In contemplating what having lived in China for three-quarters of the last decade means to me, I find it interesting that in a lot of ways I feel less sure or informed about this country now than I did in the past. It is, in the truest sense of the term, more or less “home”.

It is less home in all the ways you might expect it to be. Seven years on and I’m still consistently astounded and confounded by the way things are done here. Survival has forced a tempering of tantrums over every petty irritant and ignorance experienced here, but many things have also lost their “that’s so weird and cool” luster. Dirty and dangerous just aren’t as charming as they used to be.

What’s more, my Chinese language skills are still in need of a lot of work. I’ve spent next to no time in recent years improving my language abilities, and it shows. Like many an expat I’ve met, I hit the point where I could get by, and motivation was superseded by necessity. It has, in part inadvertently but in part intentionally, created a wall around my life here that prevents me from any hope of true integration with my adoptive land.

But as much as I still fumble with my tones and vocab, the toughest barrier to really feeling like China is home is that no matter how I feel about the place, I’ll always be a “laowai”. Granted, running a site called “Lost Laowai” illustrates my embracing of the term, but on a personal level, never fully being accepted by the community in which you live is tough.

Added to this is the constant pull of other “home”, the one which I now visit for a holiday, and where all my friends and family have been busily going about their lives for so many years without me. I can’t say I miss them in the ways I did when I first left Canada, I barely know their lives now, but I do miss being a part of it all. I miss things that I didn’t even really know or understand before I left. The value of holiday dinners, having family a short drive away in an emergency, people who have known you longer than your time in any one place.

But then, China is more home than any place I have ever lived.

It has become part of who I “am”. “Hi, I’m Ryan, I live in China.” It is the anecdote of my life. Whether I like it or not, my “foreignerness” has entrenched itself into my character. It is how so many of the people I know, know me. This blog isn’t about a Canadian, about a dad or about a writer cum designer. It is all those things, just as I am, but it is about a non-Chinese dude in China. I’m certain should I ever leave China, the disconnection with that identity will be a challenge.

It is also the homeland of my wife, and I cannot look at it or its people without seeing the reflection of someone I love so deeply. Through her, China has given me more patience and acceptance, as well as a much wider sense of the world and my place in it. Both her and her country have challenged me to grow and develop in ways I never knew I would.

Perhaps most relevantly though, it is the birth place and cultural identity of my son. The very fabric of me has quite literally been interwoven with China through him. Any chance that China wouldn’t forever be some sort of “home” disappeared the moment he cried his first half-Chinese cry. I love my wife, and I love my family, but I didn’t know love before my son — nothing in the world compares to that feeling. Apologies for the cliche, but creative literary devices are too complex to express how simple and true that is. And China, however indirectly, gave that to me.

And whereas Canada gets the distinction of being the place I grew up, the place I went to school, the place where I’m “from”; China will always be the place I became a husband, and a father — where I became an adult really. And for that China is definitely more home.

I’m not sure what the next seven years will bring. I barely expected to spend seven months in China, let alone the past seven years. But, for now at least, China is home, and I couldn’t be happier with that.

Nothing came. Day after day we had beautiful blue skies, fluffy white clouds and only short, scattered showers. Getting closer and closer to the end of September and still no rain, we thought maybe we skipped the rainy season this year.

But then a week ago typhoon Nesat hit, and it hasn’t stopped raining since. The 24-hour period from this Tuesday and Wednesday past saw more precipitation fall on the city than ever in recorded history (333mm). So yeah, we’re wet.

HAIKOU, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) — Heavy rains have flooded 57 villages and triggered excessive high water levels in six reservoirs as of Friday in Haikou, the capital of south China’s island province of Hainan.

Over 5,000 residents in the affected villages have been evacuated to schools and other temporary shelters, and the local government has distributed blankets and other relief materials.

The city has experienced record rainfall, receiving 236 mm of precipitation between Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon, according to the city’s flood and drought prevention office.

Dozens of the city’s small- and medium-sized reservoirs are discharging water to ease pressure.

According to a provincial weather forecast, the downpours will continue to pound Haikou and other eastern areas in the province over the next two to three days.

