Tag: nostalgia

Suddenly it is okay to be cliché

~ Li-Anne Krol ~ Leave a comment

The holidays are the peak of cheesyness. Once Christmas comes around, things you normally do not want to be near to suddenly seem charming and cosy. This light veneer covers the few weeks around Christmas and the few days afterwards feel weirdly bleak. New Year’s does not have the same cosyness and atmosphere attached to it. Rather, we are all reminded of goals that are more or less realistic we will hold ourselves to. 1 January holds a strange place in our hearts, a date to start something new but at the same time nothing really changes.

So let us think back once more to those magical days filled with things we only accept around Christmas. An incomplete list:

  1. Stars on trees. Or generally ornaments in trees. Tacky Christmas balls, shiny tinsel, fake snow, anything that is bad for the environment.
  2. Christmas stables. Real ones, wooden ones, silhouettes, dolls, even with actual people and animals (though no real baby please).
  3. Sleighs, especially the big ones with one or two horses in front. The fact that I have never ridden one probably does not help.
  4. Sleighbells. To be honest, after hearing Christmas music for multiple weeks my tolerance is almost at its end, but it remains thoroughly charming for much longer than it should.
  5. Church. I get this weird nostalgia for attending mass, in a beautiful church with this friendly priest and all these kind and warm people. Not that I have not been disappointed enough times in real life.
  6. A big piece of meat as the centerpiece. In this time of promoted sustainability and less dependence on meat, somehow we have not evolved enough yet to get a Christmassy feeling without a bizarre amount of meat on the table.
  7. Traditional Christmas clothes. Whether it is a hat, an (ugly) sweater or the Santa Claus outfit. It all seems perfectly reasonable to wear these few days a year.
  8. Eating crazy amounts of (unhealthy) food. Normally I get side-eyed by most people around me when they see how much I (want to) consume, but not around the holidays. We all get to share in the fun.
  9. Asking for gifts in huge quantities. Christmas is a maximalist dream. Catalogues are being scrutinized to ensure no potential gift is left off any list.
  10. Lights. There is an inordinate amount of light everywhere around Christmas. Inside the house, outside the house, in the street, in the store. It will be quite impossible to find any darkness for a few weeks.

More small things I miss about China

~ Li-Anne Krol ~ 1 Comment

Nostalgia only gets worse the further you get from when things took place. Granted, it has only been half a year since I moved back to the Netherlands. It is probably a mix of being afraid I am stuck somewhere I tried to escape and being asked about China a lot (I am an expert after all).

I am also again in a bigger city which makes me probably see the differences a lot sharper. So here is some other stuff I noticed I am missing.

  1. Feeling no remorse about ignoring people on the street who want to sell me something.
  2. Blending in with the crowd.
  3. Mobile payments being quick and easy.
  4. Big shopping malls with food courts.
  5. Being high and having a view of a sprawling city.
  6. Mountains.
  7. Parks with older people exercising and being way too good at tai chi, wushu or stretching.
  8. Chinese chess, mahjong or playing cards on the street.
  9. The variety of vehicles on the road.
  10. Zooming past people biking as fast as you can walk.
  11. Asking for something to get repaired and having someone come over the next day (even though it probably will not really help).
  12. Stores being open 7 days a week until 22.00 in the evening.
  13. Going to the newest restaurant because new stuff opens every month.

Conveniently, this is also a great way to remind myself of all the things I will be able to look forward to once I have a chance to go again. On the other hand, there were many things infuriating and frustrating about life in China.

Life in your own country just does not seem really exciting somehow. But I know very well that I am also very spoiled. Luckily, the good thing about having lived abroad for a while is being able to deal with spoiled people. Even if it is just yourself.

I remember that wanting to tell people the expat life has its glamorous moments, but in the end local life is largely the same anywhere. Something I should also tell myself now.