News and projects, the more I travel the more confused I am

I thought traveling was going to make things clear for me. In what sense? Well, at least in the sense of where I want to settle, eventually.

It seems like it's not the case, the more I travel, the less I know where to stop. I came to China for six months, I'm in the middle of my second semester,and already thinking about renewing my visa for the second time.

Is it China? Yes, it's China. The Red Dragon, after making me almost run away, now doesn't want to let me go. Is it only China? No, it's not. It's East Asia.

So far I've only traveled around China and India, but I'm planning to visit more countries of this fascinating region of the planet.

What is East Asia doing to me? Hard to say, but here I feel inspired, tireless, creative. I know I have been pretty silent on this blog, but I'm regularly updating my new site Chasing The Unexpected with my new travels, while Travel Calling will still be the place for the quirky aspects of my life as an expat, and, I have to say, East Asia offers invaluable "quirky" angles.

I, of course, am trying to understand myself why I'm finding East Asia so intriguing, maybe the simple lifestyle, maybe just the challenge of living (and traveling) in such a different society from the one I was used to, and probably even studying Mandarin, incredibly hard and beautiful language, all things that are contributing in making this experience much more charming than I expected.

It's probably not a mystery by now, but I have no intention of going back to Europe (yes, of course I'm going to see my family and friends, I didn't become crazy with all this inspiration!). I still don't know how I'll sort out the legal stuff, but as I'm gradually sensing here, in China everything is possible.

When I'm wrong, I admit it (sometimes)

I must confess, I hate being proved wrong. Probably this is quite common, but I have to admit, I really hate it. This being said, sometimes I agree to give up on the last word. This usually happens when insisting on my version would not only further show that I'm wrong, but also that I'm grumpy.

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about my first six months in China, and I have to say, my initial experience in Far East Asia made me draw some hasty wrong conclusions, among which the wrongest one was that I didn't want to stay.

My initial settling in Shanghai hasn't been easy, actually it was a proper shock mainly due to the language barrier. I'm comfortable in five languages, one being widespread English, so I thought I wouldn't have encountered so many difficulties, at least for the most basic things.

I quickly revisited my opinion when I realised I could literally count on one hand the people I met with who spoke a little English. Even at the hotel in Beijing city centre, none of the receptionists spoke English. I'm not a fan of "imposing" my language anywhere, this is why I like studying many different idioms, but admittedly, in China I was truly taken aback.

You don't realise the importance of the language until you absolutely need to make yourself understood by the person you are talking to and you are unavoidably met with a puzzled look of despair. This was my daily routine when I arrived in July until, well, not long ago.

Still now, the most common sentence in my personal vocabulary is "Ting bu dong": it looks like this 听不懂, and it means "I can hear you but I can't understand you". Mandarin Chinese is definitely a difficult language, and by difficult, I mean difficult. It's not words that you can just "pick up", if you don't know it, you are in the dark. It's like learning two languages, for between the spoken and the written there is no relation whatsoever: the written has 5000 characters, and as many years, under its collective belt; the spoken is a tangled web of tones that, although to a clumsy Western pair of ears sound perfectly the same, to Chinese people are totally different.

So, misunderstandings and the awareness of living in a nearly complete darkness, led me to regret my choice of spending six months in China and, as I started to think I will never be fluent, I didn't even want to learn such a difficult language.

All these seemingly impossible-to-overcome difficulties have been haunting me since the beginning but, oddly enough, little by little they are becoming the funny side of my stay in Shanghai. Now, I'm the first one to laugh when I don't understand or I can't express myself, and this is gradually revealing very helpful, firstly because I don't panic anymore and I just throw in all words I can muster, and secondly because people are more willing to give me the time to do such.

Apart from language-related adventures, recently I've been realising I'm slowly falling in love with China, its culture, its philosophy of life, its people.

This is a bit of a problem, and not just because here I can't get married (I know, it's sad, but not much I can do about it), but especially because I had different plans, which involved staying in China for a period between six months to a year and then moving to the Middle East for another six months to a year period.