This morning the rain had stopped (more, slowed to a sprinkle), and so I took Casey and Button out for our regular walk around the neighbourhood (read: chance for Maggie to sleep in). After dodging some large puddles and getting most of the way around the block without problem, we came across an odd scene. Two men were standing in the bike lane with a bucket, picking up fish.

Trying to puzzle out what was going as I walked past them, I then saw that the small pond/reservoir–that usually has at minimum 4-5 feet from surface to its concrete lip–was overflowing and the small minnows were swimming out with the stream and down the storm drains on the road.

In the first photo above you can see the water level nearest the foreground is about 12″ from the concrete edge, there is usually a 3-4 foot drop before the water here. The next photo shows where the edge drops down a bit, and where the water has begun to overflow.

We seem to be fortunate where we are though, as our friends Nicki and Erik are only a few blocks away and this is what the road outside their apartment looked like a couple days ago:

See more photos from Nicki and Erik here

As I write this, the rain has stopped, the road outside our apartment is drying and the sun is trying its best to make an appearance, so perhaps we’ve seen the worst of it. I love rain — the sound of it, the smell of it — and even these extremes haven’t really bothered me. But with a week of no sun and no dryer, I am quickly running out of dry clothes.

The places I've lived, or will live, in China

After more than four and a half years, we’re leaving Suzhou.

So much has happened to me since moving here from Dalian in 2006: I got married, I started a new career path, I got a dog, I had a son. In my adult life I’ve not lived anywhere as long as I’ve lived in Suzhou.

But the time has come to move on to some place new, and what better place in this country than China’s vacation mecca — Hainan Island.

Many close to us know well that we’ve half-made plans to move down to Hainan several times over the past several years, but always changed our minds before things developed too far. First it was deciding to have a baby and wanting to be close to a decent hospital during the pregnancy that cancelled our plans to move south. Then it was not wanting to leave our wonderful support network right after having a baby that put the migration on hiatus. It is this reason that I’ve been reluctant to blog about the decision, fearful that I would have to retract this type of post for having changed our minds.

But now, our flights are bought, accommodation arranged, and with us 10-month veterans of parenthood, we feel we’re ready to embark on this long-anticipated next chapter of our lives. Nothing about the move is easy though — I suppose it never is. Since coming to Suzhou we’ve moved multiple times, having lived in five apartments straight across the city, and every time it was a pain in the ass. But this is the first time we’ve had to cart a fussy kid, a big furry dog and a long-collected pile of mostly useless (but strangely sentimental) stuff across more than 1600km to the southern most end of China.

Initially our plan was to head down to Hainan and sort out an apartment, come back to Suzhou and get our affairs in order, and then pull the trigger on the move. Time, money and a lack of enthusiasm for having to make multiple trips with a 10 month old inspired us to take a leap and just head down in one go.

When we arrive we’ve arranged to stay for a week in a small one-bedroom apartment rented per night like a hotel (but unlike hotels in China, we’re able to stay with our dog). From there we’ll hopefully find a place we like quickly and be able to move in before our stuff arrives via moving company at the end of the week. It may seem tight, but we have some flexibility in that we can stay longer in the apartment and our stuff can be stored at the moving company’s depot should either be needed.

We’ve yet to decide whether we’ll move to Sanya or Haikou, and will likely be looking at places in both cities, but are heavily leaning towards Haikou. What it lacks in beautiful beaches, it seems to make up for in being a proper city, and not just a scruffy third tier town with rows upon rows of newly built high-rises crowding its beach front. The only question mark is — and it’s a bit of a biggie — we’ve been to Haikou just once and then only for a short overnight stay, so really have no idea about the place.

Maggie @ Sanya Sunset

We’ve been to Sanya twice, once as mentioned to get married in ’07, and once as an anniversary/holiday trip in ’09. I really like the place and don’t think I’d have any problems living there, but with a kid in tow, practical considerations need to be heavily weighed.

Haikou, for what it’s worth sounds pretty great. It has some of the best environmental policies and the highest-rated air quality of any Chinese city. It’s new high-speed train makes Sanya’s beaches only 1.5 hours away, and bustling high-tech and tourism industries are helping the city to develop quickly. It also reportedly has a vibrant night-time culture — and man do I miss sitting on the street eating random bits of barbecued animal.

