Like many people, I came here to study the language. However, whenever people ask me why I started studying Chinese, I suddenly find myself unable to simply explain it. Chinese language was an easy way for me to divert my attention for a while when I was hospitalized. I was “the sick kid” ever since I turned 16, and as the nerd I have always been, I was genuinely worried about my brain getting mushy so I started studying the allegedly most complicated language in the world. I would spend most of my days on that hospital bed just reading, watching YouTube videos about science and languages, and you know, the occasional travel vlogs, but mostly just thinking about how beautiful life could be if I ever had the chance to travel around the world. Whenever I wasn’t in the hospital, I was enrolling in different language courses in my hometown, and my parents thought that since I couldn’t properly study a bachelors at the time, I might as well study Chinese at my university’s Confucius Institute.像许多人一样，我来到中国是为了学习中文。然而，每当人们问我为什么学习中文时，我发现自己无法用简单的言语解释清楚。我住院的时候，我通过学习中文来转移注意力。从 16 岁开始，我就变得非常容易生病。而且我是“书呆子”，我真的很担心我的大脑会变得不灵光，所以我就开始学习这个传说中世界上最难的语言。我在医院病床上的大部分时间都是在阅读，看 YouTube 上关于科学和语言的视频，偶尔也看旅行视频。我当时在想，如果我有机会环游世界，生活会是多么美好。每当我不用住院的时候，我就报名参加不同的语言课程。我的父母觉得，既然我当时不能好好地学习本科课程，不妨让我在大学的孔子学院学习中文。

I never thought I would go to China, let alone live here for so long. In 2016, I was invited by Xi’an Jiao Tong University to study Chinese for a month in the winter semester. Luckily, at that time I had a friend who was in Xi’an and when I received the news in the summer, my friend there suggested to me that I should visit Xi’an to experience the city first hand. Of course I agreed and came here for the first time!  We travelled to other cities besides Xi’an, such as Changsha, Luoyang, and Zhengzhou. From the very first day, I felt like I fit even, I adored the food here and the climate was extremely suitable in my opinion. My Chinese friend was surprised because he had never seen a foreigner eat duck blood, 皮蛋, durian, 毛肚, hen’s paw, pig’s leg and so on. I was in China for five weeks and then came back home. After I went back to St. Petersburg, I felt like a foreigner in Russia because China felt more like home than my actual place of birth. 我从未想过会来中国，更不用说在这里生活这么久了。2016 年，西安交通大学邀请我在冬季学期学习一个月的中文。幸运的是，当时我有一个朋友在西安，我在夏天收到这个消息的时候，朋友就建议我应该来西安看看，亲身体验这个城市的风采。我当然答应了，这是我第一次来到这里！除了西安，我们还去了其他城市，比如长沙、洛阳和郑州。自打第一天起，我就觉得自己很适合住在这里，我很喜欢这里的食物，气候也非常宜人。我的中国朋友很惊讶，因为他从来没有见过一个外国人吃鸭血、皮蛋、榴莲、毛肚、鸡爪、猪蹄等等。我在中国呆了五个星期，然后就回国了。回到圣彼得堡后，我觉得虽身在祖国，却似在他乡，因为中国比俄罗斯更像我的家乡。

I planned most of my life, however China was never on my radar. Living and working in China was totally unplanned but incredibly fascinating and worthwhile in every sense.我会规划人生，但是中国从来没有出现在我的视线中。来中国工作生活是完全出于偶然，但这一切都值得且令人神往。

I’m writing this article while I have just started reading Peter Hessler’s Oracle Bones.  写这篇文章时，我刚刚开始读彼得·海斯勒的《甲骨文》。

It all started when I was a student doing my masters in London. By accident, I got a part time job in the School of the Oriental and African studies so that sparked my curiosity in China. I thought that I should go and visit so as a student I decided to make a trip here. A bit later, when I was getting art residencies, an offer was made to me to come to Beijing to produce some art projects. I accepted this art residency position in 2009 in Beijing and my China journey officially began. Back then, Beijing was not the city that it is now. A couple years later, in 2011 to be exact, I was offered another residency in Xiamen and I can also say that this city was rather different back then. 故事要从我在伦敦读硕士的时候讲起。一个偶然的机会，我在东方和非洲研究学院得到了一份兼职工作，这激起了我对中国的好奇心。我想我应该去看看，所以当时还是学生的我决定到中国旅行。我开始申请艺术家驻地项目，之后，便有人邀请我到北京开展一些艺术项目。2009 年我获得了北京的艺术家驻地权，我的中国之旅正式开始。那时候，北京还不是现在这副模样。几年后，确切地说，在2011年，我获得了在厦门的艺术家驻地权。我也可以说，和当时相比，如今的厦门是截然不同的。

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 always had a curiosity about living in China since my family is originally from The Guangdong Province, although it was not a priority of mine. My family left China in the early 1900s and only visited periodically so what I knew about the country were really old-fashioned and idealized stories that uncles, aunties and neighbors shared with me during family reunions and mahjong evenings. I studied in Cape Town and before coming to China I spent some time in Canada and Spain where I lead different research projects. My previous boss took up a contract to head up an innovation team in China. He spoke to me previously and I was offered a position to come work here while I was working as a visiting professor at the University of the Basque Country, in Bilbao. I came to visit Xiamen when I was offered the job and was deeply impressed. The city seemed pretty relaxed and laid back and it beat my expectations about a busy Chinese city.在中国生活是怎样的，我一直充满好奇。我的家人来自广东省，但这并不是最重要的。我的家人在上世纪90年代初离开中国，之后偶尔才回国，所以我对中国的了解还停留在过去，而且非常理想化，家庭团聚和打麻将的时候，叔叔、阿姨和邻居才会跟我讲起中国。我在开普敦学习，来中国之前，我曾在加拿大和西班牙度过了一段时间，在那里我主导各种研究项目。我以前的老板签了一份合同，负责领导中国的一支创新团队。我在毕尔巴鄂的巴斯克大学担任客座教授时，他找我谈话，给我一份在厦门的工作机会。所以我就来到了厦门，这里给我留下了深刻的印象。这座城市似乎非常惬意悠闲，与我想象中中国都市繁忙的景象完全不同。

San Pedro is a small town in The Philippines and the fun fact is: Xiamen is represented by egrets and in San Pedro, our mascot is a chicken. There’s a huge statue of a chicken with an egg under it. When I left San Pedro, I was like the chicken and now I’ve evolved to become an egret.圣佩特罗是菲律宾的一个小镇。有趣的是，厦门以白鹭为代表，而在圣佩德罗，我们的吉祥物是一只鸡。有一座巨大的雕像，是一只鸡，下面有一颗鸡蛋。我离开圣佩德罗时，我就像一只小鸡，现在我已经进化成一只白鹭了。

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”。