Do you want to hear my love-story with China? Okay! I was 22 years-old when I got a letter from the Embassy of China in Antananarivo. Antananarivo is the capital city of Madagascar, the country where I was born and raised. A country that I’d never left, not even once. This is how the house where I used to live looks like. Too old and out of date, isn’t it? 你想知道我和中国的“爱情故事”吗？听我给您道来。22 岁那年，我收到中国驻塔那那利佛大使馆的来信。塔那那利佛是马达加斯加的首都，我在那里出生长大。我从未出国，一次也没有。我儿时住的房子是这样的，太破旧了，对吧？

I can still remember watching a TV program on China and Chinese culture about 20 years ago when I was still very small. In the background, I heard melodious strains of Chinese music and I can still remember how the program featured key places of Chinese cultural interest and famous Chinese icons like The Great Wall. As I was just nine years old, this program formed such a deep impression in my mind that the longing to visit China one day was a longing that was present in my subconscious mind from that day onwards. I still remember 3 years ago; my editor called me into his room and asked me whether I would like to undertake a visit to China. He also added that the visit would last 10 months. I couldn’t believe what I heard. I was overjoyed. I could only mutter ‘yes sir’ because I was still suffering from the shock of having my childhood dream of going to China coming true. 我还记得大约 20 年前，那时候我还很小，看过一个电视节目，是关于中国和中国文化的，背景音乐是悠扬的中国传统音乐。我仍然记得这个节目介绍了中国的文化名胜和标志性建筑，如长城。那时我才 9 岁，但这个节目已经在我脑海中留下了深刻的印象。有朝一日我要去中国，这种渴望，自那天起便成为我潜意识的一部分。我还记得 3 年前，编辑把我叫到他的房间，问我是否愿意去中国。他还补充说，这次旅程将持续 10 个月。我简直不敢相信我的耳朵，欣喜若狂。因为儿时的梦想终于要成真了，我激动得话都说不出来，只能咕哝一声“是的，我愿意”。

My journey in China began back in 2018, when I saw a flyer at my university to study abroad for one semester. At that time, I recently won a prize to receive a free passport through a drawing so it just made sense to apply. When I applied I wasn’t thinking I’d actually get selected but come fall semester 2018 I was on the plane to Harbin, China with 11 other students from my school. 我的中国之旅始于 2018 年，当时我在大学看到了一张传单，内容是出国留学一个学期的项目。那时，我抽奖获得了免费护照，所以我才申请了这个项目。我申请的时候，万万没想到真的会被选中。到了 2018 年秋季学期，我和同校的 11 名学生搭上了飞往中国哈尔滨的航班。

“Maybe you were a Chinese person in your past life.” Over the 8 years that I have been living in China this is the, somewhat corny, jokingly way some of my Chinese friends replied to my enthusiastic accounts of my experiences here. And while I don’t believe in reincarnation, I do think that some of us are blessed with the chance to enjoy a second life, and sometimes if we are lucky, it might be as good a life as the one I enjoy in China. “也许你前世是个中国人。” 我生活在中国的 8 年里，一些中国朋友对我的经历就是这样描述的，有点老套，打趣的措辞。虽然我不相信轮回，但我确实认为有些人有幸享受第二人生。有时候想想，如果我们足够幸运的话，就能来中国享受精彩的人生。

* Was it every time I visited a new big city as a child and declared I’d live there someday? — In hindsight, “big” is a relative term, since we considered them big, but most of them had a population smaller than Xiamen does now. Still, I was always drawn to cities. * 小时候是不是每次去一个新的大城市，都会说总有一天我会住在那里？ ——如今看来，“大”是相对的，只是我们认为它很大，但大多数城市的人口都比现在的厦门少。尽管如此，我总是被这些城市所吸引。