Month: October 2025

Everywhere, the Same Heartbeat

Everywhere, the Same Heartbeat

From Asia to Europe to Africa to small-town America, I’ve seen how different our worlds appear and how alike we truly are. We may cook different meals, pray in different ways, or celebrate under different stars, but what we seek, the connection, the comfort, the laughter is the same. Wherever I go, I find the same joy in gathering, sharing, and belonging. Proof that people are far more alike than different, no matter how far from home we roam.

Sometimes the world feels impossibly vast. It is a mosaic of languages, a myriad of landscapes, and a multitude of traditions. Yet, the further I wander, the smaller it becomes. I felt it in Paris, where café tables held laughter and conversation that was music to my ears even when I didn’t understand all the words. I felt it in Xiashan, that small rural village in China, where I met a girl from my hometown in Ohio. I felt it in Warsaw with the never-ending rotation of flat mates who became like family. It followed me to Bulgaria where I reunited with young people I met nearly twenty years ago. And now, I feel it again here in Morocco.

Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve been reminded of something that was painted on a classroom building at a school where I volunteered in Bali: Allow differences, respect differences, until differences are no longer different. Those words have followed me across the continents, from cobblestoned streets in Europe to the sand dunes of Morocco, all whispering the same truth as Indonesia’s national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika – Unity in Diversity.

Maybe that’s why travel still feels a bit like Neverland to me. I don’t mean the place where I refuse to grow up, but that state of wonder that doesn’t fade. It’s a way of seeing the world with open eyes and an open heart. Its finding familiar in the foreign. The music changes, the spices taste different, the languages take on new rhythms. But I’m in a world that keeps reminding me to believe in a little magic.

Here in Kelaa, Morocco, I was invited to a wedding. All I knew about Moroccan wedding celebrations was they often start late in the evening and finish at dawn. I also knew I would need a special caftan. Luckily, one of my friends from the school and a relative of the groom, scouted caftans for me and sent photos. All I had to do was go pick it up and pay the rental fee of 100 dirham (10 euro). This includes laundry service. The other amazing thing? They simply placed the caftan in a bag, handed it to me, and off I went. No ID, no paperwork. But I’ve been in Kelaa long enough to know they could easily find me if I didn’t return it.

I was told by Khadija, my caftan finder, that we would go to the wedding around 21:30. As I was getting dressed, I realized I had no idea how to fasten the belt. Fortunately my downstairs neighbor who is my landlord, sent his wife up to help. When Khadija arrived she told me I needed more eye makeup. She had gifted me an Amazigh wooden applicator with homemade kohl which is a black powder consisting of sulfur, malachite, galena and animal fats. I had no idea how to put it on, so she applied it to my eyes and we set off for the wedding a little after 22:00.

When we arrived we were offered a shot of milk in a small silver cup and a date. This symbolizes wishes for a sweet, pure, and prosperous life. By the time we arrived, we had missed the Amariya procession where the couple makes their entrance on elevated platforms called amariyas, carried by the attendants. This symbolizes their elevated status as king and queen for the night. The bride is attended by a negafa, who helps her with up to seven outfit changes, each representing a different region of Morocco.

Stepping into the wedding was like stepping into a living kaleidoscope. The female guests were dressed in brilliant caftans in every shade of the rainbow. The room was filled with pulsing music and women dancing. The men lingered mostly outside chatting, until the baskets of khobz (round Moroccan bread) and plates of roasted chicken started arriving. They quickly made their way to the tables.

I sat there surrounded by people I didn’t know (Khadija was at another table) and whose words I couldn’t understand. As I looked around, I realized how much I did understand…the common language of joy, a shared meal, and laughter. A community gathered to celebrate something beautiful. It wasn’t so different from weddings back home in the USA. It was families crowded around tables, friends leaning close to talk over the music, and generations joining together in laughter. The songs and traditions were different, but the sentiment was the same…love, belonging, and the simple happiness of being together.

Several days after the wedding I had the opportunity to experience the final day of the four-day Tbourida with some Moroccan friends. Tbourida is a Moroccan equestrian performance dating back to the sixteenth century. It simulates a succession of military parades reconstructed according to ancestral Arab-Amazigh rituals. Riders in their tribal costumes charge toward the crowd, the men fire antique rifles into the air as the horses stop just in front of the crowd. The Tbourida in 2021 was placed on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

After watching the horses race down the field, we wandered in search of something to eat. We ended up under a small tent where a man was frying sfenj or Moroccan donuts, golden and crisp. We ordered a basket, along with a few hard-boiled eggs, and I soon learned the local trick of smashing the donut into a “boat,” nestle the egg inside, and eat it like a breakfast sandwich. Some women brought us steaming mint tea, and we settled in for what turned out to be a most unexpected yet delightful repas.

Afterward, we drifted through rows of stalls with trinkets and jewelry shiny in the afternoon sun, piles of herbs and spices perfuming the air, and t-shirts swaying in the breeze. We stopped again to watch the next round of riders, their synchronized charge racing down the field. While we stood there, a young boy approached shyly, greeted me in English, and shook my hand as his friends giggled nearby. My friends explained he’d been dared to do it. Just behind me, a man was spinning clouds of pink cotton candy. We ended up buying half a dozen sticks for the boys…a sweet reward for bravery.

As we made our way back to the car, it struck me how familiar it all felt. Between the dust in the air, the scent of horses and hay, and the laughter of children, I could have been back at the Trumbull County Fair in Ohio. Not in appearance, but in essence. The hum of the crowd, the shared delight in simple pleasures like popcorn, cotton candy, and plastic toys that might not last the day but would certainly be loved for the moment. Whether in Morocco or middle America, people gather for the same reason: to belong, to laugh, and to share joy together. The details changed, but the heartbeat was the same.