End of the day though, it’s a Chinese city, and I am keeping my expectations well in check. In fact, I’m viewing the move much more as a return to “common” China (trying hard to avoid the term “real” China). Life in Suzhou, specifically Suzhou’s SIP, is not indicative of what life is like in most places in China — even at the 2nd tier city level. I’m surrounded by good foreign restaurants, several foreign supermarkets; I can get an assortment of cheeses, deli meats, Canadian Moosehead beer, tex-mex takeout, my choice of delivery pizza, and an ever-expanding litany of other comfort things from home.

I’ve loved that about where I live. Ironically, it’s like a little island of normalcy in an otherwise challenging place, and I’m sure I would have wanted to head back to Canada long ago had I not found it. I am acutely aware that I’m giving most of that up in this move.

But I think I’m ready for it. What I’ve come to realize is that as much as being comfortable and having conveniences a button push away are great, they also create a lethargy in me. For better or worse, challenges push me to think harder and develop more. While I can’t think of a time in my life I wasn’t trying to make life easier (whether by making more money, living more comfortably, adding security, whatever), I also can’t think of anything I value in my life having come out of comfortable circumstance. Questing for them, perhaps, but once obtained, it all just sort of stales.

Palms at sunset in Sanya, Hainan

So I’m looking forward to the challenges of living in a new place, meeting new people, and exploring a large chunk of China that until now has escaped my visit. Living on Hainan, I cannot wait to get outdoors and explore the island, but I also cannot wait to use the place as a gateway to other areas in southern China I’ve long wanted to see. Kunming, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Guilin and Vietnam are all places I hope to venture to from my new home base.

I’m truly looking forward to feeding my soul with new experiences and re-igniting my passion for the outdoors, travel and for China.

It was that need that brought me to China in the first place, and then, like now, the hardest part in the whole process is leaving friends behind. As an expat, it’s hard to make deep and lasting friendships, as more often than not someone ends up leaving before the relationship has really blossomed. I was lucky here in Suzhou to have made some incredible friends that have not just left me with great memories, but have infused the best parts of themselves into my character and made me a much better person for having known them.

The great part about friendships like that is you know it’s never goodbye, only see you later. And while I know that relationships inevitably suffer from an inverse-square law, I also know that the moment that we again find ourselves in the same place it will be as if little or no time has passed.

And so, in a little more than two weeks we’ll say 再见 to our life in Suzhou and begin something new in Hainan.

Last week Maggie and I grabbed a flight out of PVG and made our annual pre-holiday trip to visit the inlaws and friends in Dalian. That we both work outside the confines of anyone’s schedule but our own, we are fortunate that we can travel when the rest of the country is distractedly focused on tying up loose ends before one of China’s major holidays. It makes for cheaper and less crowded travel.

Returning to Dalian, where I spent the first year and a half of my China life, is always a mixed bag. I love Suzhou, and I love living in Suzhou more than I loved living in Dalian. But at the same time, Dalian has the huge draw of both friends who have remained (or returned) there and a rather large nostalgia factor.

That it was the first place me and China started our near half-decade affair has left me with a strong impression of Dalian. Around every corner and down every road there seems to be an “oh, I remember that place!” moment, followed promptly by a “hey, but that’s new!” While living there I was always on the fringes of the city proper — living first in Jinzhou district (the “district” bit being a bit of an insult to the city, as it’s older than Dalian), where I met Maggie and where her family continues to live; and second in Jinsanjiao, on the northern edge of Dalian city.

Never having lived downtown may be one of the major reasons I was eager to leave Dalian, and upon looking back, may have lead me to judge the place a bit unfairly. While it is relatively Western friendly, my feeling about the place is that it doesn’t remotely compare to the Westernized parts of Suzhou. Dalian, despite all its development, is still in Dongbei, China’s northeastern rust-belt.

