Once the decision has been made to move to China, your bags are packed, your furniture wrapped up and on the container ship, the fun part starts: life in a new and exciting country! Right?!
I will be the first to tell you that China is an absolutely amazing place. If you don’t believe me, check out the articles I have been writing about Shenyang. China is awesome! But, when you first come, there are a number of significant hurdles to take before you can make it your home away from home.
From my own experience, and from a very unscientific poll I took among the expat spouse population in my personal circle, the following themes kept cropping up. My friends and acquaintances felt that their greatest challenges in mastering the transition to China were:
-Changing from a fulltime working individual to not knowing how to fill their time
-Making (local and foreign) friends
-Dealing with culture shock
-Adapting to daily life
-Staying connected with their home country
-Communicating with the locals
That is a long list. And those are big issues, not things that have an easy fix. But let’s have a look at them in turn and explore some tactics I and those I know have employed to conquer them.
Among my friend circle, those who managed to cope best with those challenges put a lot of time and energy in reflecting what they wanted, deciding on how to achieve their goals, and finding someone (or multiple someones) who kept them accountable.
One friend of mine – she must be the most well-organized person on the planet – created a veritable project plan for herself where she analyzed, prioritized, planned, executed and reviewed her results, including an investigation of best practices and lessons learned. How I wish I could be this efficient.
For me, it always helped to discuss the challenges. I learn by talking things through. The problem when you discuss these things with friends, though, is that they usually immediately jump to giving you advice. Because everyone believes they know exactly how you SHOULD be doing something.
Since I love harmony, I am easily swayed by friendly advice. But is that really always the best thing?
It was only when I started working with a coach that I realized I already knew what was best for me. That I was completely capable of making my own decisions and sticking to them. And how much I benefitted from having someone who was firmly in my corner, but would let me work through things myself without interfering or deciding things for me.
If you feel the same, you might want to give coaching a try. You can get a free 20-minute session with me by scheduling it here.
[…] might have read my blog post about the greatest challenges expat spouses face in China. One of the challenges people mention to me over and over again is how their lack of Chinese skills […]