Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
During the Christmas of 2014, I was starting to feel like I needed a
change (see post). When I got back to work, it was increasingly obvious that I needed
to make a move. But should I move teams/companies? Travel around the
world? Go back home? It took me the next several months to figure out just
exactly what I wanted.
Decision Making
Instead of trying to decide exactly what I wanted to do, (one decision
with all the choices), I made a series of decisions with fewer choices. It not
only made making the final decision easier, but it also prevented me from
getting overwhelmed at any one stage of the process to not continue.
1. Seattle/US/North America: Stay vs.
Leave
The very first question I had to ask myself; did I want to continue
working or go overseas? This one was relatively easy for me to answer. As
mentioned in my previous post, I felt like switching teams or companies was
only a temporary band-aid fix and so leaving US was the right
decision.
2. Moving: Short-term Travel vs. Longer-term
Move
The second decision in my tree was to decide if I would travel
around the world or move to a new country and try to live there. Maybe it's
because of my internships, but I really enjoy living somewhere (3+ months) and
feeling like a local. I
also felt like staying in one place would allow me to push myself to not get
too comfortable as opposed to travelling where you don't stay long enough to
get comfortable. Again, this choice was relatively easy and I chose to move
longer-term and live in a new country.
3. Asia: China vs. Taiwan?
After I decided I wanted to do something longer-term, I knew that I
wanted to live in Asia, specifically somewhere where I could use/improve my
Chinese. Although I did have a 4-month internship in Shanghai, I felt I
could have used it more effectively (a post for another time). I decided on China and Taiwan mostly because of familiarity; I
had interned in China and my family was from Taiwan.
Choosing between China and Taiwan was the decision I spent the most time
on (several months). I asked many people about their experiences both living, working and
studying in both China and Taiwan. It felt essentially like there would be a
lot more job opportunities in China, but living in Taiwan was more
comfortable/Western-like. After talking with people and thinking about it for more than a month, I felt
Taiwan was a better fit for me for a couple of reasons.
Culture + Chinese Characters
When I was in Shanghai, I felt very uncomfortable. It's not that
everyone was mean, but there was not a lot of common courtesy. I remember waiting in line for more than
half an hour as people cut in front of me or yelled louder than
me. Another really annoying thing was that I couldn't go onto Facebook,
YouTube or check my email without going through a VPN. Finally, China uses Simplified, which I have never learned when studying Chinese (another post?!); if I learned the Simplified characters before Traditional, I would have to re-learn a lot. Taiwan, compared to Shanghai, felt a lot more polite, friendlier, and I could actually recognize the Chinese characters.
Relationships
One of the biggest lessons I learned from Shanghai was the importance of relationships in Asia. I remember trying to find a badminton coach in Shanghai online was almost impossible. I ended up asking my coach from Toronto to email
her friend in Shanghai who talked with a badminton coach not in my
area who finally introduced me to someone who was; it took 4 people before I
actually found what I wanted. China is very big and the city I chose would not necessarily have a good network of people I could contact. However, in
Taiwan, I had already had some contacts (family, friends, mentees) that could help me out. It also helped that the city I
wanted to live in, Taipei, is where seemingly 99% of Taiwanese people are
from or know someone there.
4. Taiwan: Work vs. Study
After deciding Taiwan, I was faced
with essentially my last major decision: work or study? While at
Microsoft, I talked with the engineering manager for Taiwan and another from China; they both essentially said they would really like someone with
international (ie: North America) experience (why? That's for another post). In the end, it boiled down to making sure I actually liked what I was doing. Moving to live in a new culture/country is pretty nerve-wracking. Add in trying to work and represent the "Western" workforce while also following the local working culture would be even more stressful. Instead of stressing myself out by living and working in Taiwan, I decided I would get used to seeing if I liked just living first by studying Chinese in Taiwan.
Final Decision: Move to Taiwan and Study Chinese
At the end of the day, instead of trying to choose from many options, I
tried to break it down into more decisions. Stay or leave? Travel or move?
China or Taiwan? Work or Study? At each decision, I had to go back and think about
what I really wanted and be consistent. Even though I broke my foot just days before
I going to Taiwan (another post for another time), the
decisions I made were still sound. I ended up coming to Taiwan 6 months
later than I originally planned, but feeling just as good about my decision now
as I did before I broke my foot.
