Living in an environment which is totally different from your home country will enable you to think and observe things in a way you couldn’t manage while in home country. Not until I went to Poland and had the opportunities to communicate with lots of international friends, I found out that there’re so many stereotypes and overgeneration about Chinese culture. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I was asked “Is it safe to live in China?”, “Are your Chinese eating everything?!”.

It’s fun of talking about culture differences with internationals. Personally I’m willing to introduce Chinese culture to either friends or random people i meet, at the same time I try to be open to different point of views and avoid judging. I guess that’s why I can made friends with many internationals.I used to think I was very open-minded. However, once one of my friends here in US asked me, “Monica, are you a conservative person?” “Of course not!” I replied. Then he asked. “Which standard? You mean compare to Chinese or American?” So I realized that I’m liberal (or maybe crazy) compare to majority Chinese but just average liberal according to my American friends’ standard. Yeah, one thing I like living abroad is that you can gradually explore more to recognize yourself.

In the opposite, one thing I don’t like living abroad is the “Reverse Culture Shock”, which is the difficult and surprising from an affected person when he/she deal with home culture after return from long-term experience living abroad. I had a conversation of this topic before with my friend Nick from Australia. He had been living in Japan for one year before he came to my city in China for internship. Both of us experienced the uncomfortableness and anxiety result from reverse culture shock. After came back from Poland, I badly missed the three-time-cheek-kissing between friends, I badly missed the time I can do crazy things without being judged by other people, I badly wanted to go back to Poland to hang out with old friends.

To some extent, these kind of feeling motivate me to apply for graduate school abroad, and I’m so happy I made it. Now it is summer time, some of my internationals friends already left, some of them are going to graduate soon. It's a season of saying goodbye, full of sadness. No matter where will we be, i guess we will still miss each other as if we are always together.

Now I'm collecting postcards from different corners of the world.
(Im wondering when can i collect a wall of postcards, lol)
The following pic shows some postcards I've received so far, they're from:

Czech
Japan-Tokyo
UK
China-Beijing
US-Wisconsin
US-Boston
Germany
Malta
Austria-Innsbruck
Italy- Trieste
etc...

So if u'd like to do me a favor, you can ask me my address via
Facebook massage - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/trytobecool?ref=name
or send email to me - monica47love@gmail.com

As return, I can send you a postcard from Knoxville, TN, United Stated to you if you want:))
You can be my friends, my friends' friends, or someone who even barely knows me - as long as you want to send me a postcard:))

Thx a lot!

The original note posted on: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?saved&&suggest&note_id=292419271440#/notes/monica-gao/postcards-exchange-/292419271440

My mum is a capable woman who can always effectively arrange everything in order. She’s recognized as successful by her co-workers, but pitiful woman in marriage from my stand. I swore that I would never be in the same tragedy like her when she crying heavily on my shoulder and complaining my dad’s coldness. I don’t wanna judging her too much, but the masses of my parents’ problems originated from her hard characters in large extent.

So I always have doubts on IS BEING TOO INDEPENDENT A GOOD THING?

Independence is defined by me as being independent characteristically, economically and emotionally. Characteristically, I always do things on my own (not in study or jobs) if I assure that I’m able to handle them well. In fact, I’m not too shy to ask for help but for the reason of avoiding to be other’s burden. Economically, I get used to make clear with friends in moneys, even with intimate friends. Emotionally, I tried to not get involved in any relationships too much if there seems no future.

Ironically, sometimes It’s hard, and also sad for me to work towards these rules. As I was told by my ex that he felt like I didn’t need him by my side because of my strong independence, I felt like something was breaking deep inside of my heart. I didn’t expect that intention of avoiding of being someone’s burden would result in the sense of distance.

remark: The vote regarding "Am i an independent person?"

Obviously, from the above vote on my xiaonei.com page (it’s like “Chinese facebook”), entitled “Am I an independent person?”, majority of my friends (89%) responded YES while the rest 11% considered NO.

“You can’t bear loneliness, can you?”, one of my intimate friends said, ”That’s why I thought you’re not independent enough, especially in the subject of emotions.”

“It’s nature that showing steely side to strangers but weak side to close friends. Take it easy.”

……
Yes, In most cases, I’m indeed an independent person. However, is it a good thing or bad? I’m still not quite sure about it. Or maybe it depends on persons you’ve met – if he/she would appreciate your independence.

At the beginning, I considered ifgogo as a platform of introducing Chinese culture to Foreigners who're fascinated by its long history and rich heritage. Later, I found its authors focus more on describing the ways of life and inside thoughts of modern Chinese. After face-to-face talking with AW last week, I got more in-depth understanding toward the purpose of this website. As he told me, ifgogo is a freely-communicating platform which you can deliver whatever you want on it without restrictions of article styles or contents.

In terms of personality, I'm an outgoing person who would like to try everything that is fresh to me and share affecting details in life with friends. If you want to know more about me, just search "Monica Gao" on facebook or favourite this page.

Haha, I found what I have wrote already far ran out of “few words”!

So, hope to have nice talking with your guys on ifgogo and I will be OFFICIALLY starting my ifgogo-writings in the near future:), I promise!

The following is my pic which took in Wroclaw of Poland, 2007.