Walmart is not Walmart

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"The first time I moved here was like 2017 august, but I visited my friend here in 2017 April. The most memorable thing about moving here --it was unfortunate because this is like my first real memory that I have—was that Walmart is not Walmart. I was like there's a Walmart down the street and then I go to there and I'm like, this is not the Walmart that I was raised in, which is totally fine, but I was like, man, I have no idea where anything is, and there's not some of the things that I would think “that's in Walmart”! So it's a Walmart in name and so you got to kind of like reorient yourself. It was like a Chinese supermarket. If someone said there's a Chinese supermarket down the street, I would have been cool. They can't fool me and say like Walmart since it's a Chinese market. That's great for those kinds of market down the street which is not Walmart. So I probably say that's one of the biggest things that first hit me, also because there's a MacDonald's right there and that's MacDonald's enough like there's a big mac, there's like specialty things that MacDonald's does everywhere. Like in France they do different things and China they do different things, but it's still MacDonald's, that's not Walmart. That's okay it's not Walmart, but you go just like Walmart now is that? Yeah, like even the Starbucks here is kind of the same. I you can get your latte and stuff, but no, that's not Walmart. And that's all right. I don't know if you'll ever go to Walmart in America. If you do, pray that you like go in the morning, don't go at night, there's creatures at night, don't go. It's very scary. There's actually like a website called I think either creatures of Walmart or people of Walmart or something like that where he was like there's some crazy people Walmart at night."

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Live with the Flow & Changes

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"When I first moved here, I was overpaying for food by buying the more expensive ones. That was the dumbest thing on my part. I overpaid for food because I didn't know and everyone just like “let's go and makes one and buy all the food”. Then they are like: “your favorite food can be delivered”, and I just kept buying from like these few places that were overpriced.

And I didn't know that you could get up for food that's very affordable like on the weekends. It wasn't until I don't even think no, I don't think you were here, I don't think you (the “you” here refers to interviewers) were here, you might have been here. Ms. Samuels was like a teacher that was like a Chinese history teacher. She was like fluent in Spanish, and this was before miss a was here too.

I heard that you remember her but like what I mean to say is like she was here to be able to show me the routines of China, and she was like “what are you doing?” She was like come here, and the first meal that I actually had I was like Chinese food. I couldn't live here like this and so that was like the moment that I was like “this is how you actually live in China.” I learned how to live in China. This time around I just like eating tofu skins and stuff. It's easy for me this time the time before it was hard.

But now I'm like vegetarian but doesn't even matter because I know where to go like there's a big and hot place in Futian, but I go to that place where no one else goes to. The foods are delicious, amazing, awesome. Everyone should go."

 

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Adapting to China-- Again?

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Mr. J used to be a dean at Basis International Shenzhen, but he left in 2021 to the U.S. Now he is coming back as the college counselor of the same school. Lots of things have changed, including a new campus. 

 

"I want to say it's not difficult adapting. I think I am a pretty adaptable person. I think that the new campus has benefits and costs. A great benefit is more space, and you actually have a basketball court now we can have home games and that's really important when it comes to culture, but also in the same breadth for culture. Having a larger space means it's harder to have my cohesive culture. And so, it's going to take a lot more intentional effort, not only on faculty, but also students' parts to build that type of culture. So, it has its benefits in broad ways that have dashed into it. I you put me anywhere on earth. I could call this the dump in the room. So, I have no problem with that.

Unfortunately, my wife is not here. She was

apart for a little bit because of immigration

issues. That's probably the hardest adjustment

which is like not having my wife and having

my dog. I have one of our dogs, but I have two

dogs. Only one is here and my wife is not here.

So that's probably the hardest. I think I would

probably say this okay to adapting because I've

lived in Shenzhen where I lived around the

corner from here. I know how to use all the

apps. I have all the translation things so that's

not really hard for me to adapt.

There were some tough things about where I usually get my phone service no longer there's construction in garden cities so I cannot get Starbucks from there and so it's just one of those like things that aren't where they used to be. And so now I've got to figure that out. I figured that out in the first week, so it's not a problem."

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Shenzhen, Inclusive or Not

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"That's not a yes or no question, right? That's more like a kind of scale. I think it's like 7. Like my experience. If you want to feel like what it feels like to be a celebrity then yeah, come to the Shenzhen, you can get your picture taken all the time. All right, that's a very bad joke, but I was running a long distance this weekend if someone was taking a picture of me.

And then someone like when I was on a bike asking me questions about do I like LeBron or Kobe Bryant. If you kind of like think about it, it's tough, right? It's like I'm trying to run. I'm not like out here with a show that talks about basketball. It's like I'm actually trying to be a whole person but is the trade-off that you take. How many black people are there really here? It's not a lot of black people. Let's say, 1% of the city's black. It's not a lot since Shenzhen is huge. And so, when you find a black person, they're probably not as tall as me, right? Secondly, some of them aren't as physically built as me. So, people’re like “he's got to be someone important.” And yes, I've never been treated badly here. But I have been treated differently. I've been treated badly and definitely tons of times in America, treated horribly. I don't think I've ever been treated horribly here."

 

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Attention

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"There's a lot of attention. Like everywhere I go with my DV and ride my bike. When I see a small child points and said something. I can’t hear him but I know he said something. But it's fine, it's just whatever. It's just that I draw a lot of attention. I know I do and it's not a problem. I'm kind of used of drawing attention.

My knowledge of Shenzhen goes as far as you have. Like I don’t know *LuoHu but that doesn't count it's different now. I'm not going to be like I know Shenzhen like my back. I understand Shenzhen. I think definitely more than the average foreigner because my wife is from Shenzhen. She knows Shenzhen back and forth because she's been here since she was a kid. And so, I have a little like understanding on history because historically speaking, she was here whenever there weren't all these buildings whenever all this stuff wasn't exploding. And so, she explains that to me and so that's kind of interesting, but I'm not going to say like I am one with Shenzhen. I'd probably say I'm like a six out of ten for understanding of Shenzhen. I at least know more than the average"

 

*A district in Shenzhen, one of its earliest.