Different countries have different houses; American houses have their own characteristics. The main difference between American houses and Chinese houses is, American houses are mainly made of wood except the chimneys and fireplaces. By the way, in San Diego fireplaces are useless because the weather here is so warm, people said if the American houses caught fire, the only things left was the chimneys and the fireplaces, that sound like a joke but it is true.

One hand, just because American houses are made of wood, almost all American families are fully of ants, for ants can bite wood. On the other hand, wood houses have their own advantages, it is well known that California is an earth quake area but the earth quake here are not as destructive as that in China, even if there were earth quakes, wood house can avoid disasters and damages as much as possible, though people here can feel the house shake slightly when a bus is passing by.

Never worry about the rain, because it seldom rains here, and if it did rain, it didn’t matter because there is a special kind of material which can protect the wood from being soaked. Carpets cover the whole floor and stairways and  made the house more comfortable to live.

Almost every family has a backyard, as an orchard or a garden, and it is a good place to air clothes, by the way, Americans never air clothes, but Chinese like that, you know it is very hard to change a tradition.