It's only now I'm back home that I realise (as cheesy as it sounds) how much I've changed in the past year. Not in that I'm a completely different person but that when it comes to being really organised and planning ahead, I'm far more relaxed about things and that's definitely down to living in China.
All my friends from university or even way before that will tell you, I'm definitely one of those types of people who seems to have their head screwed on, knows what they're doing, has all the details pinned down and is likely to have a plan B if all else fails (or so I'd like to think, anyway). In fact, it's something I've always secretly prided myself on. I love being the person in the group who is relied upon to keep things orderly and organised. It's not to say that this side of me has disappeared, but if there's one thing I've learnt from living in China, it's to let it go.
Road traffic on Yingkou Road, Tianjin (营口道)
China is a little crazy. There's no denying it. Simply crossing the road turns into a genuine issue of life or death. And you know that really typically British tendency to queue for things in an orderly manner? Yep. Not really a thing in China. It's also not uncommon to hear people really going for it when they hawk up a gob of spit, launch it just centimetres in front of your feet and carry on with their day like nothing ever happened. But for all of China's differences, you learn to just accept that these things you might consider dangerous, inconvenient or down right disgusting as a way of life and shrug it off repeating the mantra, "Just 'cos... China". If you don't embrace that it's ingrained in the culture, you'll struggle to accept life in China.
Another thing I've become really accustomed to is things changing at the very last minute. It happened all the time. I might be told the day before (or a week if I was lucky) that my lessons would be cancelled because there were exams going on, despite the fact that exams had been scheduled for weeks. As I said, for someone who likes to think of themselves as very organised and likes to plan ahead, this type of thing would initially bother me. But I learned to just go with the flow and became well versed in making impulsive, last minute plans rather than well thought out contingency plans as I might have done prior to living in China.
I'm not quite sure how but things in China, however crazy, just seem to work themselves out eventually and there's a kind of certainty in knowing that things are always quite uncertain. As a result, I've definitely become way more relaxed in my approach to planning. I know that there's not much point getting stressed out or angry if things don't quite go your way or turn out different to what you expected. Rather, you need to 'unexpect' the expected, let it go and just find a new way to deal with last minute changes. It's been quite a journey but once you embrace that it's simply a part of life in China, you can really see how amazing the country is and how it's developed in spite of all the chaos.
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