Culture shock

I suppose it's fairly normal to have some culture shock within the first few days of arriving in a foreign city.  Here's the strange thing: mine has nothing to do with China.  I have culture shock from interacting with the other international students. 

I haven't seen an official list of the demographics of the international student population at LiaoDa, but there seem to be three types of students: Russian, Korean, and African.  Only about a dozen of us don't fit into those categories.  Since the Russians and Koreans don't speak English, I have spent most of my time with the Africans. 

Hence my culture shock.

So within the first five days, I have had one guy outright ask to take me home with him, two men say they want me to be their wife, and one guy ask to take me to a candlelight dinner.  Yeah, much more forward than I'm used to.  And somehow one guy has decided that he is supposed to protect and take care of me this year.  That may not be an entirely bad thing, but it's a little bit stifling, too! 

My roommate is from Tanzania.  It's going to take me a bit to get used to her hanging out in the room almost naked.  I don't know if that's actually culture shock or not, though, because I don't know if that's a Tanzanian custom or if it's just her.  

Let me just say that I was relieved to meet a Belgian couple recently.  We met through a Czech couple, who will also be good people to know, and we have spent a good bit of time together since.  We have mostly been playing cards and talking about Dutch things.  J  Besides the obvious fun of talking Dutch, these two are the first people I have met here who definitely come from a developed country.  (Okay, that's a lie: I met the Canadian.  But I haven't seen him since.  I hope he didn't go back to Canada already.)