Beginning Beijing life, once again

All of us deal with life’s surprises and curved balls in different ways. Depending on the stages in our lives – whether you’re building a career, stuck in a rut, finding a spouse, growing a family – there are always complexities that make our situations very personal.

I reflect often about my own journey, and every now and then when I’m having to make tough choices, or am stuck in a dilemma, I tend to tell myself one thing – things happen for a reason.

As cliché, and perhaps resigned as it may sound – it has been a source of strength and comfort each time I question the decisions made, as well as why and how things eventually worked out.

As the year winds into the last quarter, I can’t help but reflect on all that has come and gone, and know that there is much to be thankful for, and be hopeful that things will work themselves out.

The inconvenience of a new normal

It has been a bittersweet year. Us as a family grew in different ways – the kids growing and learning quickly as they adapt to Covid being their new normal. Us as parents try to keep our heads above water, navigating China’s “dynamic zero” policy while attempting (endlessly) to embrace the country’s good, bad and ugly.

The highlight certainly was the long summer break. In what was meant to be a two-month “escape” out of the China universe led to four months, thanks to the near-impossibility of securing reliable flights back into the country. We weren’t complaining – we enjoyed a big dose of family time, got our heads rewired to keep pace with the rest of the world.

As healthy as that reset was, the time has now come for us to reframe our mindsets back into life behind the firewall, and all the things that come with it again.

Winds of change

Going back to China this time certainly feels different. Two years ago when we flew back to Beijing after being locked out from Covid, we were eager to go home to restart life. After all, we had already established a momentum there to feel like that we were getting into a good rhythm for the kids and ourselves.

This time, the world has moved on and Covid is deemed to be largely endemic; whereas China’s government is still hell bent on sticking to its official stance of a Covid-zero world.

Two decades ago, ex-US President Bill Clinton mocked China for trying to control the internet, saying “it’s like nailing jello to the wall”. China has been proving him wrong ever since.

If they can control the internet, one does wonder what chance the virus has…

Playing the long game, at a price

That of course, comes at a price. In attempting to protect the people from the threats of the virus, the very same people are sacrificed – socially, mentally, emotionally, some physically.

Many factors are at play of course. It can’t be a linear rational of simply protecting its masses from the invisible virus. Whatever the real reason(s) could be, it has further exacerbated the isolation of 1.5billion people from everyone else.

This point, I think, has hit us harder than ever before. Many of our friends often ask in – often in bewilderment – why we’re still in China. I’d be lying if I were to say we hadn’t asked ourselves that question.

The honest truth is that our lives had been perfectly normal just months before. We had normal jobs, school was fun and exciting for the kids, we were enjoying the beautiful outdoors in whatever nature we could find. China may not be an easy place to live, but we believed we could thrive.

In fact, in many ways we enjoyed a lot more freedom in China during the two years, when the world came to a standstill coping with Covid.

But at some point, it became clear that China had trouble keeping out each new variant that evolved, especially as the strains became more transmissible.

China may have understood the science of the coronavirus at the beginning; later on it became pretty clear that politics got in the way.

The intense lockdown in Shanghai might have been a ticking time bomb all this while, but I think it was also the straw that broke the camel’s back.

It will be a long time before Shanghai regains its international reputation since the insanity unfolded. (That said, what happened this year in Shanghai attracted the most media atention. Other cities in China experienced the same extremities prior)

The path less travelled, with kids

Facing the future back in China this time inadvertently comes with some degree of unsettledness. Our older son, the more sensitive one, took it particularly hard saying goodbye.

In Beijing, he was the only foreigner in his class. Making friends was never easy, let alone being a third culture kid in a big big world.

Being back on home soil, being with our families gave him the opportunity to understand his roots. It was a much needed reinforcement of a sense of belonging. Like he finally met his kind.

Braving a new world, yet again

And so, as we serve the remainder of yet another quarantine, I am reminding myself to steel up for a rough ride ahead. The kids will feel assured and rooted, only if the parents themselves are settled.

China’s always going to be an incredible country to witness history in the making. As long as we are here as a family, we will grow, experience, gain a perspective that few outside have a first hand account of.

And I still believe that whatever the future brings, it will unveil itself eventually. I just need to remind myself – all in good time.