Repatriation: Covered Over

“My new life back in the United States lay before me with a degree of mystery and heaviness as I weaved the buggy from one street to the next”….

The paths I have carved will soon be covered over by others. The people and places I have come to know and love will continue on. The security guards, the elderly ladies, and the various neighbors walking along will no longer marvel at the shuangbaotai as we enter their gates, walk down their streets, or pass by their knitting circles. The guards who sit at the entrances of my xiao qu’s (neighborhoods) will go on greeting other foreigners as they venture in to wander the quiet streets- hoping to catch a glimpse of local life and perhaps understand the culture a little more. They will all continue on with their daily lives; unchanged by our absence.

It’s hard to comprehend what life will be like in the absence of Shanghai. While I have ideas of what life will be like back in the US, I do not know what it will be like as a repatriated expatriate. It’s commonly understood that repatriation is oftentimes more difficult than the initial move to a foreign land, and I am not naïve enough to think that I will escape this difficulty.