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Welcome to "My New Life in Asia"

View of Taipei 101, the symbol of Taipei,
on a wonderful spring day.
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog, "My New Life in Asia."

One year ago, on the 4th of November 2011, I arrived in Taiwan for the first time. It was an exciting moment. I'd been dreaming to go to Asia for years, and finally my dream had come true. 

A lot of things happened ever since that day, I've had many new experiences and learnt a lot of things. Some of them shocked me, others made me happy. I had a great time, but also many disappointments.
Though I studied Chinese for two years when I was in Europe, I'd never thought about moving to this small island which, although it is a very interesting place to explore, is somehow overshadowed by its big neighbours, the People's Republic of China and Japan.
The reason why I chose Taiwan was that I fell in love with a Taiwanese girl. "A romantic story with a happy ending", you might think. Well, not really. 

Two weeks ago I went to Hong Kong. I spent six amazing days there, meeting friends and doing a lot of interesting things. It was then that I decided that I should leave Taiwan. I bought a ticket to go back to Europe on Christmas. I think that when a country is too much related to certain negative personal experiences, it's really hard to move on. I plan to return to Asia in January, but I'd like move to another place, probably Hong Kong or Mainland China.

I decided to start this blog because I wanted to look back on this quite eventful and important year of my life. I'd like to share with you my memories and my experiences during this first year of my "new life" in Asia. This is not going to be a typical travel blog, a sort of tourist guide for people who've never been here. The main purpose of this blog is to share with you my thoughts about Taiwan and Asia in general, and the things I've learnt about this place in one year. Sometimes I'll write about anecdotes from my life, sometimes I'll just write about the culture and the people. But I won't limit myself to certain topics. When I write, I'll choose the topics that interest me at that moment. I can talk about books, history, news or simple tell about something that happened to me. That's the good thing about blogs: I am free to write whatever I want and give it the form I want. 

When I was little, I wanted my life to be an adventure. I wanted to see and explore new places and meet new people. I have been doing this for a few years now. From a small town in Sicily, in Southern Italy, an island close to Africa and somehow lost in a timeless nowhere, between Middle Ages and Modernity, in the middle of the Mediterranean but in many ways detached from all her neighbours, - from that tiny spot on the map which seems so far away from the big, modern, globalized world, I travelled, I moved to a city in Northern Italy close to Slovenia and Austria, then went to study in Germany, and finally came to this other island, so different from the one I was born in, on the opposite side of the world. And in the future, I'd like to go to Hong Kong, to China, I really want to see and know so many things. And I am happy, really happy. I cherish every moment, every memory. I am thankful to all the great people I've met. And even my bad days taught me many precious a lesson. If my life were to end tomorrow, I could, at least, say that I lived it the way I wanted. And that's the most important thing.  
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  1. Aida10 January 2014 at 19:04

    Hi Aris! I've just found your blog by chance and I think it's simply amazing! I'm also from Italy and I was in Hong Kong with an Erasmus Mundus Multi project in 2011-2012. And got mesmerised by that city =)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aris Teon13 January 2014 at 00:22

    Thank you so much, Aida : ) It's always a pleasure to have such positive feedback, it gives me the motivation to keep on writing and share my thoughts and experiences with others. I love Hong Kong, too. So far, it is one of my favourite cities, along with London and Berlin. I hope you'll get the chance to go back soon. Ciao! : )

    ReplyDelete

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