November 2009

Katie asks:

…into which Hogwart’s house would you be sorted?

Okay, let me try again. Proximity to family aside, where would you live if you could? (Please say Knoxville, please say Knoxville…) :)

Item the first. Having read all the Harry Potter books, you’d think I’d be able to come up with some witty rejoinder about which house I should be in and why. I can’t tell you much about ANY of the houses except to say that Gryffindor generally = good and brave, and Slytherin generally = not so good, which is a really unhelpful binary. I did, however, go to sortinghat.com just for you, Katie, and took the sorting hat test which put me into Gryffindor.

Item the second. Despite Katie’s frequent and convincing arguments, unfortunately Knoxville wouldn’t be my ideal place to live. I will say, however, that I would happily take Katie and her lovely family with me wherever I might live. To live in my ideal city, not only would I have to put proximity to family aside, I’d have to put the ability to earn a living and support my family aside, as well as the ability to communicate beyond a pre-school level with the city’s other inhabitants aside. Long story short, I’d choose to live in Tokyo. We traveled there a ton when I was a kid because my aunt lived there for many years. It’s a beautiful city in an amazing country that still holds fast to its ancient traditions but is also hell-bent on developing the next great thing. I love that the people of Japan are really good at not taking up too much space, and I think life in Japan would force me to simplify my life in ways that most cities in the U.S. just won’t allow for. Smaller living spaces, public transportation, proximity to all the necessities of life, and proximity to some of my other favorite cities in the world.

That being said, I’ve told you about my wanderlust, right? After a few years in Tokyo, I’d probably be looking for the next amazing place to live. Picking a new city to live in is far less hard for me than the getting used to the idea of spending the rest of my life in the same place. In fact, when thinking about living out the rest of my life here in Columbus, my mind instantly starts to ponder which nursing home I’ll end up in (hopefully none because my lovely daughter will be independently wealthy and will be able to care for me in the comfort of her own home…or something like that) and then subsequently I start to wonder which cemetery I’ll be buried in. Morbid, for sure, but these are the things that keep me up at night. There’s still so much to see and do in the world, and I want to see and do as much as I can before I kick it, you know? Maybe I have huge commitment issues. Maybe I’m still a pie-in-the-sky kid dreamer who believes anything is possible. Either way, it’s a great big world out there and I want to see it and share it especially with my husband and daughter.

And now that I’ve gone back and re-read Katie’s question, I have realized that she didn’t ask me where I want to spend the rest of my days nor did she ask me to choose my final resting place, but simply where I would live if I could. Sheesh, maybe the commitment issues aren’t so far off since that was one commitment-phobic tangent if ever there was one. But while I’m at it, let me modify my answer: if I had to pick one city, then yes, Tokyo it would be. If money were no object and I could live wherever I wanted whenever I wanted, I’d start in Tokyo. Then I’d move every couple of years to whatever city struck my fancy next. Those cities would likely include London, New York, Toronto, Hong Kong, Athens, Sydney, San Francisco, Beijing, and many, many more. Now, to find one of us a job (outside of the armed forces) that would allow us to do that and still leave me plenty of time to sightsee with my family and keep in touch with old friends while making new ones? That might be even harder than getting me to commit to live in one city for the rest of my life.

Cagey asks:

I would like to know more about your experiences from living abroad. Um. Huh. A specific question? What do you miss most from living abroad – be it a specific food, cultural custom, whatever. :-)

Ah, there’s nothing quite like nostalgia for a previous life. I guess I should say first that, given the fact that I was born outside the United States, in many ways it feels like I live overseas now that I’m here in the U.S. Home for me now is wherever my parents are, but geographically speaking Taiwan and Hong Kong will always be home for me.

So anyways, on to the things I miss:

1) Easy access to public transportation of all kinds: trams, buses, the subway, taxis. I know we have public transportation here in the U.S., but it just never feels quite the same as hopping a double-decker bus in Hong Kong and careening around hilly roads thinking that at any moment the whole bus is going to go crashing into the ocean. Let me say for the record that it’s not as unpleasant or terrifying as it sounds.

2) Quick, cheap, local street food. These roadside stalls would never pass Department of Health inspections here in a million years, but holy crap, is it good. Steaming bowls of noodles in soup, dumplings, fried breads, shaved ice with tapioca, YUM. When we go back to visit now, we make it a point to eat our way through markets stopping at various places to nibble a bite of whatever their specialty is. I can’t think of a more delicious and fun way to get a meal.

3) The ease at which you can travel to other countries. Singapore, Tokyo, Taipei, Bangkok, Jakarta, Hong Kong, nothing is more than a short plane ride away, and suddenly you’re in a totally new country, new customs, new foods, new culture. Whereas here we might take a weekend trip to Louisville, there you can fly to another country in far less time.

4) While Hong Kong was still a British Colony, we got to celebrate British, Chinese, and American holidays. Christmas, Chinese New Years, the Queen’s birthday, it was all fair game. Obviously it’s not like that any more, but still, it was AWESOME when I was a kid.

5) The way in which Asian cities are unbelievably modern, yet retain so much of their history and heritage. You can walk around the corner from a brand new skyscraper and find a tiny temple that’s been there for ages and stands as a symbol for a religion that’s even older still. There’s just this amazing way the old and new collide in these cities that I think we don’t necessarily see here.

6) Night markets. I. Love. Night Markets. Clothes, jewelry, shoes, bags, random miscellaneous crap you would never find anywhere else, you can find at an Asian night market. They’re also a great place to pick up great street food.

7) My old school in Hong Kong (and I would venture to say students at other international schools feel the same way). There’s a camaraderie that comes from attending these schools and participating in these very tight-knit communities. This seems strange since these expat communities are by definition extremely transient, and you never really knew from one day to the next whose mom or dad would get transferred to a new post in a different country. But there is a very unique and strong bond that develops between the students, and this is something I would LOVE for Sweet Girl to experience.

8) Hot spring baths. In Taiwan, there are TONS of these places, and they are so blasted relaxing. There’s nothing like sitting in a relaxing bath outdoors staring out into the semi-tropical, lush, green hills.

9) Being close to my mom’s family. With the exception of a couple of cousins, all of my mom’s family is in Taiwan, and her family is CLOSE. It’s hard for all of us to be so disconnected from them, and I miss them terribly.

I think I need to go browse plane tickets now. Reminiscing makes me want to go back desperately.