To Travel is To Live- Lessons From Bi-cultural Perspective

This is a guest post by Xenia. Thanks for contributing and sharing your wonderful story!

Some people are solely passionate about studying foreign cultures, some are passionate about learning new languages, and others love exotic vacations.  I am passionate about all of the above-mentioned, but mostly about the acquisition of intercultural skills because these skills are ultimately the key to any successful foreign encounter or rich travel experience. 

My life was one big journey and I have always had to adapt, learn, and develop new skills in order to be able to interact with individuals of foreign backgrounds and accommodate my international experiences; therefore being passionate about it has helped me greatly in achieving my goals, such as being employed at a transnational company.

My passion is deeply rooted in my background: I was born bilingual, half Hungarian, half Ukrainian/Russian, and I have moved to Belgium at the age of 14 having attended an American High School at a military base, and after, an international University in Denmark. Consequently, adaptation to foreign grounds was a fairly constant factor for me in all aspects of life and I realized this as a child, because already as a small kid I was fluent in two languages and travelled further than any of my class mates to visit my grandparents in Ukraine. I knew that I sort of belonged to two worlds and of course had to learn to accommodate both sides of my bilateral nature.  This wasn’t always easy and I was sometimes bullied because of the historical legacies of the Soviet Union that left a great wound in Hungarian pride. I learned early on that it was important to respect diversity and foreign values, thus paving the way for my future travel encounters and expat missions.

In my opinion, travelling was one of the richest experiences in my life and that is exactly what travel resulted in: invaluable intercultural experience. Even short trips sometimes changed my outlook on life. I also learned that it was important to leave all my prejudices behind, be informed, and be open to a whole set of new and exciting experiences. Although not all foreign experiences were pleasant, because not all individuals were always open to my presence and my values, the best experiences related to travel combined with my passion for intercultural skills, were a set of successful cultural encounters, new friendships that taught me a great deal about who I was, and of course professional connections that led to my job today.

At the moment I have plans of visiting friends in Australia and the United States. Of course I am going to visit my parents in Hungary and Italy too. To travel is to live, and I therefore recommend everybody to save up a bit and experience what our wonderful planet has to offer.

About the author: Xenia has a professional experience in the fashion and music industry, and an interest in modern lifestyle, intercultural communication, and travelling. She currently works for Miinto IE and Miinto UK and she has a background in Communication and EU Studies.

Photos by 365 Days Tumblr and telwanders

You’ll be seeing future guest posts from Xenia in this blog. Have a travel story? Grew up in different cultures? To guest post in this  blog, send an article or short letter about what’d you’d like to write (5 minutes only!) to kash.yu [at] gmail.  No worries, I don’t do email biting.

How Not To Get Bored With Your Work Overseas

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities”

- Shunryu Suzuki

 

Dec 20 2010 I stared outside my window into the smog clouding the skies in China. I was about to celebrate my 4^th year being in this country but I wasn’t looking forward to spending another year filling my lungs with Teflon flavored smoke from the factories and marking endless essays from my students.

In other words I was stuck.

I felt I was going nowhere with my teaching career in China. Teaching wasn’t what I envisioned myself doing in the long term and I kept doing it year after year because it was safe, it was stable, it was damned good money.  I felt if I lost it, it would be hard to find another job. But I wanted something new. I wanted to experience what it was like to be a professional writer. I wanted to live and experience another country that wasn’t China.

Sept 20 2012 I stared outside the window at the snow covered peaks of the Andes Mountain Range of Santiago, Chile. After 6 years of doing the same thing, I finally quit my job and moved to Chile and enrolled in a university to study Spanish. It wasn’t stable. I had no job. I had no steady flow of income. It was scary.

But quitting that stable career opened me to many possibilities too. Finally writing projects fell on my lap.

