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Posts: 416

Governor

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Q: Do you sometimes have the 'Holy Crap I'm in China' moment?

Every once in a while it kinda smacks me in the face about where I am and what I'm doing. It's all the way across the world, far from friends and family. Most days I take it for granted, as in this is just my life now, but some days I think about it for a while, try and look at everything as if seeing it for the first time and think 'wtf am I doing here' (not in a bad way, like I want to leave, just in a 'I'm across the world in a country with an effing hard language and 1.4 billion people') 

10 years 1 week ago in  Transport & Travel - China

 
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Posts: 2488

Emperor

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Too be honest. 99% percent of the time i take it for granted. Im pretty sheltered here. I drive everywhere. Mostly work than home. Going out is to a western pub or diner in a more developed quiet part of the city. Hanging with friends is the same. Mostly chinese but weve been so close for so many years that thats my normal now.

But once in a while i need to buy something random like luggage or something and i am in a city center walking /shopping street with the entire population of the world in this 3 square blocks and i get really overwhelmed. Sometimes in a good way and i walk around looking in shops and soaking in this unbelievable experience and other times i want to hyperventilate in a paper bag. I forget why i came and just go home empty handed.

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10 years 1 week ago
 
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I don't know if it's just me or if it is common. I've been been 10000 km from home for more than 5 years. I never had the "holy crap I'm so far from home" moment. "Home" is a very fuzzy concept to me, I'm completely focused on where I am *now*. Where I come from, it's the past, behind me. I can't change it or influence it, so it's mostly irrelevant to me. What matters is where I am now and where I going to, because this is something I can influence, even control to some extent.

 

The locals reminds me everyday I'm not from  here, not one of them, one to stare at, yi ge wai guo ren, bu shi Zhong guo ren. This attitude does not remind me the 10000 km, it reminds me what a human is (a very insecure beast with an inflated ego). I don't forget I'm French, but I don't need to be in France or surrounded of French people to be comfortable with myself.

 

The one thing that reminded me of the distance... My parents. Once I learned my mom might die soon. I was in HK for a visa run. I was far, so far from her, I could not be next to her, tell her to hang on, and how much I owe her. After that phone call, I walked in the streets for hours, stunned. I allowed myself to cry for a minute. An other time was when I had to say goodbye to my parents at the airport. We are people who don't allow ourselves to cry or being weak. But we were not able to not let a few tears go. Then, yes, you know how much is 10000 km.

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10 years 1 week ago
 
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Shifu

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I've never wondered why I'm here because I want to be here. I chose China because I was already here when I decided that I didn't want to go back. It could've been Australia or India but it was in China when it hit me. There are times when I wondered if I made the right choice, especially those days when everything seems to go wrong but each time I press on and the next day would be better. I guess everyone has their reasons for coming to China, some for adventure, for the challenge or simply just the need to get out of town. I am here for personal reasons which I hope will get sorted out in about a year and half. By then, I will have made a firm commitment not to go back. I could be anywhere else, not necessarily China by that time. Anyway, I shall see what the next 18 months bring. 

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10 years 1 week ago
 
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Nope, hasn't really happened for me in China. I've only ever been in China with my wife and that gives enough stability to never be surprised about it. 

 

I have been a little surprised at times, e.g. after a customer canceled a meeting after I had already landed in Seoul, hotel prepaid, making it possible for me to spend some time walking around downtown Seoul in a very cold January week. Usually on a trip like that there would just be airport-office building-hotel-airport.

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10 years 1 week ago
 
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Governor

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It's more like, "F*ck!  This is China."

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10 years 6 days ago
 
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