Waking from a Dream

It's hard to believe that we'll be going home for good a week from now; it feels so unreal. I still remember two years ago, right about this time of the year, I was about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, leaping into the unknown, having sold the house we had just bought two year prior and most of our possessions, and quitting a job that was tearing apart my soul piece by piece. It felt as if we were about to leap off the side of a mountain blindfolded and with our hands tied behind our backs. It was scary, exciting, exhilarating, and stressful, all at once. I stayed up nights worrying, thinking, analyzing, and thinking some more. And now, we've come full circle: We're about to embark on the same journey, but backwards, going back to where this all began. Everything will be the same, yet nothing will be the same. We may be returning home with the same material content in our suitcases, but our minds and spirits are no longer what we started with. Again, I'm staying up nights worrying, thinking, analyzing, and thinking some more. Again, it's scary and stressful, but not quite as exciting or exhilarating.

These past two years have been beyond anything I could've imagined. Yes, there are the perks of being able to travel every few months on a budget. There's a reason everyone refers to living abroad as a "working vacation." And there's also that element of escapism involved: Living abroad certainly lets one off from social and familial obligations, responsibilities, and expectations. But while it's possible to travel and see the world and escape from reality without uprooting one's entire life, living abroad is a lot more than that, as this article makes clear. When you are constantly living far beyond your comfort zone, day in and day out, you are awakened, rewired, irrevocably changed. It shakes you up and changes everything you've ever thought about life. You feel alive. You become fearless. You feel capable of anything. You feel the freedom to do what you want to do, and you become more willing to try new things and take risks. When you are freed from the constraints of lifelong expectations and influences, you are free to examine yourself, learn about yourself, and get to know yourself and your priorities. You feel free to be yourself.

Two years ago, I felt afraid embarking on this journey. I was afraid of the unknown. Now I'm afraid of the known and familiar. I'm afraid of, once again, living a complacent life, of putting my brain on auto-pilot, of going through the motions and sleepwalking through life. Going back to the U.S., I can't help but feel as if I'm waking up from a pleasant dream to reality again. When we used to live in the U.S., I frequently felt at a loss. I often felt as if I was "messing up" my life somehow. Living here, I have never felt that way. If I did, the mistakes didn't feel irreversible, like they did in the U.S. I'll need to keep in mind that, just like moving here, going home is yet another leg of our adventure that will reveal other surprises in store for us and offer other life lessons. Life truly is an incredible journey.  

Seeing Bangkok Again, Two Years Later

A couple of days after our trip to Hong Kong, we finally had our first and only visitors, the adventurous souls that they are -- a good friend of mine and her son, who's been best buds with my son since they met as three-year-old preschoolers. They'll be here for about three weeks, during which time we will show them around Bangkok, travel to northern Thailand with them, and get some R&R on a small island close by. They will head home late on July 1, and we will follow shortly on July 6. And thus our own adventures will come to an end for now.

We have kept their first few days here more low-key, given the long flights they just took and their jet lag. The first day they were here, we hung out at our house, treated them to their first real Thai meal, played at the playground down the street, fed the fish in the lake by the playground, and went out for homemade ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop down the street.

The next few days were spent downtown showing them some of our favorite sites: Wat Pho, the snake farm, and the Grand Palace. I felt like a completely different person visiting those places again after two years of living here. The first time we visited these attractions, everything was so new, different, and novel. Everywhere we looked, there was something amazing and fascinating to see. We seemed to stick out like sore thumbs, gawking at our surroundings and feeling so clueless. Now, two years later, the novelty has worn off, even if these sites are still breathtaking. They are now a normal part of our lives in Bangkok. It seems as if we've always lived here, and everything is familiar. While showing my friend around, I tried hard to remember what it was like for me to see these places for the first time so I wouldn't rush her through and she could take in everything as a first-time visitor, but it was hard to remember. It's funny how much things can change in just two years.

