Neither mad, nor in coma, just experiencing China

"My name is Stuart Beaton. I had an inspiration, and I woke up in Tianjin. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet. Now, maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get to work ..."

Ok, so I've just blatantly plagiarized Sam Tyler's opening speech from Life On Mars, but it pretty much sums up how I feel each morning.

Let's take a look at the first part of that statement - an inspiration to come to China.

I've always been fascinated by Asia, it's been a fairly large part of my life. When I was growing up, I watched the TV show, Monkey, a Japanese adaptation, dubbed into English, of Journey to the West. I begged my parents to buy me what I thought was the novelized version of the show, only to find out that it was a really old Chinese story.

Then one thing led to another, and I started to explore Chinese mythology, philosophy and the like, and eventually I ended up at university studying it further. It was there that someone said, "Look, why don't you just go there, and see what it's like".

So I did.

But am I mad for doing so?

Well, some mornings I definitely think I am. I stumble about my apartment at random, thinking about things I might have done differently. Sure, it's a pretty big jump to just up sticks and move to another country, but other people have done it before - and they're not mad.

Or, at least, other people don't think they are.

Am I in a coma? Well, I don't move about as much as I used to, but I'm not bed ridden! I like to get out and about, look at life "up close and personal". What's the point of moving to China, if I don't take the chance to examine it while I can? The whole point of my moving here was to stop studying China "in vitro", and to start treating the whole experience as a living thing. China's a pretty big lab for me to conduct my experiments in.

My being back in time, that's the hard one. There's such a range of time in China! In a single day, I can go past ancient construction and cooking techniques being used on the street, and then walk into a building so modern it's almost like living in the future. Take for example my apartment - I'm writing this column on a brand new laptop, using 3G technology, but this morning I used a washboard and a bar of soap to do my laundry.

As for being on another planet, I know I'm not. China is part of the global community, it's not a closed society. In fact it's opening up more each day, with each new piece of technology or software that comes along. I'm happy to be part of that changing world, but that's not a universal feeling.

There's an expat community that thrives on bringing their own countries to China, and living in little bubbles that might as well be their own private planets. Sure, I occasionally long for some things I can't get here - Cooper's Ale, kangaroo fillets and Villi's pies - but I've come to terms with that.

However, unlike Sam Tyler, I know the reason I'm here. I'm here because I want to be in China, and I want to be part of the changes I'm seeing here. I'm here because every day in China is different, and throws up new challenges to deal with. I might not do that very well, but I give it my best shot.

And having said that, it is time for me to go to work!