老外说——满世界“流浪”的女孩（下篇）

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【老外说】是一档以“采访”老外为主的节目，帮助大家更好的了解中西文化差异，一窥英国人、美国人日常生活。每周一更新。本栏目适合精听/泛听。可做听写练习。

上周采访到了一位“满世界流浪”的女孩儿，今天让我们继续来听她的故事吧！

Gwen

You have got good memory, although you have been to many many countries, you always remember the details, the experience that you had in the countries. Right?

Yes, I journal about the countries I’ve been to and I write very, very honest. I give a very honest opinion.

Gwen

What is your opinion towards Shanghai? That is the sole city that you have been in China, right?

Yes. I have a tendency to notice things that other people do not while traveling. I went to the very touristy areas, and there's one area where there’s a street where they made pearls. I saw that. But I always try to look beyond that. I kind of noticed the poverty. I notice people on the streets asking for money and people passing them by. But I see that all over the world and most places. Not as much in Singapore, really, because I don't think you can do that.

But I also noticed how expensive a lot of things were. I don't know why I just had this impression that China would be cheap and I could go shopping and buy lots of clothes and then I went into some stores and discovered I'm too fat, I can't do anything. So that was kind of funny. One shop owner she just, I know she didn't mean anything, but her English was limited and she said too fat go away from her store.

Gwen

Really?

Yeah and I just started laughing, but I felt like crying. I didn’t have as good a shopping experience as I was hoping. But if I went to like, let's say, H&M or a store like that, then I would have found things in my size or if I wanted someone to make something for me. But I just didn't have the time for that.

The food was excellent. I really love the dumplings. I tried the soup dumplings with prawns in them, and I went back for another serving. So each day, I would just go back and I would eat dumplings every day. I like the noodles, just the freshness of them. But these are places I looked up and found up where to have the best noodles or which places have the best dumplings.

But I didn’t know that people were pushy, which I did not like. I had word with one woman when I was getting on to the metro and everyone kind of queues behind the line. When you get on to the metro, everyone was just pushing each other to try and get a seat. One woman put her hands on me, and I said, don't touch me. I was just hot, it was summer and I'm just not in the mood for this. I don't like people touching me, pushing me. I don't like that. Especially as an American. If you do that to me, I just want to fight. But I know that's kind of, it seems like it's part of the culture. But in Japan, like in Tokyo, people do the same thing, especially at rush hour, and they have these men and women that push people into the train. I don't like to be in enclosed spaces.

Gwen

Yeah, but in big cities, like in Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, the subway is always crowded for some lines, especially in rush hours. It’s crowded and people have to be very close to each other, because there's really little space. I always have the experience of being pushed in the subway. Not only in China of course, but also in Japan. It’s just unavoidable.

You do travel alone, right? You do travel a lot and you do travel alone. Do you like this way of life? Did you ever have the thought of settling down somewhere?

It's funny you should ask that, because I’ve been struggling for the past two months in regards to where I would go next. Because then, Indonesia change some of their visa rules to make it harder for foreigners to live here. Well, foreigners who don't have any money. So I was thinking eventually they may decide they don't want any foreigners in the country. I was thinking of going back to Mexico. But I don't know if you believe in signs. Assigned from somewhere as I was struggling internally with this thought in my head, I noticed the sign and the sign told me the Bali. Indonesia is home and I think I would be extremely sad if I were to leave this country.

Gwen

Where did you get the sign?

God! it's going to sound a little bit crazy. I was at KFC in Bali, and I heard the people next, like near me speaking Spanish. I can speak Spanish. It is very rare to hear someone speaking Spanish, especially at a KFC in a predominantly Balinese neighborhood. This is not a neighborhood foreigners go to. They are speaking Spanish and they were trying to figure out how to stay at Indonesia. I took that as a sign and I said you know what? I'm going to stay here. So I actually recently applied for my residency permit. My agent is processing that right now and allow me to stay in Indonesia for two years. And I have to renew it every 2 years. Plus I also met someone I really, really like here.

Gwen

That is the main reason.

No, he's not the reason, but he's a small part of the reason, but I just love living here it's. It's cheaper to live here. I could not afford to live in the United States.