A month in China
It has been some time. For me, it feels it has been much longer.
In these past month I've had to consider many things about the now and the future. For certain, this country is not a place where I would enjoy living at all. And I also discovered just how much I love Europe.
There is a word that is always brought up when talking about the Portuguese language, it is saudade. It is brought up because there is not quite a translation that fits in other languages, but it can be roughly be associated to "missing" in English. Missing a person, a place, a food, or just about anything. I never really felt saudade about something before, but now I can say that I do.
I miss my cats and my dog, I miss how the sun shone through the trees and reached my room, I miss the chirping of birds and the silhouette of the mountains. I miss simple and fresh food, a good cup of coffee and fresh tap water. I miss recycling my trash. I even miss the messy garden my father never manages to keep tidy. I miss home.
Now I have settled in a routine at the university. So I go to class, I order my food and go pick it up, I study, I go have dinner, I settle in bed to watch some videos before going to sleep.
Settling in a routine is a good thing, because it keeps me motivated to continue my studies. Before this though, I had thoughts about dropping everything and just going home, or staying but changing my degree. Especially after making the mistake of traveling during the National Holiday week, which is basically when everyone in China travels, to the same places, and also the only holiday I will be having in this semester.
After the experience in Portugal, I came back home with the motivation to better myself. So, I started a sport to get me moving, I finished my then degree and enrolled in another one, I worked to cover my expenses and have some savings, I changed many things about myself and tried to find the values that were important to me.
While here, I find those values challenged by a way of living that is very different and in many ways opposite to what I tried to cultivate, and to the things I find important. If Lisbon made me want to change, Tianjin is telling me that I should keep those changes close to me and to not be changed by the way of others around me.
I do have fun in classes, I travel in the weekends, I made some friends and try to talk to different people. But, in some silent moments during the day I just feel a soul clenching saudade.