Beyond the grand celebrations, it’s the smaller rituals that reveal our shared humanity most clearly. In the local hammam, the communal bathhouse, women gather not just to cleanse, but to connect. They talk, tease, share family stories, and laugh in the steamy warmth.

It reminds me of women’s spa days back home, or long lunches that stretch lazily into afternoon. It’s the same comfort of friendship, the same release of laughter that only comes when you’re surrounded by people who understand you.

Across the world, I’ve found this rhythm in a thousand different forms…over wine in a Paris café, in a Warsaw market, sharing dumplings in China, or at a diner in small-town Ohio. The settings change, but the essence remains unchanged. People coming together to share the simplest and richest parts of life.

After so many places, I’ve stopped searching for the line that separates different from same. In Morocco, at a wedding, laughter floated around tables just like it does at family gatherings back home. At the Tbourida, families cheered while children ran past, sticky-fingered with cotton candy…the same sweetness I remember from summer fairs in Ohio. In Europe, too, I’ve felt it at Sunday picnics along the Seine, in the playful banter of summer camp in Bulgaria, and in the quiet joy of people simply being together.

The settings change, the music, the colors, the customs, but the feeling doesn’t. Everywhere, people want the same simple things: good food, good company, and a place that feels like home. I used to think home was a point on a map, but I’ve learned it’s something more like a familiar heartbeat I recognize wherever kindness and connection live.

Maybe that’s the quiet truth I keep chasing. Unity doesn’t erase difference; it celebrates it. The magic isn’t only in faraway places, but in the way every place holds a reflection of home. The more I travel, the more I understand that the world’s beauty doesn’t lie in how different we are, but in how familiar we can feel, even in the most unfamiliar places.

The world isn’t as divided as it looks. Maybe, if we allow and respect our differences long enough, we’ll start to see they were bridges all along. Maybe that’s the true magic of this Neverland of mine, discovering that no matter how far we wander, the heartbeat of home echoes everywhere.

Allow differences, respect differences, until differences are no longer different.

 

Letters I’ll Never Send – to the people, places, and moments I left a piece of myself

Letters I’ll Never Send – to the people, places, and moments I left a piece of myself

Some stories don’t need an audience. Some goodbyes don’t need to be spoken. And some letters, the ones that write themselves in my head on quiet nights, whispered through thoughts and dreams, are meant only to remind me how deeply I’ve lived.

These are mine. Letters I’ll never send! To the people, places, and moments that shaped me; to the corners of the world that taught me what home can mean.

Dear Warren, Ohio,

I may have started life in Fort Meade, Maryland, but you were the beginning. The backdrop of a small town with the sound of trains that made me dream of elsewhere.

You raised me knowing to go home when the streetlights came on. You gave me an education which made me curious, with a longing to wander, and a family whose love traveled with me long after I boarded my first plane. Even now, no matter how far I go, your streetlights glow in my memory. AND one day, I will come home.

Dear Mom and Dad,

You named me Wendy. A name borrowed from imagination and given to a girl who would one day learn to fly.

You filled my world with books, maps, and National Geographic magazines that made the globe feel both infinite and reachable. You were my first teachers: parents, providers of wisdom, and permissive provocateurs who never clipped my wings, even when you worried where they might take me. Thank you for the gift of curiosity. It became the passport to everything I’ve ever loved.

Dear Mark,

You’ve always been my biggest cheerleader and my best friend.

From the start, you believed in every wild idea I chased, even when it meant watching me disappear across oceans. You reminded me where I came from, kept the laughter alive in the spaces between our worlds, and never let distance dull our bond. No matter how far I roam, knowing you’re in my corner makes every place feel a little more like home.

 

Dear Tom,

You were the love that taught me how deep connection can go and how fragile timing can be.

We dreamed together once, of places and possibilities, and though the road eventually led me away, part of me was always tracing those dreams we never took. You were both anchor and catalyst. The ache that became my compass. I’ve carried you quietly across continents, tucked between journal pages and border stamps. Maybe love doesn’t have to last to leave a mark. Maybe it just has to open a door.

Dear Paris,

You were my first dream, my leap across the pond, and my first step into the unknown.

You taught me how to take care of myself when everything felt foreign. I arrived with a suitcase and an open mind, and left with stories and a desire to share my Paris with anyone who would listen or travel with me. You showed me beauty, history, the thrill of discovery and somehow, I fall more in love with you each time I return.

Dear Julie,

You were the girl behind the counter at the corner café in Montmartre. The one who always remembered how I liked my coffee in the morning and poured my wine the moment you spotted me walking down the street toward Café Chappe at night. You always had a dining recommendation, and it was always the right choice.

Between my tiny cups of espresso and glasses of rosé, we shared our dreams. Yours was Bali.

I still remember the sparkle in your eyes when you made me promise that if you ever made it there, I would visit. And I did. You kept your promise to yourself, and I found my way to Bali. Then, because of the family I met there during my visit to you, I found my way back again.

Dear China,

You were my test and my teacher and sometimes, you were tough. I laughed. I cried. I stumbled through tones and translations, but learned that kindness doesn’t need a dictionary. I was frustrated at times and decided you were the place I loved to hate, yet hated to love.

From shared taxis to last-minute dinners I couldn’t refuse because someone would “lose face,” to students and friends who became like family. You taught me that humanity has its own universal accent. I still carry your chaos. And, dear Xiashan, I will always consider you my home in the Middle Kingdom.

And because I can’t choose one, to all the Alinas, Alices, Rabbies, Peters, Pauls, and all the Chinese names I can’t remember, you made me fall in love with your country, your culture, and your people. You turned six months into four years and gave me an inside look at a nation that, until recently, had only begun to open its doors to foreigners.

