Running Away to China at 20: A Love Letter to Uncertainty

   At age 20, I booked a one-way ticket to China on a whim. No plan, no mandarin. Just a gut feeling there was more to life.

Up until that point, I was sold on the idea that adulthood was finding a reasonable job and working really hard. Weekends are for fun and dreams are meant for sleeping. Even though I'd always expressed interest in living a big life in LA, where I would be an actress and I'd travel the world, a lot of those ideas lived in my journal and I started to lose faith that something like that could ever happen. My future became more logical and sensible. "I'll be a lawyer. Or maybe a doctor? Could I work in broadcasting? No wait, I'll be a nurse."

   So I did the rational thing and became a nursing assistant and started planning a route for school so I could become a registered nurse. Only that wasn't what I really wanted. It's what I was told made sense. I'd had my intuition knocking in my head saying that I could do anything I wanted, but I shut that down real quick. Until one day I didn't.

   The guy I was in a relationship with at the time joked about the idea of moving to China to become English teachers. I loved that idea, it sounded so different. I had never left North America before, nor had I ever been on a trip without parental figures involved, so this was a perfect opportunity to get away and find myself. Nursing school could wait. The joke became serious, so we booked our tickets and sorted out visas. The next thing I knew, I was saying goodbye to my family at the SeaTac airport, and boarded my flight to Chengdu, a Chinese mega-city with a population of 10 million. I couldn't tell if I was filled with terror or excitement. And no, I didn't know any Mandarin before moving there. But being freshly 20, I knew I'd figure it out. Side note: This is exactly what your 20s are for.... Being super messy and impulsive lol.

    We arrived around midnight and got straight into a taxi. The air felt different. The sights and smells were almost etherial. I'd never experienced anything quite like it. We drove past a tennis court, where people were playing this late. In fact, so many people were out and about! Coming from a very small town in Washington, we certainly weren't outside in the dark; and if we were, it meant we drove there. I could feel fears melt away, and excitement became the main character. It was a little after 1 in the morning when our stomachs signaled hunger.

We walked around, looking for a place to eat. Chengdu is known for some of the spiciest cuisine on the planet. And guess who used to hate spicy food? Yeah, me. I couldn't even handle a little bit of hot sauce, let alone Sichuan peppers. But we found a place on the street, it had so much character. Imagine a small garage with a few seats and not even proper doors. They made me a bowl of noodles with some veggies, sans spicy condiments. The owner shot me a weird look when my friend, who could speak Chinese fluently asked them to leave that out.

   I remember that first night so well, and look back on it with a fond heart because I think that was the first time I felt pure freedom, almost a daunting amount of it. I didn't know anyone, besides the boyfriend and friend. If I wanted to get by, I'd need to learn a whole new language. I was in a foreign land, far away from everything I'd ever known, and I felt right at home.

   That whole year in China, I probably learned more than I had in the 20 years I had experienced prior. I went from not being able to order a latte in the morning, to eventually being able to hold conversations with the taxi driver, telling him where I'm from, why I live in China, what I think about it and so on. With my parents being half the world away, they were no longer my resource for help. I was. I definitely experienced hardships over there and it was not all rainbows and butterflies. But I learned how to take care of myself physically, mentally, financially, spiritually. Nothing was off limits anymore.

Suddenly the idea of moving to Los Angeles to pursue film and tv became so easy. After all, I had moved across the world where I didn't speak the language and figured that out. It was like I unlocked a door and on the other side was the life I'd always dreamed about. I went from "maybe I'll be a nurse" to "I know I can do anything I want." So all this to say, if a wild idea keeps circling back, it might be a nudge worth listening to rather than a random thought. The logic comes later, but the leap has to come first.

All the best,

Sydney

P.S. I love spicy food now.

My first Christmas away from family. Was so grateful to my friend Lei Lei to help me celebrate.

I had an abcess on my tooth, and since I was not fluent in mandarin, the doctor started drilling without any numbing medicine and I screamed!

There was a quaint little field outside my apartment where I went to train everyday.