Is This What It Feels Like to Finally Be an Expat?
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As dozens of adults from around the globe sipped Coronas in a Sanlitun bar, pretending to know the lyrics to some Spanish pop song, I looked around, a bit baffled, asking myself what I was doing there on my first weekend out in Beijing. I had just arrived, but it didn’t even feel like we were in China. So was this what it was like to be an expat? After living out of my own country for ten years, as an American in France, I never really knew.
Being an “expat” is a loaded concept, wrapped up in a sense of privilege, of living an outsider’s life knowingly, comfortably, and temporarily in a new country. It’s not a bad thing, but I never felt that way in Europe. Sure, I’m aware of a certain privilege I had – I wasn’t seeking asylum or refugee status. Still, burdened under student debt and with no set return date, I never lived the expat life that so many other Americans lived in Paris. Like anyone who moves somewhere for the life they want, I just saw myself as an immigrant.
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Part of that was Paris. It’s a sort of Narnia for many foreigners living there, existing on alternate planes of existence where nibbling macarons and picnicking is the extent of the experience. Many expats, especially Americans, follow in the footsteps of Audrey Hepburn or Gene Kelly, seeking the glossy Hollywood vision of the city, never actually integrating or worrying about going to the tax office or learning French. Living that dream is great, but I pursued two degrees, hustled multiple jobs to pay my debt, and started my own tour company. I didn’t eat that many macarons, really.
Moreover, I was, subconsciously or not, submitting to a pressure to fit in, to be like the locals. Full disclosure: I claim no French blood in my veins at all, and my American hometown isn’t a bastion of European culture. In France, people expected me to be French, asking me for directions, wondering why I spoke with a funny accent. I had to change. I needed to speak the language, dress the part, and adapt to the culture. It took years, and I haven’t perfected any of it. Still, I managed to fool them enough. I eventually earned my nationality, so I guess my blood is now, technically, fully French. Vive la France, right?
Now in China, after years of struggling to fit in, to play a role, I’ve thrown my hands up in the air. I’m an expat. Beijing is a big, mysterious city, but with none of the pretense or codes that Paris seems to heap on expats – er, immigrants. It’s just a place where I live. I don’t have to try to fit in, because, quite frankly, I can’t.
I’ll never speak the language like a local. I’ll never walk down the street and be mistaken for Chinese. No one will ever ask me for directions in Beijing – at least no one wise. I’m an outsider, permanently and completely, and that has liberated me to enjoy this expat experience in a way I never could in France.
I can live my life here rather unabashedly, living under no artificial veneer, being my true, goofy, awkward, at times ignorant American (and French) self. Of course I want to learn Mandarin, to infuse myself with Chinese culture, but no one will expect it of me. There’s no one to disappoint. There’s no one to offend.
China is a playground of sorts, and I’m that weird new kid at school who plays hopscotch incorrectly while the other kids look on bewildered, yet fascinated. We’ll all be friends soon enough.
I’m starting to see what all those macaron-wielding Americans were on about in Paris. This sort of blissful ignorance really frees you up to enjoy the best parts of a culture. Maybe they had the right idea all along.
New to Beijing? Get outside and explore the city's best parks and gardens.
Photo: Unsplash.com
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