Is asking me how long I’ve been here a “sneaky” way to guess my age? 😉

I can cite a recent experience that in many ways sums up what it feels like to me living in China. I said goodbye to a neighbour’s son I’d grown very close with (like a crazy auntie, not romantically!) over the years; he was about to leave China (ironically for Canada) in a couple of days and he invited me as a goodbye get-together to the museum we’d both bonded most with visits over the year: 湖北省博物馆.

This museum is an incredible place with displays and artifacts that boggle the mind. One of them is 越王勾践剑 which I was appreciative of in the past, but it never really stood out to me. This summer I had been on a road trip across Canada with my SO (6700km of driving…) and decided to read the book 国语 along the way. (This very copy, in fact.) And since about a third of that book, it seems, is the story of the kingdoms of Wu and Yue, I was primed this time, when entering the display of the sword to actually comprehend the gravity of that thing.

It’s a sword made 2500 years ago that’s in shockingly good shape. (It still had a sharp edge when found!) And this time, when I looked at it, I knew its place in ancient history and the important people who’d held it over time. And that, in a nutshell, is to me what living in China is like. Perfectly ordinary life punctuated by startling revelations of just how old things can sometimes be.

Do I prefer it to Canada? That’s a more complicated question. In many ways yes. China is a far more modern country than Canada, and I blend in easier here. I stood out as a “visible minority” (a term that has come to grate over time) in Canada and was never really “one of us”. In that regard life here is more comfortable. But I’m totally a banana, so the culture is very alien and even after <redacted> years I still occasionally experience what I like to call Chinanaphylaxis. I really enjoyed my summer in Canada, seeing some of my old haunts, visiting friends and family, and there are some aspects of Canadian scenery that I will never fall out of love with (unless they burn down like Jasper did while I was on the trip). If I could afford it, I’d do the six months here, six months there thing for living between Canada and China.