As you know, in some Asian countries all it takes is one unconscious act (ehem, mistake) to appear culturally insensitive, insult someone, or lose a friendly or business…
Heaters are off, coats are back in storage, the sky is blue and everyone seems to have a skip in their step…because everywhere there are signs of life! It’s spring and Beijing feels fresh and new. It’s literally night and day different from the gloomy, grey, depressing days of winter. The sun is shining bright, the skies are Tiffany blue and Beijing looks so pretty, that I’d bet the city never looks better than these weeks right now! (more…)
Spring is here and it is a real pleasure to take the 15’ish minute walk from my flat to work now that I’m not freezing my ass off in Beijing. This week I was happily walking along, reflecting on the number of weeks I’ve been here and thinking how AWESOME it was that I hadn’t seen a single man whip out his willy and pee right in front of me in all this time – something that I would have witnessed at least 10 times a day on my way into work in India. Then, almost on cue – as if to remind me that every city has its good and bad points – a woman walking towards me projectile spat in my direction! (more…)
When I locked the door to my home in Bangalore and headed to Los Angeles for a simple visa renewal in 2013, I never dreamed that I was destined to move to China, never to walk through those doors again! It was a series of circumstances and events that could have been prevented and that I was actually able to remedy but at the end of the day I think I knew my time in India had ended so I didn’t fight as hard as I could have to stay if my heart had really been in it.
I lived a yin and yang existence in Bangalore full of fun and friends and opportunities balanced by the worst financial hardship of my life, subjected to degrading situations as a woman and living without personal freedom. I learned from the negatives and appreciated the positives and I genuinely thought that I was happy there. But I was wrong. (more…)
Leaving India to live and work in China meant saying goodbye to the chai wallas and their constant flow of yummy sweet home-brewed tea and saying hello a whole different kind of ‘cantina’ corporate culture. And so far it’s all sunshine and rainbows I must say! (more…)
Waking up at 05:30 is not something I do in my normal life. Generally speaking, the only good reason to be up that early should still be happening since the night before – and one simply hasn’t gone to sleep yet! But it somehow feels quite fitting that today of all days I woke up in time to watch – and Instagram video it bit-by-bit – the sun rising on my new life in China. (more…)
