Travel

First it's probably necessary to give a little background here. First off, I've been living in China for almost 7 months now. I spend most of my time either at my job as a teacher or studying Chinese, both activities being something I generally enjoy. My living situation is something that I would hope my friends and family are all aware of, but a lot of people still seem to be surprised when I tell them. I guess that's not really surprising. Before I moved to China I was unemployed for about 5 months after I graduate, so I had a lot of spare time which I mostly used volunteering for political campaigns. Before that I had an internship at the Department of Commerce doing research. So in the last few years I'd like to think I've had my fair share of worthwhile experiences.


Before I started moving around a little over a year and a half ago I'd never lived outside of Michigan for more than 2 or 3 weeks. So if I was such a home body before why have I been moving around so much recently?


Well first off it because all the opportunities I was most interested required me to move a lot. Arbitrage can be a beautiful thing, if you're willing to move a lot and are able to take advantage of different things you can really come out ahead.


But at the same time it's also because, like most people I've always had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about not being able to travel more. I think I was like most people in that I hated third culture kids. You know third culture kids, those people that grew up half way around the world, moved to your hometown, told you about all the interesting experiences that they fell ass backwards into and then pointed out that you've been eating the same sandwich for the last 3 years. To be fair, It's not like they were walking around saying "you suck, and your parochial life is hilarious to me", but that's always the impression you get. It's the same reason you kind of want to smack anyone who tells you about their son in Russia or that time they went to Panama to build houses while you were sitting at home slowly turning from a "Never-Was" to a "Could've-Been".


I'd been meaning to travel around for a little bit now, but it never really seemed to work into the long term plan I had going in my mind. If I was going to relocate it would have to be somewhere where I could be gainfully employed, or where there was a good chance it would produce a better job in the next few years. At the very least I need to be able to do it cheaply. Fortunately I graduate in the middle of the worst job market since the Great Depression, and the prospect of sitting at home working a shit job for the next few years suddenly made relocating look a lot more do-able. I might not be able to get a degree related job working abroad, but at the same time I probably wasn't going to get one back in the United States any time soon either, so I may as well kill some time somewhere where I could learn something new and save up a little money.


I considered doing a few different things, like going into Teach for America or joining the military or something, but my brother's advice about going to China to teach ended up sounding the best. I've wanted to learn Chinese for a while now, and I figure I may yet be able to put my degree to good use if I can find a job with a corporation or the US embassy while i'm out here. Why the hell not.


I was surprised how ridiculously easy the whole process turned out to be. I started looking for jobs in China I had about 10 people offering me jobs after a week. After a whole summer sending out resumes with nothing to show for it this was a welcome change of pace. It altogether it took me less than $1,000 and a month and of half to find a job and complete all the necessary travel arrangements.


So far I'm very happy with how things have been going, but at the same time It's sort of changed my perspective on travelling. Basically it became much less of a big deal after I actually did it. As I said, the whole process turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be. It really made me think maybe I should have started doing it sooner. At the same time it made me realize that moving around a lot in and of itself doesn't really make as much of a difference as I thought it would. In a lot of ways if your changing jobs your going to experience a much bigger cultural shift than if you're changing countries. It's all about the people you surround yourself with and the depth of experience. My life was very different at the end of 2010 from what it had been at the beginning of 2010, but I think that's more because I went from working with government bureaucrats to working with children than anything else. So I guess in a lot of ways setting down the right kind of roots is the most important thing anyone can do.


So, that's my thoughts for now. I've got a backlog of things i'd like to share, so i'll try to update regularly.