It all started with a phone call where a friend told me about scholarships to China to study the language back in 2010. Without hesitation, or being very aware of what I was doing, I applied and the 1-year option as I had in mind did not exist. The options were 2 years to study language or 5 years to study a Degree. I thought about it, discussed it with my family and with their absolute support and only 19 years of age, I arrived in the capital of China in September 2010. Wudaokou, BLCU, friends and an unforgettable experience from the very beginning.我的中国之旅始于一通电话。2010年，一位朋友告诉我可以申请去中国学习汉语的奖学金。我毫不犹豫就申请了，我非常清楚自己在做什么。我本来想在中国学习一年，但是想取得学位只有两年或者五年的学制。经过深思熟虑，并和家人讨论，在他们的绝对支持下，2010 年 9 月，当时只有 19 岁的我来到了中国的首都北京，进入了五道口的北京语言大学。朋友以及难忘的经历，我故事的开始。

To me, China was always this place on my had-to-see list. Since I was little boy, I was fascinated and intrigued by this magical place with its rich culture and many different dishes that I only saw on TV. My dad and I used to watch all the kung-fu and Bruce Lee movies over and over again.中国一直是我一定要去的地方。我从小便向往这个神奇的国度，对其丰富的文化和各色佳肴感到好奇，而这些我只能从电视上看到。我和父亲会不断回看所有功夫片和李小龙的电影。

My Name is Bode, I’m an artist, a creative in the sports industry and a former UK National Champion in track & field. Over the past 22 years I have been fortunate to have a career in merging both of my life passions together. Moving to China 12 years ago has been one of the greatest decisions I have made, and I would like to share my story with you.我叫 Bode，我是一名艺术家，也是体育产业创意师，还曾是英国国家田径冠军。在过去 22 年里，我很幸运，能将我生命中所热衷的两种事情融入我的职业生涯。12 年前移居中国是我所做的最伟大的决定之一，现在我要与你们分享我的故事。

Hello! My name is Joyce and I come from Belgium. I’ve been living in China now for about 4 years. In the beginning, I got a job as an English teacher and at the moment I am trying to start my own business in fashion and writing a book in my spare time. They’re both a risk and I’m not sure if things are going to work out in the end, but I find enormous joy in doing those tasks and that’s what matters, right? 大家好！我叫 Joyce，来自比利时。我已经在中国生活 4 年了。一开始，我的工作是一名英语老师，目前我正试图从事时尚相关的工作，并用业余时间写一本书。这毕竟是一次冒险，我不确定最后是否会成功，但我能从中获得巨大的乐趣，这才是最重要的，不是吗？

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。