A kilo of Italian coffee, jelly beans and unsweetened bread
I’ve been living abroad for most of my adult life, give or take a few semesters back home trying to finish my never-ending degree. Most of my time has been spent with very little money and/or very little access to outside comforts.
In Ghana, I ate foufou and kenke and jollof rice until I couldn’t bear it any more.
In South Africa, I drank chicory and ate rusks and droewors and yearned for an espresso.
In Berlin, in 1994, I was absurdly excited to be presented with a rare and exciting tiny jar of peanut butter by a bartender (no idea why he did that but it was appreciated).
In Kayseri, in Central Turkey, everything you bought in a supermarket could only be assembled to make something that tasted Turkish. The flavour spectrum was delicious but very, very limited.
I’ve spent many years in the ‘living like a local’ stream, whether I wanted to or not. When you are taking short trips or even a six month extended trip, living like a local sounds romantic and exciting and exotic. I’m sure it is. But when one spends one’s whole life in places far from one’s homeland, it starts to wear thin.
This is one thing I really appreciate about Shanghai: I can veer back and forth between my own authenticity and the reality of my local environment. I can have street food for lunch and an espresso to follow. I can buy books and magazines in English. I can shop in a wet market or at the expat import shop. I can order a pretty nifty Cubano sandwich from the deli or I can go for scary-assed Hunan up the street. If I don’t want to drink milk with melamine in it, I can go down to Fei Dan and buy organic milk from New Zealand (yes, I know my carbon footprint runs deep there).
I have choices here.
I live in Shanghai. I don’t always have to live in China. I appreciate that Shanghai lets me occasionally live in my own comfort zone before I have to return to the realities of China. A good friend in Istanbul once said, “It’s not so much that I love Turkey but rather that I like the way my life is in Istanbul.”
2 Responses
I’m a fellow serial expat (and a fellow MatadorU student) and I know exactly what you mean! After 4 1/2 years in the Chinese hinterland, I just found out we’re moving to Beijing. I couldn’t be more excited to finally have access to import supermarkets and foreign food restaurants, along with the local places I have grown to love, of course. Here’s to the best of both worlds!
Having access to your own comfort foods is a wonderful thing, as much as I love and appreciate the things on offer locally. If you are a long term expat, as we both noted, it is so lovely to have that choice to move between the two worlds. I’m *delighted* to have found real Mexican salsa verde in Shanghai. Seriously, it made my day when I stumbled upon it. Doesn’t make me appreciate Chinese foods less… just makes me feel more balanced!