Background on my trip to China:

A few years ago, I got the desire to move abroad. I think it stemmed from various trips I had taken, including a safari in Africa and a trip to Japan. I liked my job, my personal life was fine, and I lived in a great apartment, but life was regular. I thought it would be neat to learn about a completely different culture.

I wasn't sure exactly where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I first thought I would work abroad, possibly in Europe, but did not have my heart set on a particular place. Later, I thought learning a language would be fun and challenging, and I wanted that language to be useful, interesting and different. I started talking to people about their experiences abroad, and when China came up something sparked. I thought, “That's it!” I wanted to go to China with studying Chinese as my focus, rather than to work in China while trying to learn Chinese, because I did not want to detract from my goal of learning Chinese.

I decided to check it out by taking a trip in March of 2001. Although I originally intended for it to be solo, two friends ended up meeting me there, and we traveled around China together. It was fun and my desire to live in China remained. A few months later I decided that when my lease expired (in Sept. 2001) I would go. I let my employer know by giving them my notice. I was very excited.

Then my work asked me to work abroad in Malaysia for two months. I decided to do that instead and put off the China trip. Working abroad was also something I wanted to do, and I figured that I could go to China soon after that. I returned from Malaysia in December of 2001 and did not end up going to China. Instead I moved in with my girlfriend at the time (Kathy), in Delaware, and accepted a new position where I worked, as an expert in our e-mail (Microsoft Exchange) migration product. The reason I did not go to China at that time was that I wanted to give the relationship a chance. After my first trip to China, I had decided that a relationship would get priority over returning to China. In 2002, I took another trip to China, this time with Kathy.

Eventually the relationship did not work out and I moved to NYC. Again, I started thinking about going to China. The idea had never really left me. For that reason, I did not get my own apartment and instead split my time between my parents’ apartments. Finally, in December, I gave notice let my work know that I would work until the end up the year and then be off to China. This did not come as a surprise to many, since most people knew that it was something I had wanted to do. We worked out a stop date of Jan. 15 and I booked my flight for Jan. 16. I did not want to put it off at all.

I had plenty of time to prepare for the trip and it was not as difficult as one might think. I got shots, a VISA (that I didn’t end up using as I got a different one from Hong Kong), and on the Internet found a Chinese teacher to stay with during my first month in China. I actually just located the teacher and communicated to him that I also wanted to live with a Chinese family, rather than spending time with Westerners, so as to more effectively study Chinese. He said I could stay with him and his family and we worked it out, although a foreigner had never lived with them before.

I planned to take a class at a university in Kunming, a city in southern China that is three hours by plane from Beijing, starting on Feb. 24, so this arrangement seemed perfect, allowing me to study and live for one month in Beijing without much hassle.