Why?

In the country where I learned to speak my first word, where l learned running before walking, and where I made my first childhood friend, people relationships are much different from the ones in America. I feel that distance, as in miles between people, can really hinder on any relationship. This may be common sense and it may just be me overreacting to society right now. The speed in which people move from one city to another either for job, school, marriage, or whatever other reasons is phenomenal. Perhaps it's just my family since we did move 13 times prior to my 11th birthday, but that's besides the point. The people in their 20's -30's just can't keep from moving around the country. I for one, came to the Bay Area first, then moved to jersey, then moved to upstate NY for college, moved to NYC for 1.5 yrs, then moved home sometime after that, and now I'm in Texas! All happened within the last 6 years of my life. The people I have known, gotten close to, loved, and forgotten all seem to go through the burner cycle. It gets warm, then hot, then red hot, then kinda cools, then kinda warm, then cold... If we are not physically there to entertain our friends do those friendships eventually go out like the burner? Every person at some point must have been worth the friend-making, then why do they go out so fast? Is it because we are bored too easily as Gen X or Gen Y are so often described? Are friendships more shallow and arbitrary in our generation than generations past? Then isn't it so hard to find someone you might fall in love with because they live so far away? How did society turn into this high-speed through-way where no one really cares about the process but only cares about getting from A to B and how fast we can get there?

Going back to the topic of my home country, where life seems a lot slower and people seem to genuinely care about each other a little bit more than they do here in the US, relationships are much stronger and longer lasting. I recently met up with a girl whom I had gone to elementary school together in China, I haven't seen or talked to her for over 16 years but the minute we met it was like we've known each other all my life, it didn't matter that I hadn't stayed in touch for that long. If I randomly found a girl from my US elementary school, who the hell would meet up with me and would they even remember? They'd probably think I'm crazy to want to "catch-up" with someone they knew 16 years ago, whom they probably don't remember. That is the difference. I have always known there to be some cultural gaps but it has been proven with solid evidence. I cannot say enough that I appreciate the cultural diversity and the diplomacy in which society works in America, but is this the consequence? Perhaps there are just too many people in china to separate ourselves so distantly from one another, that not even family gets to see one another more than once or twice a year. Hence, that is also the story of my life, where I have become an international student with no relatives or family in the same country as I am. I wish someday I can find my place, where I don't have the desire to move, to scramble, to escape, to find an alternative.