My first experience in the United States

I have been to the United States more than ten times, and the first time left the deepest impression.

In January 1995, I went to the United States with a delegation to attend an international conference, which was held in New Orleans, Louisiana. After studying English for more than ten years, it was the first time I set foot in this familiar yet unfamiliar country.

It was January, and Beijing was already covered in ice and snow, while New Orleans was located in the south of the United States. I was dazzled by the towering green trees and crocodile-infested swamp forests.

New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz. At night, the sound of jazz music fills the streets, and from time to time I encounter some black children dancing to the music and begging.

Historically, New Orleans was once a colony of France and Spain. There are still historical footprints left by the French and Spanish colonial rulers more than 200 years ago. There is even a French-speaking neighborhood known as French Corner. Because of my experience living in France, I am particularly fond of French signs on the streets.

There is a famous neighborhood in New Orleans commonly known as "Millionaire's Row". This long street is lined with magnificent buildings left by rich people such as past manor owners, tall and spectacular, with different styles. One of them is particularly famous because the famous movie "Gone with the Wind" used it as the location for filming. Like other tourists, we stopped here to take photos of the room. There didn't seem to be many businesses on this street except wealthy houses. Our first American breakfast was at a McDonald's with a luxurious building on this street.

Except for me, all the delegates to the China Conference in the same group were going abroad for the first time. Lao Wang from Yantai, Shandong Province smiled bitterly at me while eating pizza: "It's almost the same as chicken feed!"

Later, I also felt that the taste of McDonald's in China has been localized, which is somewhat different from the real American McDonald's. Just like you can't eat real Chinese food abroad, it's a bit sweet. In addition, American fast food restaurants have unlimited drinks, such as Coca-Cola and the like.

On the night they arrived in New Orleans, brothers Zhang and Lao Li, real estate developers who were traveling with Harbin, could not resist the "temptation of capitalism" and ran to a gambling boat on the Mississippi River with a local tour guide to enjoy themselves. .

According to what they later said, Lao Zhang exchanged gambling coins and stuffed them into the slot machine, but he didn’t stuff a few coins. Suddenly, the machine’s warning light turned red, and then the whole ship’s bells rang loudly. He was stunned. I thought I had damaged someone else's machine. Unexpectedly, the gamblers around him applauded him and rushed to shake hands... Only after the tour guide's excited explanation did he realize that he had won two thousand coins, and a "low probability event" hit him on the head. On the day I arrived in the United States, I experienced the American-style feeling of "getting rich suddenly."

The next day, Lao Zhang did something incredible again. He wanted to watch American "pornographic films", so he opened the movie channel in the room. Due to the language barrier, I switched channels and spent more than $400 a night. It turns out that the movie channel starts charging after one minute of trial viewing. For Lao Zhang, old and new American movies are all in foreign languages ??that he cannot understand. If I don't see anyone taking off their clothes for a few minutes, I can't wait to change the channel. Lao Zhang couldn't sleep due to jet lag, so he played with the TV all night, and when he was checking out, he experienced the American "great tragedy" again. Fortunately, the guy with the big gold chain is not short of money.