Nu är det faktiskt bara 2 dagar kvar tills jag kommer tillbaks till den värld jag kom ifrån. Livet här i Shanghai har i mångt och mycket varit som att leva i en annan värld, så det skall bli skönt med lite perspektiv... Följande text nedan publicerade jag på vår Team Blogg (www.shanghaioutpost.dk) idag. Den sammanfattar nog rätt bra min sinnesstämning just nu:
To say that the time has passed by quickly would be an understatement. For me, it almost feels like yesterday when we arrived at Pudong Internaional Airport, greated a freezing Shanghai and later on, checking in at Donghua Hotel after an interesting bussdrive with an even more interesting speach from the one and only: Mr John Alexander.
At the same time it feels like years ago. Since a lot of impressions has been attacking my little head, my mind is obviously dealing with it by saying that it has to be more then 3 months back since a shorter time for all those impressions, feelings, new knowledge, experiments etc would be unrealistic.
Now (and by looking in my calender confirming that 3 months actually have past) I am sitting on my nice little balcony in my wonderful little apartment at Zhongtan Lu (in my nice but not so little 400 000 people compound) and I can only state that in 2 days, I'll be packing the last parts of my life here in Shanghai and head back to good old Scandinavia. As my thoughts runs through my mind I get a certain feeling of warmth and contempt. The frequence of my heartbeats increases and an inner smile is shown by a deep, calm breath saying: "I am going home..."
Life in Shanghai has been amazing! It has opened up a world of new possibilities and the ones who continuously preach about the booming city in the east called Shanghai should have a drink on the house because they are soooooooooo right! Countless opportunities and massive potential in a part of the world completely new to me. I had to ask myself: Have I been re-bourne? Learning chinese would have been "the easy solution". Instead I have insisted on communicating with body language, using tools and parcels where I have found them to make a small act in front of a confused local who keeps wondering about those white people from the west that playes theater on the street without putting down a hat on the ground for some financial support. "Do they do it for the fun of it cause I simply dont get it", they might ask themselves. Thanks to my little note with my home address in Chinese, I managed to get home by taxi every night without having to destroy my throat and splashing the windows in the car with my saliva while trying to pronounce my street name.
Cultural diversity has been challenging a lot of times but what a great learning experience it has been! Even though we spent 3 days reflecting in Hangzhou with great facilitation of the Queen herself: Her Majesty; Karrin "The Leader" Barreth, I think my learings will come when finding peace and space at the place calledhome.Checking out from one world - Cheking in by coming home.
Daniel