And while Dalian — more than most Dongbei cities, has spent lots of time and energy trying to reinvent itself, learning largely through trial and error what works and what doesn’t, Suzhou’s a decade or two ahead. As a comfortable place to live, Suzhou still takes the cake. However, let me compare a few differences between the two places I’ve called “home” in China:

Weather

Despite being a Canadian, I’ve no loyalty to four distinct seasons. While Dalian’s weather is much closer to that of which I’m used to, I wasn’t sad to leave Dalian’s icy winters behind when I moved south. What I hadn’t counted on was Suzhou’s absolute bunk climate. Even in winter Dalian is likely to have beautifully clear-skied and sunny days. Suzhou hasn’t had sun since the Song Dynasty.

While enduring Dalian’s northern winters may be a challenge, its summer is livable and its spring and fall are a good length. Not so in Suzhou. Suzhou’s summer is akin to living in a bathhouse for 4-5 months, and its winter is wet and about as close to freezing as you can get without committing to it. Winters are made all the worse by the peculiar evolutionary trait of those born south of the Chang Jiang being without the good sense to insulate their buildings. Fall and spring are things only existent in fables — as proof, it will be October tomorrow and I’m still in shorts and tees.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 0

Food

This is another area where both places are nothing to write novels about — blog posts maybe. I find Dongbei food rather simple and bland, while Suzhou’s local fare is sweet and a bit odd (bull frog is a common menu item). My palate is much more inline with Hunan or Sichuan food, and I can’t get enough of the cumin-y goodness of Xinjiang food.

Where Dalian edges out Suzhou is that it has a wide selection of chuar locales. There wasn’t a place I lived or visited in Dalian that wasn’t a 5-10 minute walk from a street full of low-sitting tables and stools eager for you to grill stuff. While Suzhou has a few chuar spots, they are just that – few. And while my body is surely happy I’m not sucking back enough carcinogens to give my grandkids cancer and washing ‘em down with bottle after bottle of cheap brew, there’s a reason a chuar restaurant is usually my most anticipated event in Dalian.

Dalian also scores points over most Dongbei locations as being close to the sea, and for this seafood lover, that’s a huge plus.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 0

Western Standards of Living

Now before the FOTBers or hard-core expats get their backs up, let me qualify this by saying — to each their own. For me, I’ve lived in China long enough that a bit of comfort is something I’m willing to look for. When I first arrived, and occasionally still in fits of boredom, I loved the chaotic cacophony that I had assumed was China. I felt it defined China in some way, and that I was missing out on it by living a cushy expat existence. But then I asked myself, would anyone live in those conditions if they weren’t forced to by finance or because they’re a cultural tourist? Probably not. At least not me.

And while Dalian has some charming and exclusive expat-geared communities and facilities, Suzhou gets all the points in this category. In fact, from what I’ve seen of Shanghai, Suzhou would give it a run for its money. The entire eastern end of Suzhou is row after row of wide, organized streets, designated and protected bike paths, international restaurants, and decently maintained apartment complexes.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 3 (because few things top ‘livability’ for points)

Culture and History

The park at 2,500-year-old Pan Gate

Being that it was the native home to nomads, it is perhaps unsurprising that there aren’t many long-standing cultural spots in Dongbei, and what few the area has, virtually none of them are in Dalian.

Suzhou, by contrast, has been sitting here for 2,500 years just collecting culture like it might one day come back in style. Despite winning 3 points for its modernity, Suzhou has done a decent enough job maintaining its numerous historical sites — the revenue for which no doubt helped pay for the newly developed districts.

Both places provide good insight into what is China’s chimera-like culture, but for strictly bookish culture and history points, Suzhou wins hands down. There aren’t many cities in China that get their own Chinese sayings, nor do many still have monuments to pre-Qin kings.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 2

Natural Scenery

Bingyu Valley, just outside of Dalian

Both Suzhou and Dalian have decent scenery. Suzhou’s Venice-like network of canals are fed by a number of lakes in the surrounding area, including China’s third largest, Tai Hu. Additionally, there are a good number of large hills (called “mountains”, but really?) for a day out hiking.