One thing that we got to do for the first time was go to a floating market. The Damnoen Suduak floating market, one of the more well-known floating markets, is about 1 1/2 hours of drive southwest of Bangkok. The name originally referred to the canal, which King Rama IV had ordered to be built in 1866 to facilitate water travel. It was opened to the public in 1868. Today, the market consists mostly of floating souvenir stands for tourists.

Floating down the canals, the atmosphere felt a bit like the bayous of Louisiana, pretty in a rustic sort of way and serene. There were many stalls selling pretty much the same or similar things. In the busy part of the market, there were at times four boats right next to one another trying to pass each other. Food vendors would row by selling their foods, but we didn't buy anything because the dirty canal water sometimes splashed onto the boats. The vendors were pretty aggressive in their attempts to sell their trinkets, but we managed to haggle the price down by as much as 50 percent with the few things we bought. It was a fun and unique experience.

Neighborhood Concert

This dream-like video shows a performance that took place last month at a bar down the street from us. The singer had been the choir teacher at our high school for the past three or four years. She is taking the next year off to travel the world -- with Bangkok as her home base -- get married, possibly start a family, and research where she is interested in attending graduate school after her year off. The person who posted this video is the husband of one of the high school art teachers and is a professional musician. He and the choir teacher are teaming up to play gigs at various venues in Bangkok. The fire dancer in the background is another art teacher at our high school. She is British and previously lived and worked in China, where she met and married her French husband, who is an amazing graphic artist. [As a result of marrying in China, their marriage certificate was in Chinese and they had to get it translated into Thai to obtain their visas when they arrived here. But because they weren't able to find anyone to do that, they had to get married again in Thailand just to get a Thai marriage license. Then, last summer, they had another wedding in France so they could celebrate with friends and family.] She also previously had been part of a circus, where she learned fire juggling, fire dancing, and other "circus skills" that she taught the students through an after-school club this past school year.

I love that there are always local events like this "concert" happening in our neighborhood, bringing people together and allowing for such fun and casual gatherings for friends to socialize. I also have really loved being able to meet and get to know such a variety of interesting personalities. Those featured in the video are but a small fraction of the types of interesting people we've befriended here. I am really going to miss being surrounded by such fascinating people who, in turn, make my daily life here much more interesting and fun.

The Hustle and Bustle of Hong Kong

Well, the longest summer break of our adult lives has begun. Earlier this week, we started it with a quick trip to Hong Kong, another destination that aroused my curiosity. It was what I had expected, but also full of pleasant surprises.

Here are a few things I really liked about Hong Kong:
1. While we were there, the weather was beautiful with clear blue skies. We really lucked out as so many people we know complained about the smog there and being unable to get a view.

2. The public transportation system, while not as cheap as the one in Taiwan, was still easy to access and easy to use. The system uses a card called the Octopus Card, which can be used to pay for fares for trains, buses, trams, and ferries, as well as retail shops, grocery stores, movie theaters, and parking. Kids under a certain age are charged half price. Best part of all: before we left Hong Kong, we were able to return our cards and get refunds of the money we put on them, minus a nominal processing fee.

3. The diversity in Hong Kong surprised me. There were people from all over the world, and we heard more languages being spoken than we have in a long time.

4. The mountains and waters, the green space, and hiking trails available.

5. The magnificent Hong Kong skyline.

6. The variety of things to do in Hong Kong: there is a little of something for everyone, with prices ranging from the extremely pricey and sophisticated to the very cheap and even free.

7. For a city so crowded, it is surprisingly clean and not as noisy as I would've expected. The traffic was orderly and the people didn't shove and push as much as those in Taiwan!

8. Hong Kong is truly a place where the east meets the west -- in between the skyscrapers are little alleyways with markets of stalls selling food, clothing, watches, shoes, and handbags; and nestled among the traditional Chinese medicine shops, restaurants, and Chinese schools are churches, jockey clubs, and cricket clubs.

What I didn't like about Hong Kong:
1. It is extremely crowded with people and skyscrapers everywhere, and felt claustrophobic to me.

