[ PT. 1 ] What Really Matters - The Balancing of Life
Christine Marote is the SheUp August ‘Woman of the Month!’ She moved to Shanghai in January of 2009 after traveling for four years from São Paulo, Brazil to Chang Chun in China’s Jilin province. After starting her blog, China Na Minha Vida (China In My Life), she found her passion for writing and researching Chinese culture. With a background in education, she is also a two-time published author and advisor for people and companies coming to China.
Since I was a child, my life has been surrounded by change: houses, neighborhoods, cities, and states. By the time I left my parents’ home at the age of 21, it was the 11th time I had moved. As of today, the number of times I have moved increased to 17. I chose to ramble about the number of times I have moved at the beginning of this article, because every time my home changed locations, I had to reinvent myself and rebuild my life. When I returned to my birthplace, Paraná, at the age of 12 – a pivotal age when hormones are bursting and everything seemed to crumble around me, I had to rediscover my hometown and myself. At the age of 21, I moved cities once again. After a divorce at the age of 35, I unintentionally restarted my ongoing routine of not settling down somewhere for a long period of time.
I noticed after moving, even within the country or the city I live in, we begin to feel a sense of belonging everywhere at the same time versus a specific place. From every place and house in which I lived in, I created and still reminisce about the many unique and special memories throughout each stage of my life.
We begin to feel a sense of belonging everywhere at the same time versus a specific place.
Everything was the same. And yet, everything was different. I felt the same, however I had experiences that not everyone could understand. I remarried, and just when I thought that I had already experienced as many changes my imagination could come up with whether they be adventures, houses, streets, neighborhoods, cities, and friends. Just when I thought that nothing else could change in my life at the age of 45, the unimaginable happened…
China entered my life.
And just like that, I had to rethink everything: my priorities, career, routine, and even myself. Yes, change in itself already brings a huge turmoil, but imagine moving to the other side of the world, in a time where smartphones weren’t even accessible. I have already mentioned this before, but it’s always worth remembering: “In 2004, if I was given a credit card without any limits regarding where I can travel to in the world, China would have never been my destination. But life doesn’t always go according to plan, and oftentimes, our biggest fears turn into reality. The things that we try to avoid the most come charging at us so we can learn to live with it. Therefore, in 2004, we received our credit card with a limit and a chosen destination: China.
An approximate six-month project brought my husband to the land of the dragon, a place, at that time, completely unknown and with extremely few sources of information, especially in Portuguese.
He came back to Brazil, but two months later he returned to China for an additional four months. I thought, “Now is the time for me to meet this “exotic” country, after all, when would I have another opportunity in my life to venture across the world?” The initial idea was that I would come to China towards the end of his project, and then we would return to Brazil together.
But destiny, with its ongoing jokes and pranks, showed us that we could only plan our lives up to a certain point. Within this short period of time between myself going to China and the end of his project, my husband received an invitation to stay in the cold Chang Chun, with a one-year contract. In the end, I came back alone, still stunned from this completely unusual situation. There were no other options or different opportunities at the time; the city was located in the northern part of China; temperatures were as low as 28 degrees Celsius below zero; and without an international school for our sons. Due to the fact that it was only for one year, we thought that we could move forward with the opportunity and make residing in both countries work. But in fact, my husband has never returned to work in Brazil.
Up until 2008, we were on this “back-and-forth” journey between Brazil and China. When the situation no longer felt sustainable and we were about to pull the plug, an offer arrived to move our family to Shanghai, the heaven on earth (in China) for foreigners. With our luggage straps and kids, we embarked on the second stage of our adventure in the middle kingdom.
And it was then, that I really had to reinvent myself.
PART TWO of “What Really Matters - The Balancing of Life” by Christine Marote will be published on August 18th.