When Life Gives You Lemons...

My boyfriend and I just came back from holiday. It might not sound like much, but to him it was a pretty big deal. The way Chinese and Muslim (benefits of living in a Hui Muslim province) holidays fell this year meant that my boyfriend got an unprecedented two weeks off work, this was an opportunity that he was convinced not to waste. About two months ago we started making big plans, we were going to get my boyfriend out of China for the first time. We set our sights on Spain because,

1. Spain is one of my favourite countries in the world, I love the food, the people, the culture…everything
2. My boyfriend supports FC Barcelona and the thought of seeing Messi in the flesh makes him giddy as a school girl.

We started research early and got all the required documents together for the long and tedious process that is getting a Chinese National a visa to Europe. Just over a month before our intended departure date we submitted all the relevant paperwork via an agency that we had been recommended through one of my boyfriend’s colleagues…

And then that is as far as we got.

Unfortunately everything didn't go according to plan. The agency we used consistently lied about the progress of the application and in the end we found out that they didn't even submit the paperwork until two weeks after we gave it to them, despite assuring us everything was in motion. As our intended departure date got closer the disappointment was crushing, staying optimistic was hard and we made a plan B to just withdraw the visa application and head to Thailand ASAP, at least it was out of China, right?

As it turned out even this was too optimistic. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, sometimes we build up our hopes and expectations only for them to come crumbling down around us. But even when plan A doesn't work, there can always be a plan B, and when that falls through too even a plan C.

For us, plan C was staying in China but getting as far away from the China we knew as possible; and that’s the great thing about China, it is so varied. It has mountains, desert, city, rice terraces. It has long white beaches, and expansive grasslands. It has rivers and waterfall, and tropical paradise. There was a lot to choose from. In the end we went for a combination of tourism in Yunnan, and relaxation in Hainan (China’s answer to Hawaii/Florida/Thailand depending on who you ask). In the end we did have a lovely holiday, it’s always nice to have some time for rest and relaxation, and I think we struck the perfect balance between culture and slobbing out. But, however nice it was it is difficult to forget where we had hoped to be.

Can you believe this is China? I wouldn't!

The whole experience made me realise how lucky I am to be able to travel so much and, even more luckily, I was born with a British passport – British passports are widely considered the most “powerful” passport in the world.
For me travel has always been something that I have taken for granted, an inevitable in my life, a “when” rather than an “if”; but for the majority of people this probably isn’t the case. Travel is something that requires three things:

Time + Money + Opportunity

All of these are difficult to obtain in different ways.

Time is restricted by work and obligations to others, in the case of the Chinese there just isn’t such a president for taking holiday from work. I’ve heard before that annual holiday shouldn’t really be taken unless someone is getting married, or someone has died. This is a hard concept for me to get my head around. I think that if you work hard you deserve that annual leave to recoup and also to give you the incentive for something to work towards. The difficulty of finding any substantial amount of time to take a holiday abroad is, I think, a major contributing factor to why it is the norm for mainland Chinese nationals to have never left the country. (Hong Kong and Taiwan are slightly different, because although they are technically China they seem to have more freedom of movement, and more opportunity in general!)

Money may be a big consideration in one’s ability to travel, and theoretically it should be the simplest obstacle to overcome. You get a job, you work, you earn money, you save. Easy, right? I’m sure most of us know it really isn't that easy at all. Jobs aren't necessarily easy to get and even if you do have a job your salary may not allow for much saving. This is definitely the case in China, where salaries are relatively low. The average “middle-class” salary has been reported to be around 4000 RMB-6000 RMB/month, that’s between £400 - £600/month. Living in China that is a fine salary and you could live very comfortably on it, but when you want to go abroad a one way flight could cost you a months pay.

Opportunity is a big one. Without time and money opportunity to travel may be hard to come by, but it’s not just time and money that are factors. When visas are a necessity things like politics, which you have absolutely no control over can affect your ability to travel. This is when I feel grateful that I am British, British passport holders aren't restricted from entering any countries (that I know of), we can even visit 173 countries without a visa – compare that to China’s – and even when British passport holders do have to apply for a visa it is usually a fairly smooth process and visas rarely get rejected. Travelling is made really easy for us.

Despite how difficult time, money, and opportunity may be to get I think the effort is always worth it in the end; however disappointed my boyfriend was not to be able to go abroad this time it hasn't stopped him wanting to travel, and I think that’s half the battle. If a person has the desire and drive to travel then the other things that get in the way are just temporary obstacles until when they start to travel, not if.