However, at the moment, I can't see myself leaving China. Six months have already gone, the next half year will fly as fast as the previous one and I'm already thinking about extending my visa (again).

I'm not sure what has cast such a spell on me, probably the very easygoing aspect of pretty much everything in the Chinese lifestyle, or maybe the fact that you can do whatever you want and it will always be ok, or my gradual acknowledging that overcoming the challenge of integrating in such a different society is more rewarding than I thought it would be.

If at the beginning Shanghai was unsettling in a sort of "unwelcoming" terms, now it's the other way around. Feeling more "at home" than in any other destinations I've moved to is a bit scary, but certainly enjoyable.

Travelling with kids, a family affair

I've been reading articles and blog posts with any sort of advices and tricks about travelling with kids. The amount of literature produced on the topic led me to think this was a major adventure, and I started wondering how on earth my grandmother managed to do what she did more than fifty years ago.

Today most travelling happens by plane, and most airports and airlines provide facilities for babies, kids and parents, so I asked my grandmother to tell me her story: how did she bring in 1957, at the young age of 26, six children, of the age range between six years old and eight months, from Sedilo, a godforsaken village in Sardinia, to Lorraine, France?

"Easy! We got ready and we left!"

I'm not sure whether my grandmother was reckless or brave, but the fact is that she actually left her hometown, alone (my grandfather was already in France looking for job and accommodation), with no money (or very little since she had just sold a pig!) and six little pests, to embark on a journey without any kind of facility.

I guess she was both brave and reckless, but first of all, she was pushed by the need to provide her sons and daughters with food everyday. Post-war Italy was a wreck, Sardinia was among the worst hit regions and Sedilo suffered terribly from hunger. There were no options but leave.

The preparation involved also taking the picture for the ID (photo above). The council told my grandma the photo needed to include all members, that's how the picture that now is the symbol of our family was taken. The photographer fell in love with it and displayed it for months in his shop.

I knew they started their trip in Abbasanta, the nearest train station from Sedilo, but I've always wondered how they got to the station so, artlessly, I asked her: "Did you book two cars at least to go from Sedilo to Abbasanta?"

"What car?? I stuck them all in a coach! The little money we had was to suffice for the whole journey, and rest assured that we knew when we were leaving, but we had no idea what day we would arrive!"

My grandfather's youngest brother helped my grandmother during the trip, he was 22 and, like the rest of the group, he had never left Sardinia before. They didn't even speak Italian, only Sardinian native language, let alone French.

Once in Abbasanta's train station, my mother ran to the platforms: "Grandma took me away by my hair," she told me. "She didn't have time for pampering anybody. I never ran away anymore."

"Felice," remembers my grandmother amused, "didn't want to go anywhere without pabassini (the typical Sardinian cakes), so I had to make some before leaving." Felice is my uncle, and at the time he was two. Needless to say, the smallest daughter, the eight-month one, caught the flu during the journey.

After a two-hour journey by train they arrived at the port and got on the ship. The most obvious way would have been toward Genoa, which is close to France, but in 1957 there weren't any ships travelling from Sardinia to Genoa, so my future family got off in Civitavecchia, Rome's port.

From here, they caught the train to Switzerland, where they waited for another train that would bring them to Metz, Lorraine. It was November, and temperatures were starting to go down, especially in Switzerland. The kids were not dressed with winter clothes, so the social workers provided them with blankets. "I might still have one of those blankets," remembers my grandmother. "They were very warm!"

The journey lasted three days and in Metz my grandfather was impatient to welcome his family.

My mother doesn't remember much of her first moments in her new hometown, so my grandma helps us piece together the events. Once in France, all immigrants were gathered in a former military dormitory, where they would live together for a month.

After a few days the families were allocated a house each by the mine company (because my grandfather got a job in a mine in Lorraine, 1000 mt underneath the earth surface). The house actually became property of my grandparents, who were also given the first monthly salary and one allowance for each child.

My grandmother remembers that they had never seen so much money all together so, when my grandfather got home with all that cash, they spread it out on the main table and kept staring at it, speechless. With hindsight, that money was barely enough to make ends meet, but my grandparents were used to living in such poverty that they believed they had touched the sky with a finger.

