by Chris Bolster If you open yourself up to a journey, there’s no telling where you’ll end up.
For 11 years, I was a Canada expatriate English teacher living in Greater Taichung, Taiwan. Taichung is located in the centre of the island and is the third largest city, after Taipei and Kaohsiung, with about 2.6 million people.
When I first arrived in Taiwan I couldn’t speak Mandarin and I was mystified by just about everything I saw in the city. I grew up in Langley, BC, a small town in the Fraser Valley, before the valley was swallowed up by Vancouver’s sprawl. I had never experienced living in a big city before I moved overseas. Everything from the busyness of the streets to the food vendors in rolling metal stands selling stinky tofu and the way people spoke with each other fascinated me.
I moved to Taiwan in 2001 after finishing my bachelor of arts degree and wanted to have a working holiday. I had some friends in Taiwan who recommended that I spend a year or two teaching English. Thinking travel would be good for me, I applied for my passport, sold all my worldly possessions and left on my adventure. I had no idea at the time that the trip would take up 11 years of my life and I would return with a family.
When you move to a new place you go through a honeymoon phase. Everything is new and interesting, but after a few months you settle into your job, you learn some of the language and get to know some local people. What seemed exotic before starts to become the everyday. I can’t say exactly when it happened, but Taiwan became my home.
I had a regular job at a junior high school during the day. I taught grade seven, eight and nine students about American literature and history. After school I would teach private students or teach classes of adults at a community college.
My wife Claudia, our son Nicky and I moved back to Canada in August 2012. Claudia and I agreed it would be a good idea for Nicky to be exposed to living in Canada, spending time with his grandparents, and having a childhood that resembled something like mine.
We chose Powell River because my mother has been living here for the past seven years and every time we came to visit, both Claudia and I were struck by the beauty of the sea, mountains, trees and the closeness of the community.
I’m glad I had the opportunity to go to Taiwan and experience living in a different country. It allowed me to realize that no matter how different people seem in the way they dress, the food they eat, or the way they arrange their society, they are at root people who struggle with all the same challenges that everyone struggles with in life.
Chris Bolster is a reporter at the Peak and a returning expatriate to Canada.
