Fate Favors the Spicy

Things don't always go according to plan

 I've always considered that saying to have a negative connotation. In mundane and dramatic situations alike, I imagine when things don't go according to plan, bad stuff happens: you miss your bus, the hotel misspells your name and you don't get your reservation, you get eaten by sharks, you spontaneously combust. The plan is safe and fate is cruel. I'm learning more and more on this trip through China - which, as it happens, is nearing the two month marker - that the plan already drawn up isn't all that great compared to the world of possibilities.

My first lesson in Fate 101 was when the owners of Sunshine Hostel in Sanya offered us the opportunity to live free of charge in exchange for English lessons. We took up the offer and have had an incredibly relaxing and fun several weeks, during which we've gotten to know many of the guests as well as the staff and owners. Eunice and I have gotten the opportunity to interview some of the workers here about their lives and passions (which you can check out at her blog) which has been pretty fascinating and has helped us get to closer to them. It's quite funny actually: I told many people that, aside from working in China, I wanted to develop relationships so I could find some work more professional than the oh-so-common English teaching job. I have been developing relationships, but they have hardly been professional ones. I have a really great network of friends from many different areas of China now, which would never have happened had I not rolled the dice and gave my original plan the back seat.

Today, Eunice and I decided to roll the dice yet again, but this time the stakes are a bit higher. The original plan (may she rest in peace), for those who don't know, was to go to Guilin to teach English for a paltry 4000RMB per month (the equivalent of about $660). As Eunice and I began to pay more attention to our budgets, it became clear to me that even if the price of living in Guilin was lower than other cities, we would certainly want some more money than that. Also at play was the way Chinese characterized Guilin: a great place to travel, not a great place to live. An underdeveloped city like Guilin has certain appeals which I no doubt romanticized to the point of complete distortion, but the past two months of traveling have made me more aware of the kind of comforts I'm used to, and the kind I'll need to maintain my happiness for a year in China. I began to fear Guilin might not sustain me. I also considered Eunice's needs: she can deal with any type of living environment, but I know she would not be happy living in a city with an ex-pat population near nil. At the same time as these doubts about Guilin popped up, I kept hearing great things about the capital of Sichuan Province: Chengdu.

We first heard about Chengdu from Terry, the target of our first staff interview (you can read Eunice's adaptation of the interview here).  When asked what his favorite city he traveled to during his 2 month, 6000km biking trip from Beijing to Sanya was, he did not hesitate: Chengdu. The food, the atmosphere, the people - pretty much everything about Chengdu was praised. Terry broke off from the question-answer format of the interview to start telling us that Guilin didn't hold a candle to Chengdu; that we could find a job in Chengdu that'd pay twice as much; that he could get in touch with the friends he'd made there to make us feel at home, help us get apartments, jobs... basically whatever we wanted. What he said got me thinking, but it wasn't until a week later that Eunice and I actually decided to put all our chips on Chengdu. Today, I sent an e-mail informing our contact in Guilin that we decided to pick a more developed city, severing that tie and the absolute promise of a work visa. Now Eunice and I have until the second week of September, I believe, to secure a job and work visa.

Terry talked about fate when we interviewed him. He believed it was in control of most everything. If he didn't come to Sanya, he wouldn't have become friends with the owners here and returned to work as a volunteer and, in turn, would not have met Eunice and me. I'm starting to see things a bit like Terry now. If we hadn't stayed in Sanya to teach English here, we wouldn't have interviewed Terry; if we didn't interview Terry, we'd never know about Chengdu; if we didn't know about Chengdu, we'd still be heading for Guilin. I can't wait to see what Chengdu has in store for us.