As the one month mark marched on by, I find my self comparing my old life in SF to my new life in Suzhou less and less. I don’t need to convert money exchange rates to determine how expensive something is and I can discuss distances in km instead of miles. I learned celsius along time ago so when I went running tonight after work with the running club I knew in advance the outside temperature of 36C rivaled that of New Orleans in the dog days of August, humidity and all!
But what exactly are some big differences between SF and Suzhou?
- Smoking indoors in Suzhou is normal, but not at work, medical clinic, grocery stores, shopping mall, or public transport options. (I’ve not been on one of the maglev trains yet, so I only am referring to city transport options.)
- It is very clean here, except for the air. Exact opposite of San Francisco where you’d often be wondering if that pile of poop came from the human who’s in a drug induced daze or that humans pure bred dog that’s living on the streets with the owner but you never are concerned with the air or water quality.
- In SF you will walk down the street any time during the day and need to be aware of your surroundings so not to get mugged or walk into the middle of a drug deal. In Suzhou you never worry about your personal safety except when crossing the street. As a coworker mentioned today, “The traffic lights are not safe here [when trying to cross in a crosswalk].”
- Housing prices are expensive in both cities, though SF is on a whole separate level of obsurdity.
- Public transportation, while expansive in both places, is much more reliable and convenient in Suzhou … And way cheaper! A one-way bus fare in SF was $2.25 when I left; it’s about $0.30 in Suzhou.
- Speaking about public transportation, while both systems start around the same time in the morning (6am), Suzhou’s system mostly ends between 9pm and 10pm. A few bus routes and the subway go until 11-11:30pm, but nothing passed then from what I can determine.
- In Suzhou anything that requires manual labor is extremely cheap: twice a week house cleaning for a month is roughly $100 in Suzhou whereas $100 in SF *might* cover one cleaning a month for a small one-bedroom apt.
- Food in Suzhou is still seasonal. In SF there are no seasons.
Thats all I have for now. At some point this list will be appended. But I want to leave this post with one parting thought and something I really miss about SF apart from my friends & softball team: It’s nealy impossible to find a late night burrito stand in Suzhou!