Expat Life: The Honeymoon Is Over

I expected my move to China to be an easy transition. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

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I have reinvented my life many times. Packed my belongings into cars and suitcases, locked my possessions in storage units, and taken off on yearlong road trips and planes bound for many foreign lands. I’ve lived as an expatriate for over 12 years on four different continents.  Because of this, I expected my move to China to be an easy transition. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Image: an art exhibition poster I found at the Hangzhou Academy of Art. I want to go, but first I need to find a translator.

China is not a place for a Westerner with a low tolerance for uncertainty. If you want to avoid ambiguity, it’s best to stay home. Hibernate. Find a cave and stay there. Believe me: it’s tempting. I’d probably stay home more than I do, but I avoid hanging out in my apartment with its mismatched furniture, florescent lights, and white, undecorated walls. I still haven’t figured out how to adjust the temperature of the water heater because the controls are written in Chinese. Most of the showers I take are cold.  My tiny kitchen is always hot and stuffy, so cooking is like taking a sauna. I eat out a lot.

I’ve moved halfway around the world to a country whose citizens speak a language I do not understand. I work at a new school at a job that is a brand new profession.  From my city apartment, I look out my living room window to a view of six high-rises that are over 40 stories high. I have traveled on a bullet train at 220 mph towards the most populated city in the world.

I’ve lost my frame of reference. Where’s my country, my house, my friends, my mountain, my language? I feel myself changing: shifting into an urban creature directed more by instinct than intellect. Minus language or cultural reference, I use my intuition to guide me. I am the city survivalist, trying not to crash her e-bike into the bus barreling around the corner. I communicate with non-verbal cues, expressions and gestures. I am the chimpanzee in an unmanaged zoo, trying to speak and write and talk. I’d rather be home in my forest, gently picking fleas off my cousins.

Someone once told me “We are the same people we were last year except for the books we have read, the films we have seen, the people we’ve met, and the places we’ve been.” I am not the same person I was two months ago. I am finding beauty in concrete and steel. I have learned to meditate while moving. Even though so much of New China is urban and contemporary, I am tapping into something ancient. I'm enamoured with traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Chinese massage, and the Way of Tea.

I think less about horoscopes and astrology and more about the design of buildings, the fabric of society, and how my choices and behavior affect the design of my own life.

Before living here, I swallowed the stereotypes about China hook, line, and sinker. I actually believed that everything made in China was inferior merchandise and that the Chinese were, in general, an unhappy people. Now I realize how the western media distorted my view, and how threatened the U.S. government is by the power of the Chinese economy.  The U.S. press reflects this fear. Living here has opened me up to a new way of seeing China and rest of the world.

Two months of living here, and I feel as if I have shifted on a cellular level. I’m more aware of mass consciousness. I light my nam champa incense with a slightly different prayer. The sacred tobacco seeds from women’s lodge still aren’t planted in the pots on my windowsill, but soon they will be. Only the moon makes me feel rooted – a strong and powerful connection to my former life and my community back home. I’m searching for something that’s just beyond my reach- the sound of a gong in the night air, an unexpected scent of jasmine, yellowed maps from the Old Silk Road.  I am still looking for a city tribe that understands soul matters: a group of poets, a community of artists. In my dreams, I go to the place of the mountains. I want to stay there.

I am torn between the old me and the new me, shadow boxing the questions and trying to accept the tears that come with confronting my own identity.  I am fragile. Vulnerable. They said this would happen, those experts in the psychology of expatriate living and culture shock. That the honeymoon high would wear off around the second or third month, and the oh-my-god-what-have-I-done phase would set in.

I’m at the oh-my-god-what-have-I-done phase, but I’m not quitting. I’m not running home. I’m staying, because the greatest growth is not an external process: it’s internal. The fortitude it takes to stay, when living here is so hard, has something to do with perseverance and a lot to do with hope. One day, I will call China home. I will have art on the walls, and warm lamps and showers, and a group of friends to invite home for dinner.

