Temporary never is

When you leave a place, thinking it's temporary...well, it never is, is what I've learned from two years of expat life. When you talk to expats in HK (or Tokyo for that matter) and ask them how long they've been here, they tell you "well...I was supposed to be out here for one year, but it's ended up being 13 years now." And literally, I shudder.

When I left my heart in SF for the soul-crushing land of Japan, I thought: one year...two years max. But two years have passed since I left my beloved SF, and the horizon for going back is still indefinite. The US economy isn't doing any better, the opportunities are in Asia and it just doesn't really make sense yet. But while I appreciate the great job opps and convenient living in HK, my soul misses SF. I miss my gentrified-with-remnants-of-grittiness neighborhood of SoMa. I miss shopping at Whole Foods and walking up 4th Street to the FiDi or downtown. I miss the yuppies and the hippies and the yippies and sometimes, even the hipsters. I miss the city-wide obsession with good food and good drink, the pursuit of farm-to-table dining and the cuisine ranging from $4 burritos to $200 upscale fare. I miss the unique and creative mom-n-pop stores and restaurants such as Humphry Slocombe - those amazing little shops that sprout from a single person with a dream and a vision, brought to fruition. I miss the city where it's uncouth to drive pretentious cars (because well, it's pretentious) and cool to drive environmentally friendly cars. I miss the humidity-free weather and the cockroach-free sidewalks. I miss having a dining room and kitchen big enough to host dinner parties for friends. But most of all, I miss my friends.

The thing about me is that I'm a fairly boring person whose main joys in life are just hanging out with friends over good food and drinks. I don't like to party or socialize in large anonymous venues, I don't enjoy drinking with strangers and I detest making small talk. So my close friends tend to be those friends I've had for years, with whom friendships developed over hours and hours of laughter, gossip, soul-baring and of course, lots of good food and drink. Although I make new "acquaintances" quite easily, I don't make real friends easily because I don't really enjoy "social friends" - I like being social, but I like being social with my old, trued and tried friends. So, Hong Kong has been tough. While it's been easy enough (and fun in its own right) to go out and socialize in HK, my soul feels unfulfilled. It's a hole that can only be filled by endless hours of belly-holding laughter, conversations deep into the night about everything and nothing: basically, the soul-satisfying fulfillment that only comes from a deep and real connection felt with friends who know you through and through. Friends you can just hang out with. That's it - I miss just hanging out. You don't really hang out in HK - you meet people, have dinner, go out, go hiking, go on boats, etc. - but it's always with a purpose. Hanging out has no purpose other than hanging out. But just hanging out, I find, requires the company of true, old and dear friends. A concentration of those friends happens to be in SF (or a short flight from SF) - and that's what I miss most about SF.

But I also know that when I leave HK, I'll miss the friends and life I have made here. That's the thing about developing "jung" (Korean word for sentimental attachment, like/love, fondness) for two places - you'll always miss the one you're not in. I suppose it's a privileged dilemma to have, but it's a dilemma nonetheless.