When we bid our farewells in Qingdao twenty-two months ago, it was with the knowledge that we may never see some of our friends again. So, in many ways any such reunion is sweeter with the knowledge that it's likelihood was so slim.
Expat life is a series of circles and cycles. I often equate it to a Venn Diagram. Our family's circle, overlapping with another family's circle because of living arrangements, school choice, something as simple as shopping in the same international import aisle at the grocery store and/or, most importantly, because my husband's employer and the employers of other families all deemed a seaside city in peninsular China a worthy spot to deposit an expat family for a couple of years, allowing our circles to overlap.
We had, in 2010, on our return voyage to QD, laid over in Vancouver, and considered it fortunate that we were able to see both The S & W families at the same time {in fact, at that moment, both families were sharing the same roof as they waited for slow boats from China to arrive with their expat goods.} They gamely let the girls and I hang out with them for a weekend.
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| The S, W, and Johnson Girls {Summer 2012 :: Crescent Beach} |
When we promised a return trip this summer, and then learned that our Australian pengyoumen {The T's} had also managed to arrange a summer in North America {with greater Vancouver serving as a home base of sorts} we were thrilled!!
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| {All set to bike Stanley Park :: seventeen bikers and two riders} |
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| {The Johnson fam, The T Fam, The W Fam, and the H Fam} |
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| {silly faces} |
As noted earlier, we had a week with The S Family before they took off for a 40th birthday get-away in bear inhabited interior BC. We headed south across the boarder to Seattle for a long weekend and a little 15th wedding anniversary celebration, some penny smashing on the tracks, swimming with skinny dippers, and drinking coffee.
Sufficiently caffeinated, we then returned to Vancouver, where The S's generously allowed us to live in their well appointed home, in their absence, and we spent three more lovely days biking, hiking, canoeing, swimming ... sharing lattes, BBQing and simply catching up with good friends.
As an added bonus, another family that we knew from our QD fellowship had recently repatriated to Seattle and joined us for part of that time as well. It was bittersweet as The H's lost their 11 year old son in a tragic accident in China last year, and now face a new life in America with three, instead of four, children.
There is much to be said about the importance of maintaining and nurturing these relationships, though oceans and timezone separates us. Our children benefited from the re-connection with other expat friends as much, if not more, than we did. The emphasis of the whole 3CK Movement (Third Culture Kids), is that expat kids share a unique camaraderie with other children who live abroad in a culture that is not their home culture, and not fully their host culture. For me personally, I see my kids reconnecting with other expat kids in shared lingo (referring to some words in Chinese rather than English) or using terms they shared in the British school system. I also seem them come alive as they rehash memories or connect on common ground (a shared dislike for Weekend Chinese school and a love for their respective Chinatowns).
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| our TCKs |
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| {The don't call it Beautiful BC for Nothing!} |
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| {sweet girlies} |
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| {ice cream boy in his ice cream shorts} |
