years now and I know what you’re
thinking out there you’re sitting there
you’re thinking six years yeah he must
be crazy by now right well you might be
right about me being a little bit crazy
but I don’t think that’s from having
lived here for so long but the way
living abroad can treat you sometimes
it’s not an unreasonable conclusion to
come to living abroad is just it can be
hard and living in China especially I
think there’s a very unique set of
challenges here that can face it would
be expat I’ll just name the most obvious
– first one of course is language
considered by a lot of people to be
extremely difficult to learn and the
second one is culture Chinese people can
be very welcoming but you can tell that
there’s a certain sort of skepticism
about so many foreign people coming into
their country so if you’re not quite
sure about what I’m talking about
allow me to illustrate this for you for
a second every year
HSBC does something called the expat
Explorer survey what this is is they
pull expatriates from all around the
world they ask them about things like
their economic climate their quality of
life and they take all of these rankings
and this past year turned it into a top
45 list of the best countries for an
expat to live in so I’d like to ask you
guys in the audience real quick where do
you think China came in okay we had we
had 10th anyone else first very
xxxiv yeah now that that does sound kind
of bad but just let me give you a little
bit of context the US was only 30th so I
guess that’s a matter of perspective so
the upside of living in China is that in
economics related things
China scored very high amongst expats so
career progression entrepreneurship the
ability to save money and disposable
income we’re all pretty high that’s the
good stuff but the downside was a lot of
the stuff outside of work
so overall experience
China was ranked 44th out of 45 for
integration meaning how well you can
integrate into the culture 41st for
work-life balance 42nd and overall
quality of life again
44th so these things kind of combine and
make it a somewhat irresistible place
for career minded people to come and try
and push their career forward but
outside of that being here for a lot of
expats seems like it’s very harsh it’s
just the fact of the matter when you see
people who’ve lived here for a while you
can kind of see it on their face that
that idea that I kind of need to be here
but I’m not necessarily enjoying myself
so what’s the difference between say
someone like me I’ve stuck it out for
six years and someone who gets fed up
and flees China in the middle of the
night like it’s Shawshank I wish I had
an easy answer but I don’t unfortunately
you know for some of you in the audience
who have might have been here around as
long as I have I’m sure you’ve heard the
questions from back home how did you
is it hard and goes on and I kind of
give them the same answer that I just
gave you you laughed you laugh thank you
but I see a couple of skeptical faces in
the audience and that’s because the
shrug is a terrible terrible answer but
I have done some thinking about this and
I think that the shrug might be one of
the secrets to survival as an expatriate
so let’s talk about the shrug what does
it mean when you shrug well we’re just
going to talk about three
interpretations today okay the first one
I don’t know the second whatever and
then the third shrug it off right so now
let’s take those three things and let’s
reinterpret them in the context of expat
life okay so let’s start with the first
no no okay what is I don’t know but just
an opportunity to learn okay I’m gonna
tell you a story from one of my first
nights in country one of my first nights
in China six years ago some co-workers
took me out to a restaurant it’s a nice
little place you know we had hotpot
great communal dish here and sometime
during the meal a couple of grown
Chinese men I’m gonna say 40-ish were
wrestling in the aisles like not only
not like a little bit like full-on
WrestleMania going for it and I was
shocked
I know it’s make of that because my
upbringing in Western culture would have
led me to believe that they were in an
argument that escalated very very high
but that wasn’t the case you know what
they were arguing about they were
fighting over who got to pay the bill
yeah he knows he knows
okay in the u.s. we fight to not pay the
bill so this is just totally outside my
experience it’s pretty silly it’s a
little bit silly and of course not all
Chinese people are wrestling each other
to give each other their money but it
became my first lesson in two very
important Chinese social elements that
being guanxi the relationship you have
with another person and me Enza
sometimes translated as face i like this
: response is good otherwise known as
your reputation with someone else and if
I hadn’t asked someone about that I too
just continued under the assumption like
man Chinese people really like fighting
now I don’t unfortunately I don’t really
mix with the Chinese as much as I should
you know I feel the next pad it’s on me
to try and interact but if the
forty-first and integrate in integration
is any indication you know you might
understand a little bit why it’s
difficult for me sometimes but I do in
the absence of that try and keep an
active curiosity about the way the
locals think and interact because it’s
very important that you do if you have
no frame of reference for how things
work locally then you’re just going to
keep thinking that what people are doing
around you is weird or rude or malicious
so let’s move on to the second whatever
that we’re back to shrugging back to
shrugging my shrug with me no all right
so whatever kind of fits my personality
pretty well I am NOT super excited but
some of my more optimistic friends would
call this being a yes-man and what this
is about is about being open to new
experiences another little anecdote from
my life a few weeks ago so now we’re up
to 2016 I was just at home nothing to do
a Chinese friend calls me and he says
yeah so a couple hours later I was
actually I think I wore this and I was a
stern American boss in an amateur
kung-fu movie that was just one day but
people have little experiences like this
all the time if they keep an open mind
to them there are other people here who
play in bands they write books they
moonlight as models they start clubs and
organizations they discover local art
and music and all kinds of other stuff
the happiest people I know here are the
ones who are always shocking their
routine with new and different
experiences and I find that the opposite
is true as well
so let’s move on to the third the third
shrug shrugging it off right now at the
risk of being cliche which shrug it off
really comes down to is that old
serenity prayer grant me the serenity to
deal with the things I can’t change the
courage to deal with the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference
okay and this kind of ties into the
first part about understanding the
locals okay because if you don’t
understand the locals you can’t pick
your battles and if you can’t pick your
battles then they all become battles and
what do we call a lot of battles thank
you as a war and war all the time is
just no way to live a good life so all
that being said it’s it’s very easy for
me to just say it to you undoubtedly
there are a lot of different factors
that will go into a person’s success or
failure but in my opinion as an expat
trying to create a perfect facsimile of
your old life is merely a way of setting
your expectations sky-high some places
you might be able to even meet them but
you’re still set up for immense amounts
of disappointment put another way I
think people should just care about
where they are and be open-minded enough
simple as that because no place is
really perfect is it no it’s really just
a matter of perspective hey maybe you
might have seen the this is an old
optical illusion if you look at it one
way is as ugly old woman if you look at
it another it’s this young beautiful
woman it’s the same way it’s all a
matter of perspective my perspective has
always been angled towards learning
today what I didn’t yesterday and
finding all the secrets of the place I
call home you know because there’s no
value in this great big world in trying
to make it revolve around you it just
end up disappointed so my advice to
everyone new expat old expat if you’re
struggling with it
try and open your mind up again okay
because no place is perfect you don’t
have to love where you are all that’s
required of you
all that’s required of you is to keep an
open mind and have a little tiny thrill
of discovery even if that discovery is
something mundane like the supermarket
has cookies okay all that’s required of
you is to shrug your shoulders and get
going thank you
[Applause] [Music]