The Wandering Monkey

With good fortune, today is the last day at my client site. Finishing up work there is just about the only reason I'm still in the U.S. When that is finished, there will be nothing to do but wander.

Every morning I wake up and I get some sort of strong image in my head. Some days I'm amazed, "I'm actually going to do this." Some days I think, "What on earth are you doing this for? What is the purpose? You're heading off to a foreign country where you know people only through e-mail and you don't speak the language and you don't have a job and you don't have specific purpose other than to dance with this girl you have never met."

When I was first forming this plan, I talked about it with just about everyone I ran into. I got every response possible. Most frequently, "Why China?" or "Why Shanghai?" Often, "Oh I don't know about that; going to a foreign country where you don't understand the language and culture?" At first I engaged everyone who gave a discouraging response with logical reasoning. I explained how Shanghai feels now like Silicon Valley felt five years ago. How jobs in Silicon Valley are sparse and pay less, while house prices remains phenomenal ($500,000 for a modest two-bedroom house on the peninsula).

Every now and then, someone would simply say, "Cool!" My favorite response was from a good friend of mine who recently married and even more recently became a new father. When I told him, he said completely non-chalantly, "Oh great. I spent three years abroad in Japan and I loved it."

And so it goes.

-J