I’ve been a trailing spouse in China for six years. Until recently, everyone I’ve met immediately wanted to know, “Why did you move here?” In recent weeks, I’m more likely to get a different, but related question: “Why are you staying?” My answer remains the same: I love China, and I love the life my husband and I have built for ourselves here.
These days, when China has been making alarming headlines as the origin point of the coronavirus epidemic, this may not be the most popular or relatable opinion. But I’ve been a China nut for my entire adult life.
Growing up with a German father and a French mother, my life has always revolved around multiculturalism. At the age of 19, I began studying English and Chinese while pursuing an international business degree at a French university. (Upon reflection, the main reason I chose Chinese rather than another language was my desire to be able to communicate with a quarter of the world’s population. What can I say — I’m a chatterbox!)
Although my course was focused on economics, I fell deeply in love with China’s 5,000 years of history and culture, especially after spending one semester in Beijing and another in the southern province of Guangxi. After graduation, finding my way back to China and staying there long-term was high on my bucket list. While I tried staying “in the game” with China-related projects at work, I had to wait eight long years and until married life until I got to live their again full-time. This is a big difference between me and other expat wives I’ve met, whose journeys generally began with their husbands coming home one day saying, “Honey, my company is asking me to move to China, and for the sake of my career, I think it would make a lot of sense that we go there.” In our case, it was years of me hinting and prodding, “So, are there any opportunities in China? What about China? I heard they’re looking for people to go to China, isn’t that right?”
Eventually, an opportunity came up for us to go… well, for my husband to go. As he left for Shenyang, a provincial capital in Northeast China, for his new assignment as an engineer in the automotive sector, I reluctantly stayed behind in Munich for six more months to honor my professional commitments as a leadership development trainer.
After taking as many business trips and vacations as possible to Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang, I finally joined him in January 2015. Our first order of business was to move from his hotel room into a lovely apartment overlooking the Hun River. In Germany, the highest we had stayed was the 4th floor. Now, we got to roost higher than the birds and have an awesome view from our sunny 31st floor apartment.
From thrilling highs to crashing lows
Remember, China was nothing new for me; I had been the one pushing for the move, and I thought I had it all figured out. The timing was a bit off, but nothing I couldn’t manage. Overall, I would give this move a 13 out of 15 on the Gupte Scale:
- 4.5 out of 5 for the destination… all of my Chinese friends went “Shenyang? Why would you want to move there, of all places?!” But, I was undeterred. I was moving to the “real China,” and it would be awesome!
- 4.5 out of 5 for the resources… I spoke the language, I was confident that I could find work, I loved Chinese culture, food, and all the rest. I would be fine. Getting a work permit was tedious, but since I got started on the process before my official move, it was doable.
- 4 out of 5 for the timing… had we known about the move earlier, I could have arranged things better with my employer and had a smoother career transition. But we made it work, with me commuting between Germany and China for our first six months.
At first, my trailing spouse life was just as thrilling as I had expected. We were reunited and eager to explore this beautiful country; I found plenty of work to keep me busy and quickly established an international circle of friends. I was happy… until I suddenly wasn’t. After two years of pushing myself and ignoring the warning signs of insomnia, anxiety, and irritability, I completely burned out in June 2017. The truth is that I had been juggling three jobs, including one that kept me up all hours of the night, because I had wanted to avoid burning bridges with German employers.
As my seemingly perfect life came crashing down around my ears, I stopped working, went into therapy, and began the process of rebuilding everything from the ground up. Yet I still had incredible luck on my side: one of my acquaintances in Shenyang was a trained psychologist who helped me get to my feet and accompanied me in my recovery even beyond his own return to Germany. I also had a strong support network: my incredible husband, my best friend (in Sri Lanka, but always a video chat away), my family in Germany and France, and all my new friends in Shenyang, of course.
Eventually, my journey of self-discovery led to me founding my own travel services and coaching company, and becoming a much more self-reflective and grounded person. I have China to thank for that, too.
Navigating uncertainty
My learning curve for establishing my own company in a foreign country was steep, but I had amazing guidance from Chinese friends — including two who are now my colleagues — and my husband. His support has gone so far that, when his expat contract ended in the summer of 2019 and he was required to return to Germany for his company, we agreed that I should stay in China while he works on finding another assignment here.
Until then, our marriage is back to being a long-distance relationship — this time, with the COVID-19 outbreak complicating matters. A lot of international flights and company plans are being reevaluated; no one quite knows what will happen here in the coming months. And in the weeks since I began working on this post, coronavirus has spread beyond being a Chinese problem. On the contrary — while China is slowly getting back on its feet, new cases keep popping up in the United States, Italy, India and other countries around the globe. This has made life harder for everyone, but in a strange way, has also made us all feel less alone.
If living in Shenyang as an expat partner has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is impossible. In Germany, you need proper qualifications to do anything professionally and people are more likely to know me — or think they do. I always felt boxed in. In contrast, being a foreigner in China has been liberating! Here, I get to decide who I want to be, and people give me a chance to do what I say I can do. As a coach and a trailing spouse, I’ve found that a relocation can be the starting point for an unlimited journey of self-discovery.
