Firstly, food. Food here is incredible. Before coming, I was convinced I would be eating the same couple of dishes every day, and get so sick of Chinese food, because the only Chinese food I've been exposed to in the west has, quite frankly, been very same-y. And while there are dishes I eat fairly often here, they aren't many, and I eat them because they're seriously good. For example, 抓饭 (Uyghur: polo, I think that's what it's called in English too, but I'd never heard that before coming here). It sits in big dishes outside restaurants, and is really quite amazingly good. I will learn to make it before coming back to the West, and will make it for people regularly :D
Also, rice. It doesn't get as boring as you think, and in the North, they eat more noodles than rice anyway. I've become less fussy since being here too, it's quite good. I now cannot get through the day without tea, and things that I didn't eat before, I tried again here, and now eat (so there's a chance I won't like the western version, but still). Examples include Brocolli, Aubergine (eggplant), Fatty meat (yum), various vegetables I don't know the name for etc. This came largely from one of the games we like to play at dinner: Me: "What's this?" Dinner Parter: "I don't know." Me: (after eating it) "Huh, me neither." Happens a lot.
Another change I've noticed I no longer care about a lot of the things I used to care about. For example, for lunch yesterday, we went to a little Hui restaurant which was, to put it nicely, somewhat dirty. But we still ate there with no issue. And at lunch today, there was a dog running around the restaurant, and nobody batted an eyelid. The only thing I can't get used to is the spitting. It's constant, and it's everywhere. Although it is now quite amusing, as it's much colder, so now the spit on the streets freezes. I realise that's quite disgusting, but it amuses me nonetheless. My attitude to public toilets is also considerably different. Before coming here, I was like, squats I cannot cope with, nor dirty toilets. But since getting here, I no longer care, and in a lot of cases, I prefer the squat. And toilets that I once would have considered completely ferral I now consider really quite nice. If there's soap and doors, it's luxury. Bodily substances everywhere, a smell so bad you can taste it and flies are 可以 (not bad, okay, passable).
I had heard that there is quite a lot of racism and discrimination in this part of China, but I have to say, it is exaggerated. I mean, it does tend to be Han people in the 'better' jobs, but on the streets, you don't notice it. And it's not just Han people being anti-Uyghur, Uyghur's are also quite anti-Han and make racist comments too (although it's only around people they know, or at least people I don't know don't tend to make anti Han comments around me).
Also, the employment issue here is very noticeable. Almost every restaurant and shop is overstaffed ridiculously, meaning every time you walk in anywhere, you get a chorus of 欢迎光临 (welcome to shine your light), and some people are employed purely to open a door. In department stores, you have to take a little slip of paper from the bit from which you want to purchase something to a cashier, then take a slip back. Which makes sense in the big department stores in a way, but then when they do it in the very small stationery shop opposite the university, you know there's an issue. But in this stationery shop, if they're all standing next to each other and someone wants to buy something, they move so they are further apart. Literally. Also, street sweeping is different here. There are no machines, it is people with little brushes doing it. Loads of them. It's very strange.
The attitude to personal space is also very different here. In that, they just don't care. On buses for example, it's perfectly normal to have people pressing against you on all sides. When I first got here, I found it weird, but now it's actually somewhat comforting, especially with the way the buses drive here - if it crashes, there are 143695 people between you and the windscreen, even if you're near the front. When people walk down the street, it's not uncommon for friends to walk with their arms around each other and things, regardless of age/gender, which is quite nice. I have now realised that western people are way too prudish and precious, so now we talk about "having a western concept" which loosely translates to requiring personal space.
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