By Louie-An Pilapil

Editor’s note: This is part of our continuing series, appearing Tuesdays, on Filipinos settling abroad. If you’re a Pinoy expat (or have lived overseas), we’d love to hear where the diaspora has led you. E-mail us at editorial@pinoycentric.com.

I never thought my red couch would grow on me. Yes, it’s comfortable and looks fairly new, but red hasn’t been my color for ages. As a child, all my stuff was in red: notebooks, bags, doll dresses, hair accessories, T-shirts. No one in my family could explain why crimson had such a pull on me that everything I owned had to have a touch of red. And then the blue phase took over and red simply started to become oppressive to me.

So having a red couch that matches the red chairs of my dining set made me think twice about moving in. But an expiring lease and the ease of lugging my things into a pad that’s just a building away from the one I was about to vacate won out. Red furniture it is then, which meant I had to shush the protestations of my inner interior designer.

I had to silence the voices in my head while I prepared for the big move to China over a year ago. All they ever did was whisper to me that I couldn’t make it, I didn’t know what I was getting into, I’d never been too far away from my family before, I’d soon have little or no contact with the friends I’d come to rely on for laughs and insight, I’d be all alone.

Despite the fear, I had to stand my ground and continue with the preparations. These annoying voices had been in my way long enough and it was high time I ignored them. I got the job in China. I wanted that job. I immediately asked my roommate for a CD of Pimsleur Mandarin 1 so I could learn how to say “I don’t speak Chinese” in Chinese. Pretty soon, I was off to Shenzhen in the People’s Republic armed with nothing but a few phonetically memorized Chinese phrases and guts of steel.

Crossing the border from Hong Kong was a feat in itself and I was so relieved when I finally got to the hotel. I went inside my room (I was billeted in a serviced apartment for a week to give me time to look for a place) and started to unpack. At that moment, in between sobs, it dawned on me that my life was about to change in ways I never could imagine. I began to feel what every father, mother, brother, or sister who had left home for greener pastures have gone through. Tightly woven family ties make it difficult for Filipinos to leave even when they need to. I suppose Westerners from rich countries have an easier time adjusting to new environments because they’ve always been encouraged to be mobile. They leave in the spirit of discovery, not to earn money to send their children to school.

I left because I was looking for adventure and craving change. Some people don’t need to move to another country to live the creative life but I did. There is something about being in an alien environment that toughens you up and, expectedly, breaks you. In my first few months here, I found that the simple task of looking for the nearest ladies’ room in a mall could be challenging, to say the least.

In China, I had to talk while using my hands, something locals found strange and amusing. I had to be extra alert and observant and find out what a person is trying to say through gestures and body language. I’ve learned how to laugh at myself and the silly things I’d had to do to communicate. I knew I had to be zen-like to survive or to simply keep myself from slitting my throat every time I get beef when I order chicken.

I’ve also had to deal with loneliness that gets unbearable at times. I’m thankful for the new set of friends I’ve made here, Filipino and foreign, who continue to make my stay in this fishing-village-turned-boomtown into the adventure that I imagined it to be. Of course, I keep in touch with the ones I have back home and those who have gone to distant lands way before I did. I talk to my family every week, and my mother keeps me updated on the latest local showbiz gossip by e-mail and mobile phone.

This sojourn has showed me that distance has no bearing on strong relationships and that, in the absence of friends, the best cure for the blues is (a) a DVD marathon, (b) the company of a good book, and (c) an impromptu shopping spree.

Self-discovery is inevitable, and I now know that I love staying in and sleeping until noon on weekends. I love doing the laundry but hate ironing. I turn the TV on not to watch but for noise. I am one of a few people who can watch movies all day without their brains oozing out of their noses. Massages and dragon fruit are heavenly and I’m addicted to them. I can leave an apartment I adore if the landlady is an avaricious miser and move into a new pad that has red furniture.

I can learn to love red again.

Louie-An Pilapil is a copy writer now based in Shenzhen in the People’s Republic of China.

Photo of Shenzhen’s Luohu District by Melvin Recon
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