Will I Live in China For The Rest of My Life?

As I am in Europe, people always perk their ears up when they hear I have been living in China for about 10 years now. The next logical question is – will you live in China for the rest of your life? Or, how long do you plan to live in China.

When they hear I’m married with 2 kids, often they assume I will leave China. Fore the educational reasons and options.

But I’m planning for the long term.

But why does that need to mean “for the rest of my life”?

Such a massive question. That is asking until I am on my death bed. Where my body will be buried. The time I will raise my kids, and then retire.

I expect to live for another 50 years, so that Is 5 decades.

I can see myself alive in the year 2066 (50 years from now) and still walking around and fairly healthy.

Will those 5 decades all be inside China?

Jeez, how can any of us know the political environment. Maybe we’ll be living in outer space by then!

I’m going to keep an open mind on where I’ll be living for the rest of my life.

But while you may not agree, I think raising my kids in China is a good experience for them. I want them to learn Chinese, to learn about cross culture, cross border business. To understand the world from a few different perspectives, not just as an American in the suburbs.

Of course there are some tradeoffs living in China with kids. I worry about the food safety. I’m concerned about the vaccines my baby has taken, if they are real or fake. The costs keep going up. And the education for the kids will be a hefty fee each year.

As a father now, I think more about life from the standpoint of my children. So we will see how they grow up in this Chinese / Shenzhen environment and watch it closely.

I do hope to travel more – with the family. I went to a “location independent family” meetup in Barcelona and there are quite a few families doing home schooling. I will study this more – have another year or so before my oldest, Miles, needs to go to school. But the human interaction is so important, at a young age especially.

What About You? Where Will You Live The Rest Of Your Life?

So for those of you who ask me where I will live for the rest of my life, and if that will be in China – do you know where you’ll be living until your last living day?

That seems like such a hard thing to predict. Maybe a family opportunity, or a business opportunity will come up. Or we all just want a change of pace.

I’d love to know if you already know where you’ll be living for the rest of your life. Fascinating to me.

Keep Life Interesting – See Where It Takes You!

Yet I hope you can keep an open mind. See where life takes you. Travel a bit. See if you enjoy living in another location more.

I think life is meant to be experienced. There are so many places left on my list of where to go and what to see – let’s not limit ourselves so soon by committing a place where we’ll live the rest of our life.

Actually, when I was a kid, my plan was to retire in Italy. It is such a relaxing and chill place. Maybe go there in 20 years or so.

Life is amazing!