You gave me a language written in characters instead of letters, words and numbers I still recall today, a love of real Chinese food, and a lifelong appreciation for your history. And though personal space was never your strong suit, you filled every inch of my life with color, laughter, and unforgettable stories. I am forever grateful for the time I spent with all of you.

 

Dear Bali,

You were the soft landing after the chaos of China.

You wrapped me in sunlight, incense, love, and sea salt. You reminded me that healing can be found in water, laughter, family, prayer, meditation, and the mystical ways of the Balian, Cok Rai, the healer who felt what I couldn’t explain. In your temples and in your hearts, I learned how to breathe again…deeply, gratefully, without hurry.

I discovered the joy of simple things: the sound of wind chimes over rice fields, the gamelan at the temple, the call of the gecko, and the sweet scent of frangipani that will never leave me.

Dear Ketut, Koming, Kirana, and Kiera,

You were truly my Balinese family. I fell in love with you on my first visit to Peliatan, near Ubud. You welcomed me as if I had always belonged. You invited me into your home, your rituals, your laughter, your lives.

You included me in daily offerings and temple ceremonies, took me to a Balinese wedding, and before I left, invited me back to participate in Ketut’s mother’s Ngaben, the sacred cremation ceremony. I returned, and you welcomed me not as a guest but as family.

When I left again, I knew I would return, not for days or weeks, but for months. During that time, I learned so much about Balinese culture, but more than anything, you taught me the meaning of belonging.

When I finally had to leave for the U.S., you made me promise to come back. I planned to return in May 2020, but the world stopped turning, and I couldn’t get there. You even planned a surprise for me at the airport: the new addition to your family, little Kinara.

You will always be Bali to me.

Dear Poland,

I arrived just before the world stopped turning. You became my shelter in uncertain times. I was grateful to spend the pandemic within your borders. I went from face-to-face English lessons to online sessions and found unexpected connection through a screen.

I lived in the heart of your capital, where a never-ending rotation of international flatmates kept life interesting, and human, during a time when the world felt paused. Through those encounters, I built deep friendships that carried me through the quiet months.

More than anything, you gave me a new respect for your country and your people. For the way you endured, rebuilt, and kept moving forward no matter how heavy the history or how long the winter.

Poland, thank you for showing me the meaning of resilience.

Dear Valeria, Zeka, Anu, Anil, Tarlan, and Klara,

In the revolving door of flatmates, you are the ones who stayed nearest and dearest. I can’t imagine my life in Warsaw without you in it.

Valeria, the broken tub bonded our friendship as tightly as the repair job on the hole you made.

Anu and Anil, celebrating Nepalese holidays with you and your friends brought such light into the long winters, and I’ll never forget the joy I felt when your son was born.

Zeka, Tarlan, and Klara, what can I say? We had some mad Friday nights. Cocktails, Frank Sinatra and Elvis on the turntable, friends over for those ridiculous games, like Cards Against Humanity, laughter echoing through the flat long after the music stopped and you headed to the club and I headed to bed.

I probably wouldn’t have stayed nearly five years if it hadn’t been for all of you.

Dear Bulgaria,

Your chapter started more than twenty years ago, when four teenagers from Gabrovo came to Warren, Ohio. No matter how often you say, I’ll come see you someday, it rarely happens when decades and oceans lie between.

When I was living in Poland, I received an offer to teach English at Zenira Camp on the Black Sea. It was an unexpected door to my past and a chance to fulfill a long-kept promise to visit those four young people from Bulgaria.

Not only did you reunite me with the teenagers who were now in their thirties by the time I made the trip, but you also gave me a new cast of characters through Zenira Camp and four unforgettable summers on the Black Sea.

You gave me the gift of return and reminded me that some stories really do come full circle.

Dear Hristian, Tony, Pako (Pavel), and Yani,

Our chapter began more than twenty years ago in Warren, Ohio, when I met four teenagers from Gabrovo, Bulgaria, who stole my heart.

Pako, having you live with me and Tom may have been a precursor to why I’m so drawn to homestays. It’s the best way to immerse yourself in a culture.

Hristian, you always made me laugh and still do to this day.

Tony and Yani, so young, sweet, and innocent back then, and now married with children of your own.

I can’t tell you how much it meant to reconnect with all of you after more than two decades. To see you again in your home country (even though two of you no longer live there), to meet your families, and to have you share your Bulgaria with me.

Seeing you all again was proof that time may pass, but love and laughter never fade.

Dear Tanzania,

You were another dream come true. You were my reminder of wonder.

As a little girl, I didn’t dream of sugarplums; I dreamed of epic sunsets behind massive acacia trees while giraffes and zebras wandered the plains. From your rock-strewn earth to your wide-open sky, you gave me awe. The endless stretch of the Serengeti left me breathless. I saw lions asleep beneath acacia trees, the great migration of wildebeest, and a horizon that felt infinite.

I remember the laughter of my small students who found joy in everything, the rhythm and vivid color of the Maasai market, and the sunsets that made time disappear. You reminded me that joy lives in the simple things and that gratitude can be spoken with a smile alone.

 

Dear Bright English Medium School,

I lived with you at the school. It was a forty-minute walk from the nearest town, if you could even call it that. I sometimes felt guilty eating my chapati, pasta, meat stew, and fresh fruit while you ate porridge for breakfast and rice and beans for lunch and dinner every single day. But I learned that gratitude is often served through food, and I have never met a more thankful group of children.

