Emily Jimenez|staff writer

“Do you eat dog?” “Are you in the military?” “Can you speak Japanese?” These are just a few of the questions I have been asked the past few days.

Moving from Okinawa, Japan to San Antonio has definitely been a huge culture shock. I lived on Okinawa for eight years and did not expect to move during my senior year. Two weeks ago I learned we would be moving from my small, homey blip on the map to the big, bustling city of San Antonio.

Texas and Okinawa are two very contrasting places. The school, people, spirit, and food are all very different than what I am used to.

The most obvious change is the schools. In Okinawa, the school had less than 800 students, here there are more than 2800. Not only is the population of the schools bigger, so is the size of the school. Imagine taking the size of your school, cutting it in half and taking off the third floor. That was the size of of the schools on Okinawa.

Coming to a new school was nerve wrecking because I had to met new people. Most students don’t feel so apprehensive when transferring from one military high school to another; in a military school most of the other kids understand the feelings of being new. They talk to you and act friendly because almost all of them have been the ‘New Kid.’
In my case, I was transferring from a military high school to a stateside high school. I wasn’t expecting people to be so nice and friendly.

School spirit is uncanny here, I have never seen so many school t-shirts worn in a single day. In Okinawa, most students that started at a high school moved before their senior year, so many didn’t have a long relationship with their high school. School spirit often ran low. Our Homecoming football game was the only game that ever got crowded. Absolutely No one ever came to tennis matches and we had three unfilled bleachers for the baseball games. Track meets were the only full games because we had some of the fastest kids in the Pacific.

Opposite of school spirit, the food here is in excess. In Okinawa the food size portions are labeled either “Okinawan” size, or “American” size. The “Okinawan” size portions very small. Their large cup is at most a medium in the United States, and you do not get refills. Here, any food that I have ordered seems massive. I ordered a Whataburger Jr the other day and it was far too big. And now I am waiting for someone-anyone- to explain the reason that large cups surpass the size of my head.

So far, the saying has held true, everything is bigger and better in Texas.