Why I’ve FAILed in China
In blog on December 28, 2009 at 1:11 am
A friend of mine recently declared her 2009 a “FAIL” and it’s in that spirit I would like to declare my time in China the same. A definite FAIL.
And let it be known that said FAIL cannot be attributed to any people, my university, this city or country I’m in, or even the great and mysterious universe. There is only one person responsible for my fail, and that’s me. Yup, I’m taking full responsibility.
China has been a challenge in so many respects: I’ve had to do without my family and all my best friends, live in a country and culture wildly different to my own, in a language I have yet to master, and all in a city that, to be perfectly honest, I am having difficulty falling in love with.
And how did I respond to these challenges?
In fact, I didn’t see them as challenges as all. I saw them as big, terrible drawbacks to my new life. I was harsh on new friends for not being like my old. I criticised the city to whomever would listen, and rather than laughing in the face of Beijing’s icy, below zero temperature weather, I too quickly waved the white flag, and withdrew to my room. Soon I was stewing away too many hours alone, inevitably turning my thoughts into bitter-tasting, poison.
It’s funny, the less you see of people, the harder it becomes to be around them. And the more selfish you become.
I thought I could combat my loneliness by keeping busy. But I quickly learned that blogging, Google Reader, freelance writing, gchat, Skype and watching DVDs on your laptop is no replacement for face-to-face contact. I’m sorry Internet, as wonderful as you are, you can never make the hours melt away quite like a friend.
Which is why, I’m going to wrap this up quickly with two lessons learned that I think know will turn around 2010:
It’s important to be around people. No matter how tiring that can sometimes be, the loneliness of being in the company of new, unfamiliar friends is minuscule compared to the loneliness of no company at all.
It’s not about you. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what the world can do for you, but what together we can do for the world.



