Fucked up big time

[Bazooka]

Well I've only gone and fucked it up.

China as others on the site who have lived here know, it's a  mental power vacuum, I'd legitimately never had depression or anxiety, suicidal thoughts until I'd lived here (I'm not down playing those thoughts.)

I recently went to Turkey with my Chinese girlfriend, and never felt so happy (been before).

I'll cut to the chase, my alcohol intake has increased tenfold, to the point of needing it to sleep.

So yesterday, I only went and got drunk in work, secret mix of vodka and vitamin juice to cover the scent. Got so pissed up I pretty much face slid up a flight of stairs.

Couldn't teach the class, and lied that a family member had died (terrible excuse and an utterly abhorrent excuse to use it morally) Thats not me, it's an horrendous thing to say.

Anyway, just letting off the steam of home sickness, it can catch you off guard even as a decades old man.

Beach in the Philippines is due.

[The Boston Crab]

If it's any comfort at all, lots of people have been in the same position because it can often be an incredibly overstimulating and exhausting place and a lot of expats turn to booze to numb it out or dumb down your brain to the point that China seems normal. One guy at the uni I worked when I first arrived turned up to morning classes so pissed he ended up shitting himself in the cleaner's cupboard and passing out.

I personally didn't have your work ethic or sense of responsibility so would call in sick pretty much 20% of the time after a big night. I never turned up pissed because I was simply too lazy to bother.

Eventually, almost all Westerners burn out in China because it's virtually impossible to integrate or set a comfortable framework for your own life. You constantly have incompatible norms and beliefs imposed on you and the people close to you. I loved it and would love to teleport back there now but I left for the right reasons, just about in time, and while I struggled for a couple of years to come to terms with living in the comparatively very unstimulating UK again, I eventually felt peacefully, sustainably happy in a way that simply isn't possible in China.

My mate moved to Taiwan and that sounds like a great balance, actually.

Good luck mate, and start planning your exit would be my advice.

[Glebe]

Ah no... hugs, Bazooka.

[Pancake]

Come home, you're not made for such places

[Small Man Big Horse]

If it's any comfort at all, lots of people have been in the same position because it can often be an incredibly overstimulating and exhausting place and a lot of expats turn to booze to numb it out or dumb down your brain to the point that China seems normal. One guy at the uni I worked when I first arrived turned up to morning classes so pissed he ended up shitting himself in the cleaner's cupboard and passing out.

I personally didn't have your work ethic or sense of responsibility so would call in sick pretty much 20% of the time after a big night. I never turned up pissed because I was simply too lazy to bother.

Eventually, almost all Westerners burn out in China because it's virtually impossible to integrate or set a comfortable framework for your own life. You constantly have incompatible norms and beliefs imposed on you and the people close to you. I loved it and would love to teleport back there now but I left for the right reasons, just about in time, and while I struggled for a couple of years to come to terms with living in the comparatively very unstimulating UK again, I eventually felt peacefully, sustainably happy in a way that simply isn't possible in China.

My mate moved to Taiwan and that sounds like a great balance, actually.

Good luck mate, and start planning your exit would be my advice.

That's good advice, so I can only presume that Boston's account has been hacked.

But yeah, come back to Blighty, then do what I and at least seven other cabbers do and teach via the internet.

[Bazooka]

Come home, you're not made for such places

How dare you sir/Madame

Boston has nailed it down to a T (describing living in China), like any experience living in another country.

Unfortunately leaving, means leaving my soulmate,who expectdly doesn't want to leave the homeland. But yeah as Boston says pretty much every expat here resorts to booze or pills, it's that stressful of a society. And hell there is no drink culture,imagine!

[bgmnts]

Have a wank.

[Steve Lampkins]

Have a wank.

And you're in China, so the tins will probably already have laqer printed on them.

[Pancake]

How dare you sir/Madame

Boston has nailed it down to a T (describing living in China), like any experience living in another country.

Unfortunately leaving, means leaving my soulmate,who expectdly doesn't want to leave the homeland. But yeah as Boston says pretty much every expat here resorts to booze or pills, it's that stressful of a society. And hell there is no drink culture,imagine!

Quite interested in hearing more about this culture shock.

I occasionally watch serpentza and laowhy86 (or something) on YouTube, expats in China and they've always got something negative to say about about it, but they obviously like it enough to stay. Then again they're in Shenzhen which I understand is hardly the Wild West.

[The Boston Crab]

And you're in China, so the tins will probably already have laqer printed on them.

Very good, and very good to see you. You're a true champ.

Quite interested in hearing more about this culture shock.

I occasionally watch serpentza and laowhy86 (or something) on YouTube, expats in China and they've always got something negative to say about about it, but they obviously like it enough to stay. Then again they're in Shenzhen which I understand is hardly the Wild West.

As I touched on, there is something addictive about that level of constant hyperstimulation. It's beyond vibrant, it's the needle of life constantly in the red, it's a city physically changing in front of your eyes, it's something new every single day, it's an infrastructure pushing ahead in every direction, 24/7/365. Where I lived in England didn't change as much in the six years I spent in China as my city Wuhan did in the first six weeks. I know that sounds like an absurd exaggeration but it's comfortably true. I went back again a couple of years ago after nine years away and many familiar places built during my time there were completely, unrecognisably rebuilt.

The flipside of this is that you can't sustainably survive without a breather, ever, and you also get tired dealing with the most thin-skinned irrational materialistic blinkered nationalist received opinion babies of the human race who are also constantly trying to get in your shit. One of the greatest most brilliant and original and hilarious friends I have in the world is Chinese, so it's not all of course, but it's all but my mate and Bazooka's missus probably.

[Bazooka]

I think ultimately my reason for leaving is the amount of people just around you everywhere, and each individual could be the nicest person. But living in Beijing, it's largely impossible to go and find any solace, self thinking time. I mean you can say that about any big city, but it still takes its toll.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

It sounds rubbish.