2. The city reminded me a lot of New York City with its fast-paced lifestyle; everyone seemed to be rushing all the time.

3. It is a very expensive place to visit, especially the hotel and food costs.

Having seen the city now, we know it's definitely not a place where we would want to live. Still, we had a fun time and took advantage of the outdoors and the beautiful weather while there. This trip also was tinged with some sadness for me as it was the last trip out of Thailand for us before we return to the U.S.

Thailand, the New Land of Opportunities?

Planning and preparing for our return to the U.S. the past couple of months has forced me to return to a most dreaded topic: the financial aspect of living in the U.S. I've had to confront certain facts that I haven't had to think about the last two years: how costly it will be to live in our area of the U.S., how little our money will buy at home, and the adjustments we're going to need to make to our lifestyle. Not that we live lavishly here, mind you. I've always been frugal, and always will be, regardless of how low the cost of living is where I live and how much money I have.

But here are the depressing facts: Currently, both my husband's and my income total less than half of what we earned back home prior to our move here. Even more startling is the fact that both of our current earnings amount to less than what my husband's income alone was and will be back in the U.S. Yet, our comparatively small incomes still allow us to live here comfortably and pay our bills at home all on one income, hire household help, and travel, all with little to no effort. Even though we were able to save almost as much back home as we do now, we had to watch our pennies carefully, we weren't able to travel nearly as much as we do now, whether domestically or internationally, and we rarely hired household help. And did I mention how little we make now compared to when we were back home?

Recently, I came across this infographic showing how much income is needed to be middle class in each state of the U.S. I noticed several things right away: 1) Maryland, where we call home, requires the most income of all the states; 2) the median household income in MD is not much lower than what my husband and I earn currently in Thailand; and 3) we used to make considerably more than the upper end of what's considered middle-class in MD; yet, our quality of life was not even half as good as it is now.

The differences are shocking. I realize that there are huge differences between Thailand, a developing country, and the U.S., a first-world country. Yet, the idea of making a decent living and supporting one's family in the U.S. feels close to impossible while the possibilities seem endless here. Whereas the U.S. used to be the land of hopes and dreams, where people with less fortunate circumstances headed to make better lives for themselves and their children, it now seems neither appealing nor conceivable to do so. In short, America is no longer the land of opportunities.

In contrast, it seems easy to make a living and support oneself here. Even those in the lower economic class making only a few hundred dollars a month seem to struggle much less than those similarly situated in the U.S. Moreover, one can make a living doing almost anything; there seem to be many more opportunities for people to make a living here -- if you have a skill or talent, smarts, and creativity, you can make a living. For example, many people are able to open small restaurants or sell food or crafts from their own homes. Then there is the taxi driver who has a side business, making a ridiculous amount of money, doing paperwork for expats and taking them to the immigration office to help them with their visas. We also know people who make a great living as private drivers. And it's been suggested to me to start an online English tutoring business, which would allow me to work with Thai students while living in the U.S. Here, it seems if you see a need and have the skills to fill the need, you're set.

In addition, food and healthcare costs are a fraction of those in the U.S. As a result, while the poverty rate is pretty high, the rate of hunger is very low. And even if one has no insurance here, one can still afford health care and will not be bankrupted just because of one catastrophic illness.

There are also not the exorbitant childcare costs here, it seems. Extended families still live close to each other, spend their free time together, and watch each others' children. It is also very common for many people to have household help, which also helps to reduce the unemployment rate.

Of course, Thailand is far from perfect and definitely has more than its share of problems -- including corruption and a rigid social hierarchy that prevents upward mobility. And maybe it's easier for farang who are outside this rigid social system to make it here. I also know I'm over-simplifying things. Still, returning to one's home country to live and work should not be more of a financial feat than moving to and working in a foreign land where there are so many barriers to overcome as a foreigner -- language, cultural, social, political, just to name a few. Perhaps, as one of my colleagues says, Thailand is the new wild west, waiting to be discovered and transformed.