I have not posted in so long. It hasn’t been easy here, and I have had so much to occupy my mind mentally that posting got neglected. Posting on your blog can be like planning out a paper for a class. I guess I was in school for so long, that is how it has become. That makes me sad.
I have been here for a while. I have grown and changed in ways that I cannot even begin to describe. From the start, until now…those who have crossed my path and made me who I am constantly becoming. And this virus, being in lockdown in a country so foreign, by yourself…. is another blog post I will eventually write. I still cannot put into words what it has been like, being here, having that experience. What I can talk about, the most important thing in my book, that makes your experience, are those people you walk with.
The people who have changed me made me even better, made my walk with God even stronger, have all been “foreigners”. Sure, first and foremost, it has been the Chinese way and culture. Just walking on the roads here is a game of Frogger and Chicken with the way they drive, and the number of scooters everywhere. I was hit from behind the other day. Standing on my bike at a red light, with a bright pink shirt on, going to meet my friends for a bike ride, and a woman on a scooter rammed into the back of me. I stood strong on the bike, with the WTH feeling, only to look back and see a woman on the ground, with her e-bike on top of her.
I set my bike down and proceeded to help her up. You see, they drive and look at their cell phones here, with copious amounts of people on the road. No sense of right-of-way and they constantly cut you off, rather than go behind you. I helped her up, and her bike. After a few sentences she couldn’t understand of WTF are you doing lady, she waved me off. Then? She got on her bike and rode away. I was a bit traumatized. My bike was fucked. She rammed into the gears, and the chain was off.
I immediately called my Chinese friend I was meeting for the bike ride. We spent the morning driving to and from bike shops to get it repaired. I was a nervous wreck.
But I picked my arse back up and I rode. My foreign friends and Young (the Chinese man) helped me. These are my people here. Travelers who go to distant lands and decide to uproot themselves into foreign countries, reach out to others to help.
Why do I mention this here? Because it has been different. Traveling in Europe and other countries, foreigners tend to go to the resorts and touristy areas. I have always avoided them because I am a hostel lover, a couch surfer, an off-the-beaten-path traveler.
Here, it is different. Foreigners are not posh. We have banded together and formed a community while still immersed in a culture that is still so foreign. Yet, it is a culture unlike any other. Sure, they piss and spit on the streets. They eat the swill of the animals. But I have learned more here than ever before.
My foreign friends are from America, the UK, Serbia, Philippines, Ukraine, Russia, South Africa, Korea, Austria, Czech Republic, Norway, Colombia, Poland, Portugal, Ecuador, Australia, Sweden, Ireland, Turkey, India, Morrocco, Germany, Canada, and of course China. I would not trade them for anything. I would not trade this experience for anything.
As Bourdain said, traveling changes you. I am more in love with traveling than ever. I am more in love with the friends I have made here than ever. I would never have survived without them. I would never have survived without Chimac, a western-themed restaurant, like the Cheers of Haikou.
Everything has changed for me. Lockdown changed me in 1,000 different ways. I still have my goals for Europe, but right now it brings tears to my eyes thinking of leaving here and the community I have become a huge part of. It isn’t like a westernized version of China. We are on an island. We take care of each other. We care about each other. And we help each other survive. I am so in love with all of my people here. We survived the virus, and I feel safer here than I would anywhere else in the world.
We have become a great family here. I love my people! I am happy to stay here a little longer, and experience life here. I have seen nothing yet of China, except, I have experienced so much of the Chinese culture.
I will post more soon and more pictures.
