After waiting for nearly four months, my criminal background check finally arrived last week, and with it came my permission slip to look for a new job overseas. I had originally intended on leaving in February, but sometimes things don’t go as intended. I’ve decided to look at these extra months as a time for me to get healthy and to really focus on what I need in my life to give me happiness.

It had taken about 3 months to get on the Oregon Health Care plan, but thankfully it exists because I have been able to go to the dentist, and to the doctors, and get myself back on track for a healthy mind and body. As the saying goes, “if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.” I hadn’t been feeling very good for awhile. I’m pretty certain I can guess the cause, but the point is that I’m back on a mission to feel strong again, and just in time too because I will be returning to the proverbial road.

I have been vacillating between applying to work in China and working in South Korea for a few months now. Many of my friends have been saying that Korea is the way to go, and have wondered why I would even consider China.

“You hated China.”
“You were miserable there.”

It’s true, I did hate much of my time in China, but aside from China there were other factors to my hating it; my mother dying, conflict with the director of the program, and culture shock all contributed to my hating much of my time in China. It is not easy to live in China. I do believe some people may thrive there, but in truth, I think it can be a tough adjustment for a multitude of reasons. I do believe all of those reasons can eventually be overcome if you want to stick it out in China, and that you can learn to accept things, and even grow to enjoy them; all but one that is.

Although, my time was difficult there, I had also gained a strange love for China. It’s difficult to explain, and maybe if it hadn’t of been a year it may not have gotten under my skin, but it did. It took about seven months of being away, but I slowly began to miss it. I missed certain things like food, and the crazy traffic, and riding my bike in that crazy traffic. The insane rides on e-bikes, babies in pants with bottoms, old ladies dancing in parks, kites everywhere, are among the few things I’ve missed. There were things there that mattered to me, and left an impression on me that I will carry for the remainder of my life. My kids mattered to me, they mattered a lot, and they were such a huge part of my experience in China. I spent more time with 15 to 18 year old Chinese kids than any other group of people, and the experiences with those kids which included a special trip to Kaifeng, really shaped my view of the country. The Chinese people I became friends with mattered to me. In China it can be difficult to know if Chinese people are really your friends if they actually like you as a person. There are so many people that want you to be around because you are western, and it is about status to call a westerner a friend. You will not ever be Chinese, and you will never be truly accepted into the culture, and because of this it can be hard to ever find that bond that we all crave in our friendships. Perhaps I am delusional, but I feel blessed in my belief that I was able to move beyond this barrier with very little effort with some of the Chinese friends I had made while there. I felt a real kinship with the people I called friends, even when we came up against massive cultural differences. There are Chinese people I do consider to be genuine friends, and I feel that they look on me as the same, not as a “western” friend, but as real friend the kind of friend that accept the whole cultural and enigmatic package that makes up each and everyone of us.

I have been fascinated with Chinese history since I was a little girl. I remember stacks of National Geographic magazines with images of China. I remember watching the student protests in Tiananmen Square live on television. I had taken a course in the history of Eastern Civilization in college and I had become immersed in the ancient history of the dynasties. When I was a girl there were only three things in the world I had wanted to see: The Pyramids of Egypt, the Acropolis of Athens, and the Terra Cotta Warriors of China (I can mark one off my list). Chinese films are among some of my favorite, and the dissidents of China are some of the bravest people in the world. There is much to be fascinated with in China, and there is a lot to grab your heart and keep you there, but for every amazing thing Chinese there is also something insidious. A drive for cultural success that is so strong that corruption and lies are an accepted part of the society norm creating at times a dog-eat-dog world. The repressive regimes from the cult of Mao to the current CCP that smothers the real strength of what is hidden in China. The annoying and ridiculous firewall put in place to control and suppress the people, and the denial of terrible events by erasing them from history. The horrific pollution that had for too long been acceptable in China, and ignored in the majority of the world. These are things that are difficult to live in, and I believe it is difficult for many Chinese too (judging by various conversations). China is a land of great contradictions and it is these contradictions which constantly push and pull at you. At me.

So, what are the deciding factors, what did it come down to when choosing between China and South Korea? The main motivation for China was a school. A drama school where I would be a theatre teacher, and where as part of my work I would be required to direct my own children’s plays. I contemplated this school for nearly a year. It would be a job that combined my theatre, my literature and my teaching skills. I would finally be working in a creative environment and for that I was willing to move to the polluted city of Beijing. Yet, it was during a bike ride in Portland that finally solidified my final decision.

It is now spring, and the sun is out and the sky is a clear blue that bends over the city with only a smattering of cumulus clouds dotting the sky like paint on a palette. The days have been beautiful and easy going. My moods have been hum-drum and dark, and sometimes this happens even when things are going well in my life, I need these beautiful days to help lift me from my internal darkness. I knew at that moment under the blue sky in the face of mount Tabor, the small extinct volcano covered in the rich green of white-cedar and poplars, that I needed to live in a beautiful place. As much as I had wanted the theatre school and as much as I was willing to return to China, I knew in my heart that returning to an over-populated, dirty, and congested city with air so bad that there were red alert days not allowing us to go outside, was not a good idea for me. I knew, no matter how great the school, my sadness would overcome me, and I can’t live like that.

I have started the interview process for jobs in South Korea, and I’ve focused my attention on applying to schools in places where the sky is blue and the ocean is near-by. The job matters, but the environment matters more.

As I had mentioned before I believe that most of the challenges of being a foreigner in China a person can overcome, but one. That one for me is the pollution. China is a geological diamond and a natural wonder of nature, but the coal and the money made on cheap labor and unregulated businesses that damage the country is more important then the jewel. I will one day return to China, but maybe as a visitor. Till then I will be in South Korea.