A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with “Naga”, my Chinese teacher, around a number of very simple topics like foods, our past life in Hsinchu, and some of the differences we have discovered between Canada and Taiwan. With the exception of a brief foray into low carb diets, this is about the level of conversation I can handle these days.

We talked briefly about challenges, or the comparative lack their of in my day to day life here.

Some long term residents of Taiwan might chuckle, but just walking outside your door in Hsinchu presents some challenge; you never know when a scooter or a car might come screaming down the side walk. Crossing the street safely introduces a whole other level of difficulty. Add learning a complex language, a culture which beneath the surface is radically different from my own, and high stress work environments, and it might be easy to see how life here is far more sane.

With the exception of possibly being malled by a scooter, I do miss the challenges I faced there – the insanity. Living in a foreign land, even for the length of time I did, keeps you on your toes, forces you to constantly learn new things, and in the case of Hsinchu force feeds you a steady diet of stress. Perhaps it’s telling that I miss the workplace most of all – the hard problems, ridiculous timelines, and the difficulties in communication (I do recognize that my family doesn’t miss the amount of time I needed to normalize after work).

She brought up a salient conclusion that being in the place where you grew up can make you too comfortable, and that I need to create the conditions here that allow for the same amount growth that I experienced there (but for the sake of those around me, without the stress). Achieving that kind of growth alone might be the biggest challenge of all.