CONNOQUENESSING — Merritt Wuchina, a 2008 Butler High School and 2012 University of Pittsburgh graduate, is back in the country having just completed a two-year teaching assignment in rural Yunnan Province, China, with Teach for China.

Currently working with D.C. Teaching Fellows, she has accepted a position with Powell Bilingual School in Washington, D.C., said her mother, Robin Wuchina of 130 Sunset Drive.

“We visited her last summer for a month,” said Robin Wuchina, who traveled to China with her husband, David.

Robin Wuchina said their daughter came home for a month last year in August but came home to stay in May.

“She’s lost a lot of weight, that’s for sure,” said her mother. “And she’s got a different perspective on things.”

“I stayed with my family in Butler for about three weeks then moved to D.C. at the beginning of June,” said Merritt Wuchina.

She said this helped ease her transition back to life in the United States.

“I did come back last summer for about a month after my family visited my school and we traveled to Thailand together,” she said.

“It made the reverse culture shock coming back this time a lot easier. This time when I came back, I think at first I didn’t understand why everyone seemed so stressed about life and were complaining about little things that didn’t seem to matter,” she said.

“I noticed people talk a lot about where they are shopping and what they are buying, too. I felt like no one could understand what was going on inside of my head,” Merritt said.

“Now that I have been back to the U.S. for almost two months, I feel like I am back in the pace of life and starting to stress more about those things myself and fall into consumerist desires, but I try to stay grounded as much as possible, and I think my two years changed that for me a lot,” Merritt said.

“There are many things I miss about China. One thing that I have really noticed I miss is the food culture in China. People always take the time to eat and they always eat together,” she said.

“In the region of China where I lived meals were always served with a bowl of rice. About five or six dishes of meats and vegetables sat in the middle, almost always with a soup that had some kind of leafy green,” she said.

“Everyone would take food from the middle and put some into their bowl. When you go out to eat with your friends, you never think about ‘What do I want to eat,’ but rather you discuss with your friends and think ‘What do we want to eat,’” she said.

“This is a big part of individualist versus collectivist culture that really changes your mindset. It’s not that people still don’t have preferences about what they liked or didn’t like. For example, I rarely wanted to get a liver dish while my co-worker always did. But you just sort of agreed on things together and came to a consensus. I think just the daily act of eating can really change the way your mind works,” Merritt said.

“The communal spirit there really acted on her. They eat meals together and the family is very important,” said Robin Wuchina.

Merritt Wuchina said another example is taking the time to eat.

“A common greeting in China is ‘Did you eat yet?’ when you see someone, even more than ‘How are you?’ Usually you would just say ‘Yes, I just ate,’ but if you didn’t, people may invite you to their home to eat something” she said.

“In the U.S., I don’t think people care about mealtimes as much. They just see it as a chore to get about on their busy days. We also are so concerned with eating ‘healthy’ versus ‘unhealthy’ food, rather than just eating to enjoy our food or spending time cooking,” she said.

“My lunch break at work in the U.S. is so short, I always try to sit down and take some time, but you just don’t always have it,” she said.

Living in China has given her some insight into America and China’s perceptions of each other.

“I think the big thing I’ve been thinking about lately since I am teaching again is the misconceptions about education,” she said.

“When I tell people in the U.S. that I had 40-plus students in a class they say ‘That must have been fine, since they are more well-behaved,’” she said.

“I have no bigger pet peeve than that line. I think it comes from some misconceived idea Americans have about Chinese being a ‘model minority.’ No, I dealt with all kinds of behavior management issues with my students and China and its children are a part of a changing country, just like the U.S.,” she said.

“Now, on the other hand, when I told my co-workers in China that I was going to be a teacher in the United States, they said the same ‘Well I hear that U.S. kids are so much better behaved than Chinese kids.’ So it does go both ways,” she said.

“I will say the management issues are very different, but as a teacher you will have struggles no matter where you go,” she concluded.

“And of course I miss all of the people I met and the town where I spent a lot of my vacation days — Dali — the most beautiful place in the world,” she said.

“I do keep in touch with some of my friends and students using Chinese messaging apps like WeChat and QQ,” she said.

“The only shock is when my students try to call me at 6 in the morning on a weekend when it is 6 p.m. there in China! I do have one student who has been sending me pictures of his artwork and I send him some pictures of D.C. back. That warms my soul,” she said.