, I’d chased “productive” hobbies, internships, networking, grinding. But here was someone building community purely out of joy.
Now, I’m learning to:
- Ask “Is this curiosity or obligation?” before committing
- Celebrate small wins (like finally not flinching when someone says “I’m divorced”)
- See judgment as the enemy of growth
Why This Matters
Studying abroad didn’t just teach me finance principles. It taught me to see my own culture through fresh eyes, not as flaws to fix, but as threads in a global tapestry. The ‘most important things’ I’ve learned? They’re not on any syllabus. It became a mirror held up to my own culture.
I now see:
✅ China’s Strengths: Our efficiency, resilience, and collective drive.
✅ America’s Gifts: Space for detours, permission to be “unproductive.”
The real lesson? Cultural confidence isn’t about proving superiority, it’s about embracing duality. And growth happens when we stop judging others, and ourselves.
What’s Next?
To my readers: Thank you for staying through my inconsistent posts. Life’s been a whirlwind, but your messages (“Same!” or “You’re nuts—but keep going!”) keep me writing.
Until then, breathe deeply, judge less, and maybe leave your laptop at home sometimes.
With gratitude,
Diffie
This article was wrote on April 15th, 2024 by Diffie. The author use Deepseek to translate.
Original article is below:
A Wanderer’s Reflection 
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