Studying abroad is complicated. Apart from academic matters that needed to be dealt with, you also need to maintain a great many personal relationships. I spent most of the three and a half years in Canada with my host family. Their house is not far from my school. They are a local family of five: the parents, two sons at the age of eight or nine, and the grandmother.
In the first half year, we had no big conflicts. Take food as an example. I had to bring my own lunch to school and my host family made cold sandwiches for me every day. Back in China, I always had warm meals, which maybe was why after having cold sandwiches for half a year I couldn't stand it anymore.
They lived in a villa, and offered me a room on the first floor, while their living room and activity room were all on the second floor. At night or on weekends when I was ready to read, do my homework or go to bed, their sons would play with a ball, jump up and down and horse around. It felt like the whole floor was shaking.
After enduring for half a year, I told my parents I wanted to change to a Chinese host family, so that there would be less incompatible living habits. He thought living in a Chinese host family overseas was no different from studying in China.
In the end, I chose to stay with that family and I gradually realized that they were actually nice people. Gradually, they also started to care for me, a stranger from China. Occasionally, they would steam rice and make some stir-fried dishes for me; when the kids were playing upstairs, the host mother would remind them not to make too much noise. Although I was still bothered by their noise sometimes, I knew that there was no perfection in life. We needed to understand each other.
A. Another thing was about housing.
B. Luckily, my parents were of timely help.
C. But sometimes I did feel like fish out of water.
D. Therefore, we have to force ourselves to mature quickly.
E. From then on, I learned to communicate more with them.
F. Instead, sometimes I felt as comfortable there as at home.
G. However, my proposal was strongly rejected by my father.
