Six weeks ago I was on the Silk Road. This week I was in the Silk Road.

The first was the famous trade route which runs through Kashgar in north-west China; the second a Xinjiang restaurant in Camberwell Green, London.

It was probably only a matter of time before I went searching for China life in London.

My friend, also a former Shanghai expat, had heard of a restaurant “run by Chinese students for Chinese students” and so we went there unsure what to expect but secretly hoping it would make us feel ‘at home’, amongst our own.

When we were handed a plastic folder with a poorly translated menu we knew we had struck gold. Tucking into a meal with a ridiculous chilli to meat ratio washed down with tsingtao beer and surrounded by Chinese people and sinophiles we couldn’t have been happier. Hell, we even spoke Chinglish with the fantastic waiting staff. I was amused to hear one of them jokingly recycle a typical prejudice speaking half Chinese, half London: “Wo bu xi huan Shanghai ren. Shanghai ren f*king tight b*stards.” It seems there are more than one or two of us straddling both China and Britain.

Continue reading at Expat Telegraph.

It is now 19 days since I touched down back in London after four years in Shanghai.

When I last blogged I was finding public transport one of my biggest problems. Crossing London each morning to get to work from Chelsea was taking an hour and a half. I have now got around this problem by joining the hi-viz brigade.

Last weekend I converted my sister’s mountain bike, which hasn’t been used for 10 years, into a fully functioning commuter bike complete with flashing lights and basket. I bought myself the high- visibility tabard and helmet which are the accessories of choice for rush hour cyclists trying not to become another road death statistic. It’s the kind of get up that feels like it should automatically endow you with the skills to survey a building site or inspect a railway.

Riding sidesaddle in Shanghai in July

It makes me laugh when I think that a few months ago I was merrily sitting sidesaddle on the back of a bicycle in the streets of Shanghai employing simply the best safety precautions available- common sense. Last week, I was sent a picture of the 8ft tree my friend moved from my old flat to hers. It was, of course, loaded onto my old scooter for the purpose of relocation, casting an amusing shadow. I’m pretty sure it would be against the law to do that here.

Continue reading at Expat Telegraph here.

I have now been back in England for just over a week having lived in China for four years.

My first impressions have been those that a foreigner might have. Straight away in the taxi home from the airport, I was hit by the quality of the music on the radio and I could understand all the lyrics- a novelty. Hearing British songs that I’ve not heard for ages is a real treat. I started my new job two days after I landed. It’s in the West End which means that I wandered around in a slight daze for the first few lunch breaks- so many stylish young people, so many lunch options, so many different street fashions, and so many girls who look just like me. In Shanghai I had days where I might only see two or three other white people in a day. I felt plugged in again. These old western capital cities do have a lot to offer, I told myself.

In my first week as a Brit looking through Chinese eyes, I noticed that British people eat and drink too much and don’t look after their health enough, while staying healthy is the golden rule in China. People walk faster here, but the transport moves much much slower.

Since I can understand 99 percent of everything that is said around me (excluding foreigners speaking languages I don’t know on public transport), I have overheard the quaintest of expressions that I’ve not heard for years, including “okie dokie” and “whoops-a-daisy”. These make me smile.

Continue reading here at Telegraph Expat.

How do we do it? That was the question I kept asking myself this time last week as I packed up what was left of my life in Shanghai. After weeks of being busy sorting things out, spending time with friends and doing some travelling, the enormity of what I was about to do by leaving China hit me. Until then I had busily changed the subject, putting a positive spin on things and evading talk of how sad things would be every time a  friend looked at me bleary-eyed. It was far easier not to think about how distressing it would be when the moment came to say goodbye. And then it hit me.

It seemed non-sensical on so many levels to be leaving a city and group of people I love so much. I felt like my head had written a cheque that my heart couldn’t cash. I felt the same way before I left England for China in 2007. I kept thinking about it. Humans surely aren’t supposed to travel such long distances and be apart from those we love. If we were it would be easier. I tried to think of how I would feel if my trip home was going to be taken away: if I were told I could never return to England, see my friends and family again and start my new job. I would have been devastated. But still, mental trickery provides little comfort when you are preparing to leave a place you’ve called home.

Continue reading here…