You were grateful for every moment we spent together. Whether it was chasing a battered water jug across the dusty field and kicking it into a lone soccer goal, or singing songs while keeping rhythm on an overturned pail. We didn’t always have electricity. I took bucket showers with water heated over a wood fire and washed my clothes by hand, hanging them to dry in the Tanzanian sun.

Thank you for showing me so much love, for reminding me that joy doesn’t come from having much, but from cherishing what you have. You gave me one of the most heartwarming experiences of my life and a forever home in my heart.

Dear Morocco,

Our story isn’t over yet. You were never part of my long-term plan, but somehow you became home.

I came for what I thought would be three months, a brief stay, a new adventure. Then I arrived in Kelaa, still recovering from an ear infection, and somehow you wouldn’t let me go. I stayed. I taught. And when another injury and uncertainty found me again, you turned healing into belonging.

I’ll never forget the stillness and silence of the Sahara or the nights in Kelaa when the call to prayer floated through the air and I realized I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Like I said, our story isn’t over yet. But when this chapter does end, know that it was one of the most unexpected and beautiful of them all. A reminder that sometimes the places we never planned to go become the ones that affect us most.

Dear People of Morocco,

Because this chapter isn’t over yet, I’ll save my unsent letter for another time. But if I were to write them now, there would be too many to count.

I could fill pages with stories of shared coffee and tea, of strangers who showed kindness before they knew my name. I could write to the shopkeepers, the desert nomads, the children who shouted greetings while they kicked their soccer ball, and the friends who refused to let me leave until I ate more.

There are so many people, places, and moments that deserve their own letter, enough, perhaps, for a book all their own. For now, I’ll just say thank you for your warmth, your patience, and your endless capacity to make a foreigner feel at home.

PS: And so, for now, I’ll leave this last letter unwritten…

Some letters aren’t meant to arrive. They just need to be written. And with this one unfinished, I don’t know where the next postcard from the edge will come from, or who will become my next Dear So-and-So. But I can feel Kenya calling. It will be another story waiting, another letter unwritten. There are so many people, not only from the road but from home, to whom I could write a thousand letters, but know this: every one of them is already written on my heart. Maybe that’s how I dream by writing letters never sent, to people, places, and moments that made my life a living map of love.

From Xiashan to Changning: Only In China – The Great Pizza Chase

From Xiashan to Changning: Only In China – The Great Pizza Chase

When it came time to leave Xiashan, it didn’t feel like just leaving a place. It felt like leaving a piece of myself behind. I hadn’t realized how much it had become home until that moment. It wasn’t just the people or the place. It was who I had become there. The laughter, the late-night hot pots, the impromptu concerts, and the everyday magic of life there had settled into the corners of my heart. “Only in China,” I thought, as we gathered one last time beneath strings of colored lights and a haze of nostalgia with voices rising in celebration and farewell. I didn’t know it then, but that night marked the beginning of my education in the art of leaving. Learning to say goodbye without truly letting go.

After I returned to Xiashan and had been there about a week, my agency told me they were sending me to a new school, but they weren’t sure which one. I could stay in Xiashan until the new school was ready for me. Of course, I was very sad about this because everyone knew how much I loved Xiashan and my school. I was fortunate to be able to meet and orient the new teachers, spend a couple of weeks with them, and share time at the school with my students and teacher friends.

Xiangnan Experimental Middle School

I found out on a Monday that I would be leaving on Thursday for my new school, Xiangnan Experimental Middle School in Changning Hunan Provence. I was happy to know my students in Xiashan were left in the capable hands of Colleen. I had the best send-off anyone could ask for. Xiashan will always be home in China to me.

Although my time in Xiashan had come to an end, we had one last evening of celebration and song with friends from months past and the new arrivals just beginning to chase their own adventures across China. That final night is tucked among my most cherished memories. Amy and Alayna were there, along with the school staff who had become family. I felt the spirits of Adrian and Jessica in the laughter that filled the room, even as Colleen, Caleb, George, and Andreas, the new kids on the block, sang a farewell they had written for me, George strumming a ukulele like it was the soundtrack to our shared story.

The words went like this:

“Sad that you are leaving. Though you will have fun.

We will still be grieving. Wendy, we’ll miss you a lot.

We’ll miss your stories, your laughter, and your great hot pots.

You will have lots of fun. We wish that you could stay.

Hot Pot

But clearly it can’t be done and when you go away,          you should remember us.

We’ll remember you.

And, when I (George) was sick on the bus, my mom said,

‘Hello George! Is Wendy there for you?’

And…I said…YES, she’s really here for me. She’s here for all of us.

And even though I’m (George) super grumpy with an IV on the wall,

She cured me with her rice cooker with which she fed us all.

Adrian and Jessica

Now she claims it took her just no time at all. 

But truly we can say, that we have lost a saint.

And Jessica and Adrian must really miss you too. 

Because we know how we will.

When you try to fill the big hole with concrete, that was really hard.

Now we must do the same.

I know that we can say, that we have made a friend.

One that we can count on, right up until the end.”

The song made me laugh and cry, a perfect echo of the months that had shaped me. It was the first of many goodbyes in years to come, each one teaching me that leaving never gets easier. You just carry the people and places with you, tucked between the folds of memory. “Missing my stories” really made me feel like Wendy from Peter Pan, forever telling tales to my lost boys, forever hovering between the worlds I had loved and the ones still waiting just beyond the horizon.

As for the IV on the wall, that part was no exaggeration. George had fallen quite ill, and a doctor made a house call, casually hooking an IV bag to the wall and showing us how to change it, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Just another “only in China” moment added to my growing collection. And as for the “hole”, well, that one carried two meanings. There was, of course, the one left by my leaving, but also the very real hole or should I say missing chunk of concrete that happened one unforgettable night when Jessica, Adrian, and I, perhaps with a little liquid courage involved along with maybe nunchaku, decided to ???  I’m not sure what we were doing or maybe I don’t want to say.  I think we wanted to forget.  Lets just say we broke our window seat.  Our repair job? Let’s just say it was as successful as it sounds. Enough said.

