From San Francisco “I was sad to leave Asia.... I am suffering a little bit of culture shock in the States.

“You can travel around the world in different ways. You can enjoy landscapes, see a lot of points of interest or just have fun at various beach parties. You might be the kind of person who prefers more active travel including, hiking, rafting, etc. Or you could be the type who runs to every museum and to every cultural spot on the way. But if you can spend more time than the three days of the average tourist, you can explore the everyday life of a country.
When I left Beijing two weeks ago, I was sad to leave Asia. I knew I would surely miss the friendly people, their unique religious culture and amazing landscapes. . I am suffering a little bit of culture shock in the States. Not many people out on the streets … and plenty of shops with things that I did not really need during the last seven month of my travels. And everything is so clean!
I did not expect that the USA would be a destination which now seems to me equal to remote places in Asia.
In Beijing I had the pleasure of meeting an old couple living in a small house that they built themselves near DaZhaLan Street. At first I only wanted to take a picture of a typical small Hutong house in Beijing. Then an old woman picks me up, talked a lot of Chinese, which I could not understand, and shows me  the circumstances of her poor life in Beijing and urged me to take pictures. I followed this couple a few days and then I met their son. He could speak English and told me the story of Liangsheng Zhang (72) and his wife Tunqin Wang (61). His parents have lived for 15 years in a house they built themselves, smaller than a prison cell in Germany. During the Cultural Revolution the government expropriated the property of Mr. Zhang’s grandfather. So the couple lost their own house, which the grandfather promised them after his death, and had to move in to a rental flat. But 15 years ago Mr. Zhang had a slight stroke and has not be able to work since then. So they had to build their own small house, which finally has electricity and water since two year ago. They have been trying to get back their own house, which is also just an old Hutong edifice, but they cannot find proof that they are the owners.
In the States I have been thinking a lot about this old couple and I still feel sorry, given that I am in a developed country now, where everything is good. But am I, really in such a “developed” country and are things really so “good”? In Oakland, near San Francisco, I visited the Albany Bulb. It is a small landfill where 66 homeless people are now living in small tents. They collect trash for a living, but they have also created a surreal environment. So the locals call this place “Trash Island”. I met a woman who calls herself Mama Bear. Her place was filled with little found objects of our commercial and media life. They are everywhere, these lost people, trying to manage to live a life."