Name : Juan Miguel Ortega Quesada

姓名：刘君浩

Country of Origin : Costa Rica

国籍：哥斯达黎加

Occupation : PhD Candidate, East China Normal University, Shanghai

职业：华东师范大学博士生

Years in China : Six years in China 2014-2018, 2019-2021

在华居住时间：6年（2014-2018,2019-2021）

One would suppose that journeys have a beginning, a definite point of no return from which life inflects and your soles step into unknown paths bestowed with new adventures. Any beginning is arbitrary, choices in a storytelling plot. I, for instance, choose to mark the start of my journey to China one random afternoon at the office where I was working when I got a mail saying that I had been awarded a scholarship to do a master in anthropology at Xiamen University. After that moment, a series of unsuspected events took place, events that I now call my life, my Chinese life, my journey.

人们认为，旅行就是一个起点，没有回头路，从这里开始，生活发生改变，你即将踏上未知的旅程，开始全新的冒险。故事情节总是由一次不经意的选择而展开。比如，某天下午我在办公室收到一封邮件，说我获得了攻读厦门大学人类学硕士的奖学金，从那一刻起，意味着我的中国之旅拉开帷幕，意想不到的事情接二连三地发生，这些事情我现在称之为生活，我的中国生活，我的旅程。

I planned for nothing; I had no established intentions. I had no interest in Chinese history or culture or its booming economy for business’ sake. My knowledge of mandarin was null, an empty blank page. I came purely out of adventure, looking for other ways to explore life and to understand what I was capable of doing. I learnt Mandarin six months after arriving in China and this allowed me to take the courses for my masters, which were taught in Chinese. Everything in between arriving and today has happened in magic and unsuspected ways; the way life happens, I guess.

我没有什么计划，没有既定的目标。我当时对中国的历史文化以及蓬勃发展的经济没有兴趣，只是为了来学习。我一句普通话也不会讲，完全是一张白纸。我来这儿纯粹是出于冒险，探索新的生活方式，了解自己的能力。来到中国六个月后，我学会了普通话，开始学习用中文授课的硕士课程。来中国至今，所发生的一切都非常神奇，难以预料，我想这就是生活吧。

Xiamen was the first glance that I had of this place that now lies so close to my heart. In Xiamen, I had shocking, amazing, emotional, and quotidian experiences that let me become more connected to the Chinese way of living. This city has given me some of the most precious people in life; people with whom I was destined to meet and without whom I could not imagine this journey. I learnt to be conscious of my embodied difference every time I got children afraid of my long curly hair or my weird foreign face. I also experienced generosity from strangers in ways that I had not known before. I learnt to receive everything with joy, the scared gazing and the warm smiles because, in the end, everything has come together to constitute the mosaic of my understanding of what living in China means.

厦门这座城市，第一眼望去，就感觉离我的内心如此贴近。在厦门，感受喜怒哀乐、日常琐碎，这些经历都让我更加适应中国的生活方式。这座城市赠予我生命中最宝贵的人，我注定要与他们相遇，没有他们，这段旅程将变得难以想象。每当有孩子害怕我卷曲的长发或奇怪的外国面孔时，我都会意识到我们之间的确存在差异。陌生人还会对我慷慨相助，这是我之前没有想到的。我学会乐观地接受一切，不管是害怕的眼神还是温暖的微笑，因为这一切最后都将汇集在一起，构成一幅画卷，让我明白生活在中国的真正意义。

I remember one day; I was in a faraway rural area in Fujian doing fieldwork practice for my graduation. Walking around town, I got to a house where the door was opened. Some children were playing inside the threshold and I came closer to talk to them. One of the kids approached me and asked me in a very serious manner: “Are you a monkey?” I guess that my laughter startled him more than my looks and until now he still may think that he talked to a monkey.

记得有一天，为了毕业实践，我在福建一个偏远乡村做实地考察。我在镇上走了一圈，来到一栋房子前，门打开了。一群孩子在里面玩耍，我走近与他们交流。其中一个孩子走向我，非常认真地问我：“你是猴子吗？”我哈哈大笑，笑声可能比长相更让他吃惊，直到现在他可能还认为当时他在和一只猴子说话。

That is how it has been for me in China: My presence, somehow disruptive, has adapted to give and receive the way people do it in different contexts: in the faraway town, in the city, at university, among friends and with strangers. I have been fortunate to see and feel the many versions of China that thrive and strive together. I have learnt to deal with notions of form over content. I have challenged my standpoints to get closer to my friends. I continue learning and sometimes on the bus I still will scare out a child or two. But then we smile at each other and the journey goes on.

这就是我在中国的故事。在某种程度上，我带来的是些许不平静，不过，不管是在遥远的城镇、城市、大学，还是在朋友和陌生人之间，我已经适应了人们在不同情况下的礼尚往来。我很幸运，能看到，并用心感受到不同视角下中国的繁荣发展。我也逐渐理解了形式大于内容这一概念。我也调整了自己的立场，以与朋友拉近距离。我也不断学习。在公交车上，有时我还是会吓到一两个孩子，但随后我们给予彼此微笑，然后继续我们的旅途。

Now I have been living in Shanghai for two years. But Xiamen will always be my city, the one where I built my first memories. Every time I go back, I have the feeling of coming back home. I feel that I know its corners: here we had that amazing picnic, there I walked around the lake at two in the morning. Here I love the way the trees grow and form a meshwork of roots and lianas. There I love to walk over the sea. Here I love the smell that comes out of the small windows at dinner time and disperses all over the narrow streets like an invitation to stay. There I love the messy and bizarre juxtaposition of places, people, sounds and smells. Corners and open spaces, I possess them and they possess me and will stay in the crooks of my heart forever.

现在我已经在上海生活了两年，但厦门将永远在我心中，因为它是我中国记忆的开始。每次我回去，我都有一种回家的感觉。我熟悉厦门的每个角落：我们在这里进行很棒的野餐，在那里凌晨两点绕着湖边散步。我喜欢这里树木的生长方式，它们的根和藤形成的网状结构。我也喜欢在那的海边行走。我喜欢这里晚饭时间从小窗里飘出的香味，弥漫在狭窄的街道上，就像在邀请我驻足回味。我也喜欢那的环境、人群、声音和各种气味交织在一起。各种角落和空旷地带，我拥有它们，它们也拥有我，并将永远停留在我的心坎里。

A little bit on his hometown：

介绍一下Juan Miguel的故乡：

I come from a very small town in Cartago, the City of Mist, in Costa Rica. My village lies on the slopes of one of the tallest mountains in the country. It is called Cerro de la Muerte (Death’s Mount) because it can get really cold and people died trying to crossing before roads were built. Despite its name, my town is not ominous at all, just a few houses scattered over prairies and forests with tempered weather all year long. That is why even with all my love for Xiamen I still cannot stand its weather; it is too hot for this body of mine.

我来自哥斯达黎加“雾都”卡塔戈的一个小镇。我的村庄坐落在Cerro de la Muerte的山坡上，Cerro de la Muerte被称为死亡之山，因为它有时会变得非常冷，而且在道路建成之前，人们试图穿越这座山的时候，可能会付出生命的代价。虽然它被称作“死亡之山”，但我的小镇一点也不可怕，在草原和森林上零星散落几间屋子，一年四季都是温和的天气。即使我如此热爱厦门，我也无法忍受这的天气，因为我总觉得太热了。

作者：刘君浩 翻译：潘泽彬

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