About to dodge an electric car coming our way as we ride our tandem bike on the wall.
Jill and I both think it is fun living in China and getting to do things that we’d never get to do in the USA.
We’ve met people that there is just no chance we would have met if we had stayed at home.
We’ve had experiences we never would have had, both good and bad, if we had stayed at home.
And, we’ve learned things about ourselves, that we never would have learned if we had stayed at home.
They say that the strength of a relationship can be shown when you travel with each other.
Well, Jill and I met 8 days before I moved to China, and her willingness to jump in, move over here, and try a new life, says so much about her.
I guess my willingness to quit my job, move over here, and see what would happen says a lot about me also.
As far as I can tell, if traveling together proves if a relationship can make it, we are gonna make it easily after this journey.
Especially when you add in the extra stress of living in China, and starting a new job, and having almost no connections here when we arrived.
And yet we’ve built a real community and expatriate “family” that I will be very sad to leave when that day comes.
This trip to Xian was just another example of that:
As expatriates, you become close to people, and connect with them, in ways that you wouldn’t back in your home town or country.
In China it is incredibly important to do this because expatriates are so out of place and people can feel so lost, hopeless, and alone.
We definitely count on our expatriate family, which include my eldest brother, Robert, to do that.
Jill’s cousin, Michelle, lives in a city of 400,000 people in Northeastern China.
There are about 20 expatriates living there and 7 of them are one family.
I have no idea how she handles it, but she does, and she is amazing. Meeting Michelle has been another gift of living in China.
One really doesn’t know who they will meet when they travel.
It allows Jill and me to keep an open mind, and eye, to what may come and how to deal with things that happen to us.
So far, so good.
Enjoy the ride…we sure are!