Until then: it isn’t easy, people.

Facebook doesn’t tell the whole story.

Ever.

Comments

[Robyn]

Kat, darlin', you are living high on courage. Keep feeling us back in Taos as you let the tensile-thin thread give you more reach into the newness. Look for the sameness. Live it. Love it. Dance, sing, and write. You are doing what you love, living a bold life. And you'll never regret it.
Dancing with the Divine,
Robyn

[shamash]

Tears in my eyes, Robyn. Thank-you. Sometimes the kindest words go so long in helping a soul to heal. Life is hard. And good. Thanks for the reminder that I've chosen this for a reason.

[Jeff Hess]

Shalom Shamash,

Too many people expect their lives to fit on Facebook or, horrors of horrors, Twitter. We are better than that. To be human is to be insanely complicated and unpredictable.

As Lazarus Long, speaking through his publicist Robert Heinlein once told us, "specialization is for insects."

We are long-form creatures evolved to win the stern chase.

B'shalom,

Jeff

[sutanto harsono]

Hi Kat, all this time i only know you from the pictures that you made. Now I know that you are a good writer too. I enjoy it so much. Come visit me in Indonesia someday, I am sure your story about Asia would be much more colorful.
best rgds
tanto

[shamash]

Love your words, Jeff, especially "To be human is to be insanely complicated and unpredictable"... so true!

[shamash]

Sutanto: after all this time of sharing photos with each other, it's so good to see you that you have discovered my blog... One day I would love to visit you in Indonesia. The world is small, yes? come visit China! :-)

[Brook Ketchum]

Wow, very well said, and I agree, the transformations we are undergoing aren't always easy. However, we both know that we are here for a reason. The reason we chose to come here at the beginning, is really not reason we are here at all. The reason we are here will only reveal itself after we have packed our things and ventured to our next post. Who knows how long that will be, but one day, after we have processed our entire experience, we will know, and it will be more than profound. There is no way to process this grand experience while we are in it. Instead, we will have to wait to reap the rewards of this sometimes difficult journey. We just have to appreciate the daily beauty that is before us, learn all that we can about this amazing culture, and make connections with those that stumble upon our path. We are meant to be here ..... there are no mistakes when humans venture to embrace all that the world has to offer, and we have done more than embrace it. We only have once chance at life and we are living it to the maximum. Just remember, if we were at home, we would be writing the same story over and over, but instead, we are in China writing an adventure novel. Love you Sista, hang in there, and the rewards will be more than you ever dreamed.

[shamash]

Brook: I love your lines "if we were at home, we would be writing the same story over and over, but instead, we are in China writing an adventure novel"--- Amen and amen!!

I'm so glad to share the craziness of this new life with another adventure queen. Don't know what I'd do without you.

[Hyacinth]

I send you warm showers of love and cozy nooks of pinon branches to soothe your feelings of oh-my-god-what-have-i-done.
It was 36 here in the mountains this morning, and it isn't getting much warmer today. I turned on the heat. Your adventures give me vicarious delights and I admire your courage as you learn to create a new life in such a foreign place. I continue to work at creating a new life for myself, and some days, like today, I feel so lonely & scared. Keep writing, and light that candle in your windowsill. Love you.

[shamash]

Dear Hyacinth: A big hug sent your way, my dear friend. You remind me that our greatest journeys aren't necessarily those that traverse the earth, but rather those that take us inward to the landscapes of our inner world. I still have your Yankee candle and it still burns, on special days, in my window. Big love to you... I miss you more that you could ever know.

[Jasmin Shakespeare]

Oh, I'm sure you'll get the hang of everything around there in no time. Cold showers? Whoa! I can imagine the shivers you get from them. Have you asked anyone to help you with the water heater? Well, change doesn't come easy, dear. And that phase? Trust me, it'll just go away. Been there, done that. :)

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