It was an evening filled with joy, laughter, stories, and yes, tears. Little did I know at the time that Amy and Colleen would later resurface in unexpected corners of my journey, reminders that goodbyes in this life of constant motion aren’t always final, merely pauses between the next hello.

At dawn, I watched the sun rise over the tracks, its light spilling across rice fields and rooftops like a quiet promise. My driver arrived at six, and by 7:30 I was aboard the train, the rhythm of the rails carrying me farther from Xiashan and closer to whatever waited beyond the horizon. Ten hours later, I arrived in Hengyang, Hunan Province. I then continued on a seventy-minute drive to Changning, where the headmaster of my new school greeted me over dinner. By nightfall, I was unpacking in a large apartment I would now call home, sharing the space with my new roommate, Yulia from Moscow. My heart was equal parts heavy and hopeful. It still lingered in the warmth of Xiashan, yet was already leaning toward the next story unfolding before me.

I was reminded of a quote by Azar Nafisi: “You get a strange feeling when you leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love, but you’ll miss the person you are at this time and place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” Leaving Xiashan had felt exactly like that, a small ache, not just for the people and moments I was leaving behind, but for the version of myself that had come alive there.

I woke up that first morning in Changning with that same strange feeling, that momentary disorientation when you forget where you are. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t in Xiashan or Kansas anymore. The room felt unfamiliar, and as nature called, I was reminded that I was now in the land of squatty potties. Hunan Province is famous for them, and our new flat was no exception. I shuffled toward the kitchen, still half-asleep and craving coffee, only to find there wasn’t a coffee maker in sight. Thankfully, our host from the school had promised to take us out that afternoon for orientation, so caffeine would have to wait.

Yulia, my new roommate from Moscow, and I hit it off right away. Two foreigners finding comfort in shared confusion. Fortunately for me, Yulia had studied for a short time in Suzhou and had a basic knowledge of Mandarin, a skill that would come in handy more times than I could count. We chatted over bottled water and biscuits until Rabbie, our school liaison, arrived to pick us up.

Our first stop was the police station to register as foreign residents, a standard ritual for anyone teaching in China. From there, it was off to the school itself.

I was instantly charmed by the palm trees swaying in the courtyard, a little tropical oasis tucked inside the gray bustle of the city. About 4,000 students attended the school, some living in dormitories on campus. I learned that I’d be teaching nineteen forty-five–minute classes a week to groups of thirteen-year-olds with an average of sixty students per class, with my largest group topping out at eighty-five. The sheer number of faces felt daunting, but the students’ energy and curiosity were contagious. After a warm welcome from the staff and students, we made one final stop at the bank to open our accounts.

By then, I had started collecting what I fondly called my “Only in China” moments. Those snapshots of daily life that would have seemed bizarre anywhere else but here had begun to feel oddly normal. After George’s IV had been hooked to our apartment wall back in Xiashan, I didn’t even blink when I saw a small girl at the bank, her tiny hand wrapped around an IV line attached to a makeshift pole, a thin branch her father carried like it was the most natural thing in the world. Another day, another dose of the extraordinary masquerading as ordinary.

Day one at school. I had been told I’d be teaching thirteen-year-olds, so imagine my surprise when my first five classes, three on Monday and two on Tuesday, were all sixteen and seventeen-year-olds. No biggie. We got along fine. Their English was limited, but their smiles and curiosity bridged the gap. They were thrilled to have a foreign teacher, and I was just as thrilled to be back in the classroom again.

By now, I’d been in Changning, Hunan Province just over a week and had survived my first week at Xiangnan Experimental Middle School. Our apartment was lovely, ten flights up, but still two flights less than in Xiashan. I had fully adjusted to the squatty potty life by then. Just think how strong my quads would be after five months of practice. Fridays, I quickly learned, were my endurance test. I had five classes in a row, the last of which were inevitably the rowdiest. The students’ excitement was equal parts exhausting and endearing. Teaching thirteen-year-olds, I realized, could be as chaotic and delightful as teaching first graders.

Hunan’s food was as fiery as its people…bold, flavorful, unforgettable. I missed my scooter, though, and briefly considered buying another one. Life here was good, but I still missed Xiashan and the rhythm of my days there, the faces I’d left behind. Yet, somehow, a new rhythm was beginning to form. I was discovering a new version of home in Changning…new students, new friends, and new reasons to love this unpredictable life.

It was easy to feel like a minor celebrity in a smaller city like this. Just walking down the street, saying nihao to strangers, brought bursts of delight and surprise. Their eyes would widen as if an alien had wandered into their neighborhood, and then smiles would spread, genuine and contagious. It’s in those moments I began to understand what it means to live within a culture rather than simply pass through it. I realized how fortunate I was to be not just a traveler, but a participant. Maybe I really was destined to be a nomad.

That weekend, I mentioned I might buy another scooter. They were as cheap as in Xiashan. But that idea didn’t last long. The day was warm and bright when Yulia and I decided to walk to the post office which was about 2.4 kilometers away. When we told Rabbie, our school contact, he waved his hands in alarm. “No, no, that’s so far! I’ll take you later.” We laughed and told him we wanted to walk, maybe grab lunch along the way. It took about forty-five minutes, strolling and window shopping. At one point, Yulia laughed, shaking her head. “He thinks that’s far! When I was at university in Moscow, I walked an hour and a half each way, every day, in every season, even in winter.”

