On Expat Communities

Being an expat is a funny thing.  When you live in a city with other expatriates there’s an automatic sense of community that often occurs upon meeting.  I would never just join a random conversation in a bar somewhere in the States, but overseas it’s a different story.  Last week I overheard an American guy talking in a mix of Polish and English and found myself going over just to say hi, and more than once I’ve had someone do the same to me.  Sometimes this leads to friendship, but often it’s just another expat saying hi and briefly connecting with a fellow American.  And it’s just completely normal; as American expats we’re the minority overseas, so why not at least be friendly to one another?  Warsaw is a busy European capital and there is quite an expat community.  There are several American events that take place here, like Superbowl parties and Thanksgiving dinners.  Were I to feel particularly homesick, I could easily reach out and meet with my fellow countrymen.  I don’t, but it’s nice to know I have the option.

This was not the case, though, in Pingdingshan.  For our first month in the city (a city of somewhere around five million people) Kristen and I just did not see other foreigners.  Because Pingdingshan is not really a tourist destination, it does not attract foreigners in the way that Beijing or Shanghai do.  Nor does it host big international companies that often employ an international staff.  We had been forewarned by our predecessor that there wasn’t really an expat community, but we just didn’t fully comprehend.  It’s one thing to hear stories of Americans in smaller Chinese cities where they are so noticeably foreign (or laowai, literally “outsider”), but it’s another to be the first foreigner a Chinese person has ever encountered.  Kristen had one Chinese girl so overwhelmed by meeting a foreigner that all she could do was hug Kristen and cry hysterically. 

In a lot of ways it was an amazing experience to fully immerse myself in a foreign culture.  Why go all the way to China if I’m going to have only expat friends?  I could do that in Idaho and save myself the torture of that long plane ride.  And because of this sort of isolation I really learned what life in an average Chinese city is like, an invaluable experience.  But still, there is something comforting about at least having an expat community to reach out to, to know there are others nearby who know exactly what you’re going through.  So when we heard of an American girl living in Pingdingshan, we immediately reached out. 

As soon as we met Jessie we loved her, not just because she was American, but because she was the coolest kind of American.  Jessie had purple tinged hair, a Chinese husband, and had been living in China for several years.  She speaks Chinese well and was full of helpful information—you can sometimes find cheese in this store, that store is the only one that actually sells deodorant, etc.  She’s the kind of American every American expat wants to be—open-minded, easy going, completely content living abroad and fully acclimated (I never saw her struggle with chopsticks or even blink at the lack of Western toilets at a bar or restaurant).  In a word, Jessie is cool.  And more importantly, Jessie was welcoming; as soon as she met us, we were a part of her circle.

Tea set from one of my first outings with our expat friends. We spent hours just drinking various types of Chinese tea, talking, and learning tidbits about tea culture in China. I love this picture because it's nice and the silver teapot was just lovely (this poor camera does not do it justice) , but to me this was the day I knew I'd found a circle of real friends. A good thing, too, because tea was followed by a very cramped drive to dinner; smashed up in the backseat with four other people is only fun when you're with new friends.

Also included in this circle was Jessie’s husband, LJ, one of the few Chinese men we ever met with long hair and beard; JiaJia, who became one of our most constant friends during the year; Sam, who would later include us in his seaside wedding; Dandy and Lizzie, a married couple who had been LJ’s friends in high school; and Peter, or Piotr, who was our resident Polish friend.  Yes, we left Poland to go to the middle-of-nowhere China and our tiny expat community included a Polish guy.  I have to digress here for a moment, in my travels I am constantly finding Oregon fans/alumni and Polish people—seriously, Oregon alumni in a fjord in Norway and a table of Polish guys behind me on an island in the Philippines so small that large portions of the island disappear into the sea during high tide.  My heart rejoices every time I encounter either. 

The first time I met this amazing circle of friends was over dinner at a hotel restaurant.  Coincidentally this was where I would ultimately meet with all them for the last time, too, but that’s a different story.  We gathered around the round table with its lazy susan, debated over what to order, and that was it; we were friends.  By the time we settled the bill and stood to go, plans were being made for the next meeting, and it wasn’t a question of “do you want to come?” but “what time can you be there?” 

From that first dinner with Jessie.  It was fish prepared in a
sweet and sour type sauce and topped with sprinkles.
Seriously.  Sprinkles.  Laughing over this really helped bond
us all.  So did laughing when I discovered that I'd managed to
dip half my hair into my bowl of soup.

That first night, as we got to know each other, Peter asked the classic getting-to-know-you question, “What are your plans for the next year?”  Kristen, who had been slowly losing the battle against homesickness, told him this would be her last year of living abroad.  I quietly told him that I’d been considering returning to Poland.  Peter, a long-term expat laughed and said things can change after a few months, after I’d fully adjusted.  I doubted it, but played along.  Eventually I did adjust, largely in part due to my friendship with this teeny expat community.  And Peter was right; a few months later I did decide to stay a second year in Pingdingshan.  I’m writing this in Warsaw, so clearly things changed, but that’s a different story.

Over the nine months I lived in Pingdingshan, Jessie and her expat community became some of my closest friends.  They were without a doubt the very best part of my life in China.  We had girls’ nights with smoothies Channing Tatum movies, taco night, and pizza night with cards and naughty Pictionary.  We had countless dinners and shared too many beers to remember.  We even shared a roadtrip and met with several of our friends in the Philippines for a short holiday that culminated in Sam’s wedding.  Over time we even managed to add a few more expats to our community, but that too is another story for a different day.