The big plan – 1 year in Asia

Moving abroad isn’t something we do overnight. Even when it’s our third time moving to another country, it requires a lot of preparation. Looking back, our preparations for our year in Asia began in October 2019 when we enrolled in a Mandarin Chinese course in Las Palmas. At that time, we didn’t know which country we would be living in or which language we would need. However, since we had just returned from Taiwan, where Chinese was spoken, we decided to enroll in a Chinese course. Would you wonder if I tell you that, after already speaking 5 languages, Chinese is really difficult?

Next steps were taken last summer, deciding on where we wanted to live for a year & making the big plan. We decided rather quickly that we would like to live a longer time in a Chinese speaking country. Our goal is to improve our Chinese language skills and fully immerse ourselves in the local culture. There’s a big difference between being a tourist, just passing through, and actually living in a place where you get to know the shopkeepers & your neighbors after you bring down the dustbin every morning. So that’s part 1 of the plan. Next came the idea, let’s travel a couple of months in other countries before the course begins.

In September we started looking for Chinese language schools in different countries. In the end we found the Language Center at the Cheng Kung University in Tainan, in the south of Taiwan, which we really liked. When travelling in Taiwan in 2019 we liked the city as well (English doesn’t bring you far in this city). Where are we going to before class starts? We’ve been reading online lots of information about different countries & then we came up with Vietnam, for which a 30 day tourist visa is possible. But, if it’s “only” 30 days we’ll need to go to another country first. Where? Thailand. Yes, we’ve visited Thailand already 2 times for a month & we’ve driven the first time from south to north & the second time from north to south, but there were so many times we’ve said to each other, “That’s for the next time.” So now Thailand, will be partly a revisit & going to the places that we kept for next time. But first of all, when we start our big move, we go for a week back to our roots, Antwerp, Belgium, where we’ll visit our family & friends from the good old days.