Homecoming Queen

Coming "home" to England is weird in many ways, not least of all is my hometown, Ellesmere. I was only fifteen when I left, but still...it's all a little surreal. A matter of relative scale I guess...it's a bit of a shock coming from a city of 16 million to a town of 3,000. Honestly, it takes less time to walk from one end of town to the other than it does to walk to my local subway station back home. It's not just the geography that's small either. For lack of a better word, so are some of the people. Not small-minded as such, but small in terms of experience. It really put things into perspective for me when one English woman was wondering aloud what it would be like to visit London. It's making me take my globetrotting less for granted a week or so later. That and the quote "Oh my God, Alex, I applaud you, I really do," after someone discovered I was a 23 year-old who lives in Shanghai. It'll be nice to get back to all the other normal folk in Shanghai so I can swap war stories about going "home." Hmm...it's getting difficult to remember which "home" is home, if you get my drift. And that's leaving out New Zealand, Taipei, and Jiayuguan. It's bad enough people not being able to tell where I'm from, how old I am or which team I bat for, but on top of it all, now I don't even know where I consider home. Expect an identity crisis and mental breakdown soon folks. No change from the status quo, come to think of it. Speaking of breakdowns, I'm almost having a mid-life (well, mid-twenties) crisis. Most people I know from childhood are either hitched, have children and/or are having a baby. I'm actually starting to feel old. Granted, this is Ellesmere we're talking about. A place where...well, let's not go into that. Suffice to say, these things generally happen earlier over there. You know, small town, lack of entertainment, that kettle of fish. Protection basically consists of locking the doors. Until now, sprogging hasn't really crossed my mind that much, mostly because, being a complete narcissist, I rarely think of anything but myself. That, and the fact I'd make a terrible dad. I still remember goading my kid brothers into eating soap, almost slamming my brother's head in a car door and missing my sister's head by inches with what seemed like a small boulder. Not exactly acts to inspire faith in my parenting skills. When it comes down to it, I'm completely not ready for the responsibility, maturity and poop that comes with having the pitter-patter of tiny feet running around the house. And falling down the stairs. We C-G's, or at least one of us, have a knack for that kind of thing. Not me though. I was just the one who ate coal. Culture shocks are still popping up all over the shop. I had one of my biggest last night, when I tried to buy some beer at the local service station. Apparently, it can't be served after 11pm. Okaaay. And here I was thinking I was returning to the more liberal country...it's just one of those times when I realised how much more laissez-faire China is, at least in some respects. That and the 40p DVD's and several metric tons of rip-off Gucci's. The other biggest culture shock (and it sounds so un-PC for me to say this) is the amount of black people here. Sure, I've always known England has a large black population, but it only really hit home when I got here. That's not to say I think it's bad, just that it's a bit of a shock to the system after Shanghai, where practically the only black people I saw where staring at me from tubes of toothpaste. Really, some of my best friends are black. It's just I'm more used to seeing a slightly different hue in humanity's rich rainbow of colours. Um, let's just assume that this rainbow includes black and white, and forget about the blue, green and so on, yeah? And with that Bulwer-Lytton-worthy analogy, I'm putting this post to bed. Though I'm sure we're all agreed it'd be better off if we put it to sleep. Thank you, and goodnight.