I’ve copyedited and helped designed a marketing brochure for a Chilean wine brand. I’ve created marketing and public relations materials and website content for an American start-up called Scholaroo in Chile. I also did some copyediting for a travel magazine called Patagon Journal. I wrote direct marketing emails for a client (due to a NDA- I cannot name the identity). And recently, I won a scholarship for a Business Writing course and a free month membership at the Writer’s Den in Carol Tice’s popular writing blog.

I also met brilliant and inspiring people who were into entrepreneurship, graphic designing, start-ups, tech, neuromarketing, microfinancing, nonprofits and yes, even elephant sanctuaries.

All because I opened myself to a new environment.

Which brings me to a topic my uber-wonderful friend Leslie taught me about Convergence and Divergence for an international career. Let me put it this way-

Divergence – means a sky’s the limit all you can eat buffet of ideas. It’s a state where you’re all over the place. In projects, this is the brainstorming stage. In writing, it’s mind mapping. In travel, you’re backpacking all over the world. In careers, you might be at a transitional point where you’re experimenting with different jobs.

Convergence- means you’ve browsed the selection of food at the all you can eat buffet, salivated over the goodies and realized that you can only eat so much. It’s about filling your plate with what you can handle and then eating it.  It’s about refining your ideas – selecting what’s best. So if you’re in a team, you choose the objective and the best strategy to implement it. If you’re writing, this is the time you edit. If you’re traveling, this is the time you choose a sweet spot and settle down for the time being. And in careers, this is the time you settle on a job or a more straightforward career path.

I’m currently on a divergence point after so many years of convergence. I’m trying different projects of writing and seeing which ones I like. It’s exciting to be freelancing and seeing if I like it. Eventually I have to converge and settle on a niche or a job that involves a specific writing task. It all depends on the person how long he can spend diverging and converging. I think in my case convergence would be the longest – 2 years tops before I find a way to diverge again.

Divergence and Convergence are like Yin and Yang. It’s a balance and it’s a sequence. One comes after the other and they should never be performed at the same time.

So if you have a good paying stable job and still wonder why you feel bored and stuck, it’s your inner divergence calling. It wants something new and fresh. It wants a challenge. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s perfectly natural.

MY TIP: BREAK THE MONOTONY!

my friend Seamus dancing to the beat in India

Try  something new. Like a new hobby like Vietnamese cooking. Or getting a part time job on doing what you like. Enroll in a new class offline or online – there are tons of free course on the internet. Volunteering or doing an internship in another country. Embark on a new project. There are many things. You have to get those going so you won’t feel bored.

What I should have done was after 2 years in my job was to try an internship for 2 months. Or move to another city in China. Or take a part time writing job. Anything to break the monotony of the stability.

By doing so, you look at things in a brand new light, your mind gets fed with fresh ideas and best of all, you open yourself to many new and wonderful opportunities.

By the way, my friend and fellow blogger/traveler/freelancer Leslie Forman will soon discuss more about convergence and divergence in your international career in her blog soon. It’s going to help fellow travelers, expats and those thinking of a new career path overseas. It’s going to be a movement.

Photo by: The Fertile Unknown

The Tables Have Turned

Today an amazing thing happened.

Usually this is the scenario. I’ve seen it too many times enough to warrant a puking. Typical blushing Chinese girl stumbling over her poor English while attempting to have a conversation with a blonde blue-eyed Western foreigner.

Tonight at the Aussie pub the opposite has happened.

My Chinese friend, Des is speaking rapidly in slang rich English while a blushing blonde blue eyed Western foreigner attempts to catch up and understand what she’s saying.

Here we are attempting to explain what a ‘male package’ meant.

“Package.” She put her hands in a triangle and held it up in front of him.

The Westerner looked perplexed.

“Da Vinci Code” Nerd alert!

He shook his head. I’m European, my English isn’t good, he apologized.

“The sign for male.” She flipped the triangle upside down. “Female.”

The Da Vinci code reference still didn’t switch on any Edison light bulbs. Butt it was still worth it watching the complete role reversal that so rarely happens.

The world never ceases to surprise me.