Right then and there, I decided not to buy the scooter. Fifteen minutes walk to school and back wouldn’t kill me, and the weather was pleasant enough, except, of course, for the approaching rainy season. Besides, the school gave us a 200-yuan monthly taxi allowance for emergencies. Walking would do me good. And Yulia? She had earned my full respect. A woman willing to walk miles in snow for her education deserved every bit of it.

Life in Changning soon found its rhythm. Weekends were spent in the countryside with friends and friends of friends…climbing small mountains, having barbecues outside a monastery, visiting temples and pagodas, and simply enjoying the ease of unhurried days. I l was beginning to love life here…ordinary yet extraordinary. You knew the street cleaner was coming when you heard “It’s a Small World” echoing faintly in the distance. How fitting, I often thought. The more I traveled, the smaller and more connected my world became.

Then came the weekend Yulia and I decided to journey a bit further—to Changsha, the capital of our province. Another story. Another one of my “Only in China” tales.

First, a bit of context. I loved the food in Changning…spicy, delicious, and wonderfully inexpensive. But after a few weeks, even the best chili peppers lose their charm, and variety was… well, limited. Western ingredients were scarce, and sometimes all you wanted was something simple, something familiar, like cheese. And as anyone who’s spent time here quickly learns, there’s a reason my memoir is called No Cheese in China. So, Yulia and I decided to make a trip to Changsha for one reason and one reason only: food. Even if “Western food” only meant McDonald’s or Pizza Hut, we were determined. Rain or shine, we were going. If all we did was eat, so be it. Though if the weather cooperated, we hoped to fit in a little sightseeing too.

Changsha was about three hours away by bus. The first bus left at 7:50 a.m., the last bus back to Changning at 5:20 p.m.  Not a lot of wiggle room, but it was our plan, and we were sticking to it.

We caught the early bus and arrived just after eleven, greeted by a light drizzle. No problem, McDonald’s was conveniently inside the bus station. Two Big Macs and fries later (my first Big Mac in years, and oh, how good it tasted), we were fueled and ready to explore. The rain had stopped, so we hopped in a taxi to Yuelu Shan, a mountain park rich with history and scenic beauty.

By the time we arrived, it was around 12:30. We had roughly four hours before we needed to be back at the bus station. No problem, we thought. Plenty of time.

Wrong—with a capital W.

We had a wonderful afternoon wandering the park’s winding paths, snapping photos, and soaking in the view. Around four o’clock, stomachs rumbling, we decided to grab a taxi back to a Pizza Hut we’d passed earlier. We ordered a large cheese-stuffed-crust supreme to go and browsed the nearby mall while we waited. When we returned, the pizza still wasn’t ready. Finally, box in hand, we dashed out to the curb, hailed a taxi, and were promptly told we were on the wrong side of the street. So we ran. Down the sidewalk, through traffic, across the road, finally catching a cab around 4:50.

We pulled into the bus station, terrified to check the time, bolted down three flights of stairs and out the doors—no bus in sight. It was 5:22. The last bus had gone. Crap. Were we spending the night in Changsha?

Not yet.

A man standing beside another bus noticed our panic. Without hesitation, he ran over, glanced at our tickets, whipped out his phone, and started talking rapidly in Mandarin, motioning for us to follow him. We ran! Two foreigners clutching a pizza and our hopes. Up the stairs and out the doors while he stayed on the phone, barking instructions. He stopped suddenly, hung up, and said they were gone. He’d been trying to call the driver before the bus pulled out. Shit.

But he didn’t give up. “Come,” he said, and took off running again. We followed, half-laughing, half-panicked, chasing him through the station. He pointed toward the street and pointed to a car, yelling for us to get in. Before we could even buckle up, he was on the phone again, driving like a man on a mission. Ten minutes later, he veered onto the highway, weaving through traffic.

And then, like a scene from a movie, there it was: our bus, pulled over on the shoulder. He honked, pulled up behind it, and turned to us. “Go, hurry!”

We jumped out, ran to the bus, and climbed aboard, pizza still in hand. No one said a word. No one even looked surprised. The driver barely glanced up. We just found two seats near the back, sank down, and burst out laughing.

As the bus rumbled toward Changning, we dug into our pizza, cold, but perfect as the city lights of Changsha faded behind us. Another adventure. Another small miracle of kindness. Another day in China where the impossible somehow became ordinary.

Somewhere between laughter and exhaustion, I thought about how travel has a way of humbling and surprising you in equal measure. In a country where words often failed me, kindness never did. One stranger’s determination to help two bewildered foreigners chase down a runaway bus was yet another reminder that humanity speaks fluently in every language. We made it home that night—grateful, tired, and a little giddy. Two travelers with cold pizza on our laps and another “Only in China” story to tell.

 

 

Only In China: Fate, Serendipity, and a Tank Full of Trouble

Only In China: Fate, Serendipity, and a Tank Full of Trouble

Sometimes fate hides in the people you haven’t yet met, the choices you don’t know you’re making, and the places you never planned to go. I couldn’t have known then that one decision, to leave my job, pack a suitcase, and chase a dream in Paris would set off a chain of moments leading me halfway across the world to a rural village in China, a fellow Trumbull County resident I’d never met, and an unforgettable taxi ride that would leave me laughing instead of quaking about a tank full of illegal gas.

This story begins in Paris, the summer of 2014. I had just asked for a leave of absence from a job I once loved but had grown to resent, ended a long-term relationship with the love of my life, packed my belongings into storage, and pressed pause on everything familiar. With a rented flat, a suitcase, and a one-way ticket, I traded certainty for the cobblestoned unknown and moved to Paris. Things didn’t unfold exactly as planned, but that’s another story.