Dalian is also great for hiking, with Da Hei Shan and Bingyu Valley being particularly great spots to visit. However, where Dalian jumps ahead of Suzhou is its proximity to the sea. While perhaps not for everyone, it’s hard to deny the aesthetics of a nice sea-side sunset/sunrise. Coupling its drastic seaview vistas with its rugged hilly terrain, Dalian beats out Suzhou in this category.

Dalian: 2 – Suzhou: 1

Location

This was one of the primary reasons I was eager to move down from Dalian to Suzhou three years ago. While Dalian is well-connected via trains, planes, busses and ferries; Suzhou wins out simply for being directly adjacent to one of China’s (indeed, the world’s) largest cities. Suzhou’s proximity to Shanghai (just half-hour on the new fast trains) give it a huge leg-up over Dalian, which despite its connectivity is still in the relatively isolated northeast.

And while unlike Dalian, Suzhou doesn’t have its own airport, we’re happy enough borrowing the two in Shanghai, or a third in nearby Wuxi. Shuttles run from Suzhou to both of Shanghai’s airports, and because Shanghai PVG is a truly international airport, global direct flights are easy to come by.

The one downside to Suzhou’s otherwise unencumbered system is that it is virtually the last stop before Shanghai for all trains coming from the north. This can make it a bit of a challenge to get train tickets to Shanghai last minute.

Dalian: 0 – Suzhou: 1

Nightlife

I’m married, what the hell do I know about nightlife anymore?

Actually, I think both cities are pretty much on par with each other in this regard. Both have a couple of clubs, a number of pubs, and a few good miscellaneous expat hangouts (cafes and whatnot). The only edge I might give Dalian here is that it is generally cheaper to go out in Dalian than in Suzhou — which seems to have taken its pricing cues from its big sister to the east.

Dalian: 1 – Suzhou: 1

Final Score & Conclusions

Dalian: 7
Suzhou: 8

Not a striking difference, and admittedly my scoring is biased as all hell. At the end of the day, I would happily recommend (and have numerous times) either place as a good spot to live. That they have their differences is a great argument against the opinion (that I’ve more than once repeated) that all Chinese cities are indistinguishable at their core.

A few photos from my trip to Dalian

Of all the numerous things about living away from Canada I miss, trust is more poignant than them all. It is–more than family, friends, air quality or money–the thing that is most likely to cause me to eventually leave China.

When Addie contracted aflatoxin poisoning, it really forced front and centre a sense that I had only peripherally been exposed to through news articles and conversations with Chinese–trust is a commodity China is dangerously short on.

When you put this into the larger context of how much we rely on trust in our day to day lives, the gravity of its absence is frightening. Trust that the water coming out of your tap is clean, that the milk we drink is safe, that the meats we buy are fresh, that the cell phones we use wont explode, that the electrical wiring in our apartments wont electrocute us in the shower.

And further, extending this from the faceless products and constructions of daily life, to the “professionals” we rely on. Trusting the shopkeepers, the police, the vets, the journalists, the doctors — and when they all fail, the judges and the law.

Trust is required for all these things. Trust, faith really, is needed to be able to move about your day-to-day routine. Needed so that you aren’t paralyzed by the thought of what a lack of trust in any of those things might entail.

But my trust is gone. It was whittled thinner and thinner over my time here and then broke completely when a high-end imported dog food we trusted was left to spoil in a Guangdong warehouse.

The painful part is I understand it. I understand why it seems almost everyone in China is only looking out for themselves. Not necessarily pulling the trigger on things that will hurt others, but certainly complicit in evil actions so long as it doesn’t directly affect them or theirs. If no one is looking out for them, why should they look out for anyone else?

Call it history, culture, learned behavior. Tell me it’s not all-spanning, not everyone, not all things. Explain to me that development is everywhere, things are changing, just one more generation… Then rest your life, or the lives of those you care about on that ideal.

I often use the analogy of a single drop of oil in a barrel of water when explaining to Maggie why she can’t trust the Chinese news she reads. It doesn’t matter if 99% of that barrel is water, if there is just one drop of oil, it’s spoiled.

Living in China is like playing the Windows classic Mindsweeper on the “easy” setting. You can click and click and click and most of the time you’ll be fine – but that one random time you’re not — game over.

