I have been in China for almost 6 months now. I have made a few tiny trips out of town but in general I have been passing the days in Beijing. In summary I have to say I am loving it. Although I am never *strike* not always happy to go to work at 7.30 in the morning, I feel intensely happy and lucky every evening when I am on my way home for a relaxing evening or prepping up for a hang-out with friends.

I have been asking myself increasingly whether I would be able to stay in China for a long-term period, maybe even settling down here and I think the answer is a slightly hesitant ‘Yes’.

Is it because of the delicious food? Or the shops that are still open after you finished work? The close physical proximity of my family relatives? The fact that my money is worth almost ten times as much here? The kind and adequate personnel anywhere you go? The metropolitan feeling of a truly enormous city? The crowded chaotic streets full of life, late at night?

I’m not sure what it is. If you would give me the choice right now to choose between living and working in China or a life and job in the Netherlands, I think I would prefer the first choice. It is not that I don’t feel connected to Holland anymore. In contrary, being here made me realise more than ever that I am not Chinese. I don’t talk like a Chinese, I don’t think like a Chinese and I don’t even look Chinese.

This is why I think I – and others with me as well – are so keen on living abroad or hopping from country to another.

In consumer marketing there is this term ‘choice stress’. It is a very interesting, psycho-economical term that describes the stress that occurs when consumers don’t know what to buy because there are too many, seemingly similar, choice options. I don’t think it is only applicable to business life, but to everyday life as well. Especially for the young generation.

With the world becoming an international playground, the possibilities for the future have doubled, tripled, quadruppled etc. and they all seem equally exciting. With only one life to fill with a hundred billion options, how do we know what the best option is for you?

We set out to the world, travel around to see what the big globe has to offer us. Every time you leave your home country, for sure, you leave everything and everybody that is dear to you behind, but you also get to start your life all over again like a spotless sheet of white paper: new round, new chances.
An additional advantgae is that your ‘real’ life that was happening back home has been put on hold for a while, with all your sorrows and worries (of what definite choices to make in your life) stored and locked away in the deepest parts of your brain, overshadowed by the novelty of a new country.

For me, life here in China has been like this: a long escape vacation from reality. It has changed my views on life again and opened up even more possibilities in my mind. The danger of staying here too long though is that the life in China will become my new reality because my ‘real’ life back in Holland had been untouched for so long that I have forgotten about it. Then, I would have to start running to another country again and obviously, although I don’t mind it a bit at this point: I can’t keep running away from reality.

One of the most painful things about doing this expat life, or rather, hopping around the globe for a couple of months every time, is that people come and go. You never – or rarely – get to become really close with a person and if you do, the fun and sad moments you shared will end abruptly and be frozen in time, never to return again. Being the occasional drama queen as I am, I find it awful that it will never be the same anymore.

So my relationship with the life abroad is a hate-love relationship. I love to hate it and I hate to love it. For a relationship to work, it is necessary to have ups and downs, fights and make-ups. Through this I hope learn one day what I really want to do with my future and colour my path in life.