Weather: Bigger sun than other places. Houston has the biggest sun I have ever seen, and the most miserable thing here. In my 6 years' living in Shanghai, I never had one single acne. But since I lived in Houston, the acne started growing on my face. It was due to the horrible heat and aggressive sunshine of this horrible city, burning my face, body, brain, heart... 2 years ago, I traveled to London, where I met the nicest sun, it was always shy to meet people. I walked on the streets everyday with incredible ease, because of cool air, no sunshine, and fashionable people around. Acne immediately vanished, and skin looked softer because of the humidity. I believe if my descendents are still living in Houston, after 200 years, their skin color will turn to black, so better to leave this horrible place soon.
Transportation: An interesting thing for Houston is this city doesn't have a good public transportation system, and is still called a 'CITY'. Everybody needs a car to live here. They need a car, a google map or a GPS to go to work, eat, shopping, or meet friends. They need to schedule every trip. You can't go everywhere freely with mood change, because you need to SCHEDULE it for driving routes, parking lots, checking store hours etc.! Even a taxi needs a reservation. Houston is the first city I lived with no taxis on the streets, no people walking on the streets... Why it's still called a CITY?
Environment: Everything is bigger in Houston than other cities: Bigger sized people, bigger seats on the bus, bigger cars (Texas people like trucks), bigger meals... With everything bigger, they consume more food, more gas, more electricity, more resources. Every house/ apartment has central air conditioner. While I was cooling my bedroom, I had to also cool the living room, where only a cat is there. And I also had to cool the kitchen, where there is no living thing there... If you wanna cool yourself in a house, you have to cool the whole house. What a huge waste of energy! There is no recycling services as convenient as my home country. Everybody throw away used glass bottles, cans. Plastic bags are still widely used in super markets, while it's already prohibited in my home country. I don't know how Americans have the faces to blame other countries for environmental problems, while they are consuming and wasting a huge portion of the world's energy and resources.
Shows and Fashion: This city has nothing to do with fashion. Texas people don't like fashion, they like cows. The most welcomed event in Houston is Rodeo every year, where farmers come to town to show their cows, horses, lamps... My apartment is walking distance to the Rodeo event. But I never got time or one piece of interest to attend. Some people like to take their kids to see the lamps, cows, horses...but I won't. What's the point? Comparing to their passion to Rodeo, they had limited passion to concerts. Lady Gaga's tickets were not sold well in Houston, mainly because Houston people don't have the taste. They don't know what is fashion about, they wear mug like T shirts around their fat sluggish body everyday to work. They don't care how they look.
Shopping: When I was doing an internship in Shanghai. My internship office was located in a 50 floors big building, with shopping mall, restaurants, theater all together. When I finished work and stepped out of my office, I always do some window shopping there, or invite my friend for dinner in nearby restaurants. Work was intense but life was so comfortable. You can never do this in Houston. There are only limited number of shopping malls in Houston. Not going or always going there will make your life equally boring. There are very few fashionable clothes in the malls either. Most of the clothes are over-sized ugly casual clothes for ugly fat people. There is no random stores along the streets because there are no people walking on the streets. So random window shopping was not possible. For many times I feel like living in the countryside of my home country, although Houston is ranked one of the biggest cities in US...
After thinking over, the conclusion is I can't find 'life' here. I don't feel any connection with this city, even after living here for 4 years. I will leave Houston, and I will forget about this city the second day. On the contrary, I felt an incredible connection with Paris in 4 days' trip, without knowing their language. Paris is fashionable, creative, attractive and irresistible. The most important thing is I felt a life in Paris! After back from the short trip, all I thought about was to visit Paris again. Now I understand connection doesn't necessarily build on time. It builds on internal feelings. It works for people too. Some people have natural closeness with specific people, but not with others. I did get along with some people for quite long time (several years), like classmates, roommates etc, but lost contact after graduation. And they became strangers again. However, the real friends, who shared similar taste, hobbies or personalities with me, are always warm and enjoyable to talk with, even after losing contact for some time. Houston is a stranger to me, and will always be a stranger.