For nearly six months I lived the dream I’d scribbled into journals for years. I woke to the scent of fresh croissants and the sound of church bells echoing across the arrondissements. In February 2015, I returned to the U.S. unable to slide back into the life I’d left behind. I didn’t return to the YMCA, and Warren, Ohio no longer felt like home. It felt smaller than before, as though I’d outgrown it. My heart was restless, my whole being was pulled toward the far corners of the map.

China became my next leap of faith. I discovered a program that would let me study Mandarin on a student visa while teaching English. It was a perfect fit. So once again, with one suitcase and a one-way ticket, I boarded a plane to Beijing. I wasn’t fluent in Mandarin, couldn’t master chopsticks, and had never faced a squat toilet, but I was ready. After two weeks of cultural training, I found myself in a rural village so small it wasn’t even named on most maps: Xiashan, in Shandong Province.

Xiashan was the China I didn’t know I’d been seeking. The 4,000 or so residents lived in simple homes surrounded by fields and high-rise “ghost” apartments built in the hope that families would someday come. The village’s pride was its new bilingual school, where the population more than doubled when the students arrived each term. I lived in one of those empty high-rises. It was here, far from everything I’d ever known, that I fell in love with China.

It was as far from Warren, Ohio as one could get, not just in miles, but in spirit. Few people spoke English, and many had never seen a foreigner. With my light hair and blue eyes, I stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. I was a walking curiosity. My six-month visa passed much too quickly. I had thought that after spending half a year teaching in a rural Chinese village, I would be ready to return to my old life. But as the end drew near, I knew I wasn’t. Still, I had to return to the U.S. to renew my visa, and the school would need to replace me before I could return.

Life in Xiashan was simple. I bought vegetables at the street market, meat from hooks, and once even waited while a sheep was slaughtered for me. Reluctantly but determined, I went back to Warren, I immediately sent my passport, application, fees, and hopes to the Chinese Embassy. Two and a half weeks later, a ten-year multiple-entry visa was stamped in my passport. I was so sure I’d return that I had asked the school to keep my things until I did and they had graciously agreed.

Before I left China to renew my visa, I already knew where I’d be spending Chinese New Year once I returned. Not in the fireworks and frenzy of Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong, but in a quiet farming village with my co-worker Alina’s family. I couldn’t have asked for a more genuine celebration.

When I arrived in Xiashan, Alina and her brother met me at my apartment, he, thank goodness, effortlessly carried my fifty-nine-pound suitcase up twelve flights of stairs before whisking me off to their village, just fifteen minutes away. On the way, Alina reminded me that her parents were simple farmers and spoke no English. I told her I was honored to be invited into their home for such a special occasion.

Her father was waiting outside when we arrived, smiling shyly in the crisp winter air. Their home was a modest concrete building with three rooms: Alina’s small bedroom, a cooking area, and a main living space that doubled as her parents’ bedroom. There was no indoor plumbing; the toilet was a concrete trough outside, shielded only by a low wall. Yes, I had the midnight adventure of discovering it at three a.m. under a freezing sky.

I didn’t know it then, but these quiet 3 a.m. moments, stepping out into the dark, breath turning to mist, the world hushed and waiting, would become a recurring theme in my travels. In the years ahead, I’d find myself awake at that same hour in the shadow of Mount Everest and again beneath the stars of the Sahara, each time reminded how alive and present the world feels when it’s just you, the cold air, and the hum of something greater.

Her mother was already preparing a lunch of steaming baozi, soft buns filled with minced meat and served with garlic-vinegar sauce. They were delicious; I ate two and was thoroughly stuffed. Afterward, Alina translated a bit of conversation before her mother insisted I rest after my journey.

When I woke, the courtyard was alive with the evening’s preparations. Her father was butchering a chicken, slicing pork, and cleaning fish and prawns while Alina’s brother helped their mother fold dumplings for the midnight meal…symbols of luck and prosperity. As evening fell, the table filled with dishes I couldn’t always name but will never forget. We toasted the New Year with red wine her brother had brought, laughter cutting through the cold.

After dinner, we gathered on her parents’ kang, a wide, tiled bed warmed from beneath by a coal burner. A thin cushion softened the ceramic surface, and the radiant heat spread slowly through the room. We watched the televised celebration from Beijing. Just before midnight, we ate dumplings and stepped outside to light firecrackers, sending the crack and sparkle of good fortune into the sky.

Alina’s father insisted I “live” with them for the night, so Alina and I shared her warm bed, listening to distant bursts of celebration fade into quiet. In the morning, her mother poured hot and cool water into a basin so I could wash, then served mantou, plain steamed buns, and reheated leftovers for breakfast. After we ate, Alina and I wandered through the village before riding her scooter to Xiashan Lake for the New Year’s Day market and festival.

It was simple, authentic, and perfect. No luxury, no fanfare, just family, generosity, and tradition. I was profoundly honored to have been welcomed into it, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

I spent the next ten or so days quietly tucked into village life, maybe taking one bus ride into Weifang, but mostly lingering in the stillness of Spring Festival. The streets were nearly empty; no students yet, no chatter spilling from the school gates, just the sound of wind through fields and the occasional bark of a dog echoing between concrete walls. I was waiting for the new foreign teachers to arrive while finalizing my next placement with my agent. Those days passed the way still days often do, unhurried, uneventful, and somehow gone too soon.

When the time came to meet my replacement, the village seemed to hold its breath. The air was crisp and bright, the kind of quiet day that makes you feel both grateful and nostalgic at once. Knowing my time in my first Chinese home was ending, I took my scooter out for a long, ride. The dirt roads, the clusters of concrete houses, the open-air market where I’d bought vegetables and laughter in equal measure, all of it felt suspended in memory even as I moved through it.