So, our new dog, Button, is sick. Again, we are forced into a position of hoping we can trust experts telling us what is wrong and what we need to do. We trusted the vet we bought her from that we needed to give her the medicine she suggested to solve the problem. When that didn’t work we trusted a second vet (the most lauded one in Suzhou) that he really had never seen anything like this problem, and trusted that we actually required the litany of expensive tests he prescribed. We trusted that he, one of the truly “qualified” veterinarians in Suzhou, was actually dumbfounded and had no idea what was wrong with her. And maybe he didn’t.

But after digging for just a few minutes online, after our trust in the experts had worn out, we learned that her symptoms fit a perfectly normal and common problem with female puppies and that it was nothing to worry about and rarely something to treat.

So… do we trust that the doctors were both clueless? Trust that they just didn’t tell us the details? Or trust that they, like so many others, simply had their own agendas, and not the health of our dog or the peace-of-mind of her owners, when giving their diagnosis? Trust that maybe they just wanted to string out an otherwise inexpensive problem as long as they could.

And this is “just a dog”. These problems certainly extend to human medicine as well. Doctor’s prescribing unneeded drugs is the norm, not the unethical exception — ordering costly procedures and tests under the guise of caution all in an effort to bump up the bill at a patient’s most vulnerable hour.

In any Western country my thoughts about this would be considered overly cautious at best, and paranoid at worst. But this is China. Whatever wonderful gifts this country has to give, trust simply isn’t one of them.

By “live”, I don’t mean in the common temporary sense, as a short-term contract teacher or business person might, but rather as someone who has no firm plans on the if and when of their eventual departure.

Moreover, it got me thinking not just about living in China, but the quality of that living.

The big sales pitch that is always thrown around to lure folks here on a lower-than-home salary is that the “standard of living in China is much lower”.

Countless English teaching jobs, even at universities, pay their foreign teachers in around 4,000 RMB/mo. (about $575 USD) based mostly on being able to convincingly tout that line.

And it’s not to say there isn’t truth to it. Stuff in China’s cheaper, right? Food, housing, beer, etc. I mean, it’s China?!.

But when you put that “standard of living” line into context, and you contrast it with the quality of life that standard of living entails, there are some rather large holes in it.

There is no mystery to the fact that if you live more like a local, it will cost you less money. Average wages in the city still barely push $300 per month.

And though living like a local may bring with it a certain “zhong guo tong” prestige, in the long-term, it also brings with it cold nights, crap food and very possibly health concerns.

I made the conscientious decision a while back to begin demanding a bit more from my living environment here. However, I have a Chinese wife, and one from a family that’s not all that well-off, so it’s been a bit of a process explaining to Maggie that spending an extra few dollars here or there and not pinching every jiao does have its advantages.

First to go was the need to wear a jacket of any sort in my apartment during the winter months. I appreciate that heating costs electricity, and I could be reasonably cozy in two pairs of long-underwear and a winter parka – but looking like I’m ready for a snowball fight while watching DVDs just didn’t cut it.

Then came the purchasing of better quality foods – both from supermarkets and restaurants. There was a time when I would gladly slop down a greasy bowl of 5RMB lamian or a few 0.5RMB sticks of [insert random meat] chuar, all washed down with a 2 kuai bottle of China’s finest suds. Hell, it was short-term and I was eating my way to a better understanding of the “real” China.

What they don’t tell you at the stalls though is that the meat’s been sitting unrefrigerated for a day or two; the oil isn’t just full of trans fats, but it’s recycled (yup, recycled); and most of the cheap beer is fake and contains more formaldehyde than my high school science class.

Nothing that’s going to kill you in a week or a couple months, but when you start considering eating this stuff over the course of a few years – it’s time to make a change.

Last on my list of changes was where I live. Most the time I’ve lived in China I’ve lived in some form of school-supplied housing. Generally this is a budget apartment with the barest of necessities. Admittedly, the quality of apartment was much better than I had imagined before arriving in China, but again – over the long-term, it tends to lose its luster.

Unfinished and dirty stairways with no lighting, windows that let mosquitoes in and heat out, the absence of hot water outside of the shower, beds with box springs disguised as mattresses and foul odors escaping from all open drains for the country’s complete denial that U-bends were ever created.