Since then, my grandmother was the family's accountant: her husband would give her the salary every month and she had the task to administrate for everybody's expenses.

This is how their French adventure started. Now that I'm an expat, every time I go to visit my grandmother she cries at the idea of her granddaughter living abroad, because I remind her of all the difficulties they had. Of course there is no way to make her understand that my situation is very different from theirs, that I have chosen this life, and that my travels are much easier.

I think that, after all, she's proud of my choice to carry on with the family tradition, and somehow, I feel I have more in common with my grandparents since I left my hometown.

My life as an expat in London: hit the ground running

When I moved to London two years ago, I wasn’t a newbie: I had been living as an expat in Dublin for other two years so, with my previous experience and confident in a language not so foreign anymore, I was ready to face the jungle.

Despite grim forecasts, on my very first day in London it wasn’t raining, and this made it much easier for me to understand the bus service and locate the stop of my future university.

I originate from a godforsaken little village in central Sardinia, but I had lived seven years in Rome, so I was aware of the difficulties I will have found at the beginning. However, I was pleased to notice that, despite its size, moving inside London is quite handy: the public transport is very efficient (almost always) and decentralized facilities make every district independent and citizen-friendly. As much as a fast-paced, hectic metropolis can be.

Looking for accommodation in London is always a lottery: luck is crucial. It’s not hard to actually find a place, especially if it’s a room in a house share, but beware, or you’ll end up spending most of your salary in rent and bills. Your best bet is to look for an all-inclusive rent, so that you don’t have bimonthly surprises.

Once I was settled and had all papers sorted out, I tought I could relax a bit. I soon understood it wasn't my case.

I live in what is commonly known as being the “bronx” and I love it. Peckham derives its fame from violent clashes between local gangs that took place years ago, but today it’s a colorful district and by all means my favorite shopping destination: I know I can find anything, especially when it comes to ethnic food.

As soon as I leave the apartment in the morning, I rush to the bus stop, because not catching that bus means missing the other connections and potentially getting stuck in a heavier traffic than usual.

One thing hasn’t changed since my first trip on a London bus: I'm constantly distracted by the colors, the variety of styles, ethnicities and little markets. I keep thinking this is also London’s greatest strength: I live in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world.

The line between my working day and my time off is very blurry because I work from home, so when I’m not busy I feel guilty and I find myself something to do.

Once or twice a week I work in an office located near one of the busiest tube stations in Central London, Waterloo, and when I get off the bus I get mesmerised by staring at thousands of people darting in and out the metro, up the bridge that connects two street levels, and hundreds of commuters queueing for the bus.

I never have lunch every day in the same place: at times I manage to treat myself with half an hour (nonetheless) at home enjoying a proper meal, other times I grab some noodles or sushi on the road.

Living in London doesn’t necessarily mean being able to enjoy the impressive range of opportunities such as museums, theatres, events, but somehow nobody seems to know what to blame.

Extreme consumism. Zygmunt Bauman has defined London as the "dustbin" of globalisation: sometimes I think he's right. I like living in big cities, but sometimes in London I feel like I'm a number, and this freaks me out.

Nerve-racking red tape aside, time managing is perhaps the most frustrating thing in London. The days fly and once in bed I inevitably realise I have done barely half of what I was meant to. Like in most big cities, tourists in one week visit more than locals in a year.

Truth be said, when I manage to get myself some time off, I’m spoilt for choice. Whether you prefer sophisticated or casual leisure activities, in London you will find what you are looking for.

Food-wise, I’m definitely less fussy than I was when I left Italy almost five years ago. I like going out for dinner and try the huge range of ethnic restaurants, be them Moroccan, Indian, Italian, Chinese. Despite my friends’ warnings, I was pleased to acknowledge that eating out in London is not as expensive as its reputation suggests.

I usually end my day jealously looking out of the window at the willing runners jogging around Peckham Rye Park and I wish I was as athletic as they are.