Living abroad and loneliness go hand in hand a lot of the time. Not being able to talk to anyone in your native tongue is quite alienating if you've never experienced it. It really makes you feel for the immigrants back home. I am the only foreigner on campus right now, and have been the only person living in my building for two months. It is an odd phenomenon. Once a week I will typically get help with an errand from someone who speaks enough English to have some basic conversation. These outings are appreciated, but they certainly don't cover the need to connect. Having been in quarantine for a month, I was released and had two weeks before Tianjin was on psuedo-lockdown again. During this time it has been three weeks in my lone, ninth floor apartment, only going out every other day to awkwardly order lunch and snag some bottled water. I didn't even want to write during this time, but on reflection, I thought it was really important to write about - because other people will have to go through a similar (although not the same) thing.
Living Abroad is as equally freeing as it is lonely, and when the freedom aspect is taken away, it's just lonely. There is a time (especially if you're young and have arrived) where every free moment is fascinating or a party. You go out, you see incredible new places and things -- you even work on your Chinese language skills, for crying out loud. This typically last about 6 months, before people get exhausted. After that, it's so much easier to stay in and watch streaming services than map out your route on the bus in a second iffy language, and many of the friends have coupled off already. At least, that's how it was in Korea, but I still hiked every other weekend. Here in Tianjin however, everyone is worn down by COVID. Everyone already had old friends or a partner, and I'm the first new blood in about two years. This was fine when I was a walk away, but now I'm a 40-minute cab ride away, and you've known me for about 1.5 weeks, so maybe you don't call for an adventure to the coffee shop, or to get out of town and see an Ancient city. It's a friendship dampener, if not a nail in the coffin. Here's my current apartment, brand NEW - if you think I'm exaggerating:
Can you guess which room is mine? It's 903. I am seriously here by myself. I always expected 1.3 billion people to be everywhere - but instead, China has been bizarrely empty. It's winter break, so the kids and a lot of the teachers are at home, but still - I have an entire building to myself? Am I a king? The King of Hebei campus? No, I'm just bored and making stuff up to feel VI.
So, I have to be pretty strong, or be able to grow into a sturdy person to live here, but at least I don't have to deal with anyone else's flaws. I am freed from them. I just have my own flaws front and center, which I am perfectly fine with. We've become very good friends during COVID, and I'm sure I'll detach from them eventually when forced to. Anyways, I've been smoking Chinese cigarettes off and on, (shh, don't tell anyone) because I have nothing to do, and needed some reflection rituals outside of mediation.
They have the most beautiful, siren-esk packaging, and many different nicotine levels. I only smoke the 'filtered air' ones (sometimes considered more feminine, especially here), because I would vomit if I smoked two regular cigarettes at this point in my life. I'm telling you this, because this is the reality of living in China for me. This is uncensored, at the moment, for as long as it can be. This is what this life is like here, so you need to know the lows and the highs.
This week is a good week. Last week - not so much. This week I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, because things are opening back up, and the semester will start soon. The winter here has been a force to reckon with, but my strong buds are coming back out. I am writing steadily again, playing with new career endeavors, and mourning the lost time from solitary disharmony. How are you? Feel free to comment. This is my most cerebral post, so far, because it fits the time. I may add more later on reflection, but for now...
I leave you with this walk through the field outside my building, on the way to the south gate. It survives with only two small precipitations during the last three months, which I take as wisdom:
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