Now the problem with these changes is, quite frankly, they cost a fuckload more money. When all’s tallied, living what would be considered a modest lifestyle back home could very easily cost you more money here in China.

High-quality items and better living standards have traditionally been for that smaller but much, much richer upper class that sits on the opposing side of China’s wide economic gap. As such, it has created a faux pricing system not all that in tune with the slowly-growing middle class or their moderate incomes.

I think the solution is not to go to extremes one way or the other. Find a hybrid between zhong guo tong and decadent expat that allows you to live comfortably and gives you the permission to spurge on what in any other country would be considered essentials, but at the same time allows room to accept that you are in a country that is still just getting a grasp on all this, and also doesn’t isolate you too much from the country you live in.

Will it work? Not real sure. Thoughts?

Sure, I still get pissed off at the “HELLOOOOOs” and the whispered “shhysehsshsheshlaowaishehshsheksdlkjed”, but the truth is, I’ve settled in.

The moment I realized this was when I noticed I never bring my camera anywhere anymore. It used to be that I’d bring my camera along to the most mundane things in case there was a photo op that would help capture what it is to live in this randomest of all random places.

I don’t notice it anymore.

Last week I was out at the local Irish pub for the 100RMB all-you-can-drink hangover-giver the other night and it was jammed with a bunch of American and Mexican students that had just completed a Chinese course at Suzhou University. They were out for one last big hurrah before they all dispersed back to their lives back home.

People were pished, flashes were blinding, girls were dancing on the stage and singing convincingly into a microphone that was missing its connective bits. It was a blast – for them.

It wasn’t so long ago that I was doing my own rounds of “good bye”, “I can’t believe you’re staying”, “we’ve got to keep in touch”, “best of luck down in Thailand on your way back”, etc… but somewhere around the fourth or fifth round of them it lost its flavor. However, strangely enough, I really miss it.

I certainly don’t miss saying goodbye to people, that’s the worst part of being a long-term laowai. Imagine having relationships with people like you did when you were in college, but instead of a year-by-year basis, it works in terms of 6, 8 and 12 month contracts. It sucks. And though you promise (as you did in college) to keep in touch with everyone … eventually that moment that was real begins to fade, and no amount of “hey man, long time no talk” e-mails can bring that back.

Well, I don’t miss that, and I guess it’s no coincidence that my social circle has adjusted to reflect that, with many of my friends now being fellow long-timers.

However, I miss the excitement of it all. I miss going to a meal and wondering what the hell I’d just ordered, and if I can brag about eating it to my friends back home. I miss living for the school breaks so I can jump around to various tourist spots (now I’m reluctant to even travel to the corner store).

I miss telling people when I am leaving and what I plan to do next.

The college analogy runs true with this as well I guess. There’s just such a similarity (perhaps largely due to the age of the players involved) to those free-wheelin’ years of higher academia. Well, I’ve been here two and a half years now, I’ve graduated. I’ve moved into the real world of having to figure things out and work China into my life, rather than my life into China.

With school ending in the next couple weeks, I’m reaching the end of another chapter of the China experience. Friends/co-workers are leaving, and personally many things are changing.

So it was, last night I found myself with a real-estate agent viewing an apartment she was looking to populate. It was then that it dawned on me that I wasn’t actually looking at apartments because I wanted to move, but more just because every time change had previously occurred in my life in China, it meant a new apartment.

I’ve got a nice little apartment though, and don’t really need nor want to move. I’ve only lived here five months, the price is good, the size is good, the location is good… but still there I was, chatting about neighbourhood-quality, closest vegetable markets, etc. with some lady.

So, needless to say, my mind is a mess with which direction it’s meant to go. However, through all of this – the reminiscing, the confusion, the challenges ahead – there’s still an underlying feeling I’m on the right path. I had that feeling when I first decided to quit the ‘good job’ back home and start travelling, I had that feeling when I left for China, I had that feeling when I scraped my plans to leave China, and I had that feeling when I asked my wife to marry me…

I may not have it all sorted out, but I have to assume I’m doing something right.