A new adventure

I’m standing in line for security at the Metro Detroit airport. It’s finally happening. After more than a year, and almost to the day of accepting the teaching position, I am finally going. I’m standing in line, teary eyed from the goodbyes and with a belly full of butterflies. It’s all nerves and excitement. “You look like you're going on an adventure”, a girl from behind me comments, and most likely due to my backpack overflowing with a traveler’s needs, colorful scarves and all the bits and bobs. I turn around, smile and give out a laugh, “Yes, I am!”. It couldn’t have been a more fitting reflection of how I felt on the inside.

And that’s exactly what this is, a new adventure. 

A year can fly by, and it can just as easily drag on. China is already a tedious and particular country to work in, especially in terms of documentation and visas. The legal process has very specific requirements and it’s long, throw COVID into the mix and you get a year of ups and downs, playing the waiting game. 

A year of waiting

You grow used to the waiting; I began to expect the delays and obstacles. COVID slowed down every single step and process in moving back abroad. More times than I can count, I wondered if it would ever actually happen. Jake, my partner, and I talked about picking a deadline; a month or an amount of time that would be the end of trying, the end of waiting. At that point, we’d have to change plans, plan B would become plan A. 

In the end we stuck it out, we had invested too much time, money and effort into going, we couldn’t give up on it.  And after all, we didn’t want to! We kept envisioning the life we hoped and felt we could have in Shanghai.

Frenemies

People often questioned the move, family and friends. They would say things like, ‘Why China?’ and ‘Maybe this is a sign you shouldn’t go’. With how difficult the process proved to be, I sometimes asked myself the same things.  

There’s no denying it. There is a strained relationship and sometimes hostile perceptions between the two countries, the US and China. The past few years have not eased any of that strain and if anything, they've only fueled misconceptions or judgements. People in the US are preached at and taught what to think about China. Most countries around the world do the same. In many situations, the people most terrified at the thought of going to China had never even been. Experience did not fuel their opinion, it was fear and uncertainty that did.  

Make up my own mind

China may be vastly different from life at home and elsewhere I have lived, but living abroad has taught me that there are always more similarities to be found. 

I won’t let others tell me what to think about a place, I prefer to find out for myself. So, let’s give China a chance! 

• Madeline

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