I rode down to Xiashan Lake, at the base of our small mountain – xia meaning “beneath,” shan meaning “mountain” – the namesake of our village. And then, not by coincidence I think, I found myself pulling up in front of 1-Der-Ful Dumpling, a tiny shop where I’d eaten soon after I first arrived. Inside, women were folding meat-filled jiaozi faster than I could count, their hands moving in a rhythm older than the town itself. I sat there with my plate, the steam fogging the window, thinking about all the people and moments that had made me fall in love with this quiet corner of China.

Eventually, it was time to head back and meet the newcomers. “Small world” doesn’t even begin to describe what happened next. When I returned to the apartment, the four new teachers had already arrived. Two would share my three-bedroom flat with me until I left; the other two had the one across the hall.

I happened to be wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers shirt. Fitting, since it was a big year for the Cavs. One of the new arrivals, a guy who was rooming with the girl across the hall, noticed it.

“Hey,” he said, “you’re from Ohio? Colleen’s from Ohio too.”

“Really?” I asked. “Where in Ohio?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t know it,” he said with a shrug. “Some little town near Youngstown.”

I laughed. “I’m from a little town near Youngstown…Warren.”

His eyes widened. “Well, she’s from Cortland.”

Me and Colleen with three of the Chinese teachers

A few minutes later, Colleen came over, and we obviously both knew that Warren and Cortland neighbor each other in Trumbull County, we both just stared for a moment, then burst out laughing. Two people from the same corner of Ohio, meeting for the first time in a tiny village in rural China not even marked on most maps.

The world, it turns out, isn’t so big after all.

Life, of course, had other plans. What was supposed to be six months in China no longer had an end date. One city led to another, and then another, three in total before I’d finally leave in July of 2019 to begin a new chapter in Bali. Each move brought new faces, new lessons, and new ways of seeing the world. China had become less of a stop along the way and more of a home that kept reshaping me. I often thought back to Xiashan. To its dusty roads and quiet markets, to the people who had unknowingly marked the beginning of this long, unfolding story.

And then, as if the universe wanted to remind me that the world loves a good callback, our paths crossed again. It was Christmas of 2018, not far from that first meeting. I had traveled to Weifang to spend the holiday with a couple, Amy and Harrison, who had met in Xiashan, an American teacher and her Chinese husband, now married and building a life together.

Colleen wasn’t there when I arrived, but she was still living in the Xiashan–Weifang area, and we arranged to meet for dinner. Sitting together that evening, we couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer improbability of it all. Two girls from Warren, Ohio, who had never crossed paths back home, somehow only managed to meet up on the other side of the world, in China.

The train ride before the taxi craziness

Leaving Weifang after the holidays, I was ready for nothing more than a hot shower, my quilted pajamas, and a martini with two almond-stuffed olives. But first, there was the small matter of getting home. A journey that started with a train from Weifang to Jinan, followed by a two-plus-hour car ride to Dong’e. It’s a route I’d taken before, the kind of long-day travel that usually ends quietly. But in China, the unexpected isn’t the exception—it’s the rule.

When my train pulled into Jinan, my driver was already waiting. Because Dong’e is so far from the nearest station, it’s common to arrange shared cars. I’d used this driver several times before, so when I saw three passengers already packed into the back seat, I simply smiled, climbed into the front, and off we went.

For the first hour and forty-five minutes, the ride was uneventful. Pitch-black roads and stretches of countryside broken only by the occasional flicker of neon from a roadside shop. Then we turned down a narrow, one-lane dirt road, the kind with ditches on both sides, to drop off the first passenger. It was so tight the driver had to make one of those awkward three-point turns to get us facing the right direction again.

About ten minutes later, we turned down another single-lane track even darker than the first. The remaining two passengers got out and climbed into a small cart that was waiting for them. Side note, it was about seventeen degrees that night. And then there was one: just me and my driver, heading toward Dong’e.

I wasn’t worried; he lived there too, and we’d traveled together before. We passed through a few small villages with no streetlights, just the occasional glow from a window. And then, about fifteen minutes from town, we pulled into what looked like a small parking lot. There was one car and a shack, maybe four by eight feet. My driver honked, and a rather large man emerged, climbed into the back seat, and we started off again. I assumed he just needed a lift into town.

Well… not exactly.

About thirty yards down the road, we turned into what looked like an abandoned factory. The driver said something in Chinese I didn’t understand, then backed the car up perpendicular to a box truck. The big guy got out, opened the truck’s back doors, and to my astonishment, there was a full fuel pump inside. My driver turned to me, smiling, and said something that sounded like “just a few minutes.” I nodded, smiled back, and pretended this was the most normal thing in the world.

They filled the car from the truck, paid whatever arrangement was owed, and we drove the man back to his shack before heading toward Dong’e again. No harm done. Just another little adventure in my China life.

By the time I reached home, I was equal parts amused and relieved. I kicked off my shoes, stepped into a hot shower, slipped into my quilted pajamas, and finally poured that martini with two almond-stuffed olives. As I settled under my thick blanket, I couldn’t help but laugh. Some people collect souvenirs; I collect stories, and this one, well, could only have happened in China.

China had a way of reminding me that plans are only suggestions and certainty is overrated. From chance meetings to midnight detours, life here kept proving that the best stories never begin with “everything went as expected.” What was meant to be six months had stretched into years, and I had the feeling this was only the beginning. Fate, coincidence, and a touch of chaos seemed to follow me wherever I went and I was learning to welcome them. After all, the road was still calling, and somewhere beyond the next horizon, another story was already waiting for me.

Because in China and in life the detours are sometimes the best part of the trip.