So far and yet so near

I arrived in Beijing a mere three weeks ago; a native Iowan of the United States far from the land-locked Midwestern state I've called home. It wasn't too long after I stepped off the plane that I plunged face-first into this strange land filled with steamed buns, bare baby bums and flocks of umbrella-toting tourists. I was eager to embrace all the differences life back home never gave me and willingly flung myself - armed with chopsticks and a Chinese dictionary phone app - into chaotic Beijing.

Yet soon after I arrived I noticed subtle similarities between this teeming global metropolis and my fairly modest state.

It's laughable at first to try and compare Iowa City, where I live, with a population of 70,000 people, and Beijing, which has roughly 20 million people. But while the parallels may be small, they do exist.