Ok so.. big news came down last week.

Previously my manager asked me some basic questions like ‘if you had the opportunity to work in the Netherlands, would you be interested in that?’

To which I said ‘ yeah, sure why not.’

I’ve been doing some research lately for understanding how to open up a division of the company in the UK, like trying to understand all the rules and regulations and everything, and trying to understand exactly what we have to do to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

So, anyway last week it seemed my former manager, which has since been transferred / relocated to the Netherlands to run the Europe operations business develop, I guess he had a word to the CEO in China, and told him that his recommendation for this project is me.

He then sent me a little WeChat (Chinese messaging/ social media app) message to say so, and then the following day, after my little visit to the ‘bone hospital’ for my pinkie, I had a meeting with the CEO & his assistant to essentially be told, yep we want you to go over there.

The CEO dropped in the fact that because his son will be going to England to study (a prestigious boarding school, that leads to Eton and colleges in this level)  a school that I helped him prepare for and get into, that I could watch over him whilst I was in Europe.

He told me that I would fly with him (the CEO) to England on the 23rd of August and then stop by the Netherlands, and probably start working in the Netherlands.  And then I guess the idea is, kind of straddle these two countries, ie. Working in the Netherlands for around 7 months, talking with outsources, suppliers, UK Customs, gov authorities etc, 5 months actually IN England, and then 1 year really back and forth between the two countries.  Which is about 2 years in total.

I was then asked promptly and on-the-spot, do you think you can do this?  Will you be able to go to England and the Netherlands?

‘Errrrr yes, I think so’ , I said   “可以 in a strained accentuated voice.

And then I felt I needed to explain to the CEO why I said it like that, which was the truth….he’s asking me on the spot whether or not I can pick up my life and chuck it over somewhere else.  I would think about it properly, talk to my family and then make a decision. Plus I needed to talk to the embassies to understand how it works for travelling with 2 passports.

Ie. I have an Australian and British passport.  I’m in China on the Australian one, and my work visa is for my Australian one.  But if I arrive in the UK or Europe on my UK passport then I’m allowed to work & live indefinitely within Europe (or at least it will be the case if something bad doesn’t happen with this UK exiting the EU).   However with the Australian passport I can’t do that.

So anyway that’s exactly what I will have to do, leave on the Australian, arrive in the UK with the British one, and then I’m good to go.

Now I realise that most people would be like  ‘wow man you’re getting posted to Europe! The Netherlands! & the UK! That’s awesome’

However for myself, I had to have a chat with my family and a good friend who is in a similar mindset as me from back home- Edward, because I wanted to talk through with them to see what was the decision I should be taking.

Because whilst most people’s emotional decision would be for Europe, mine is not.  My emotional decision would be to stay in China.  I love China, I have a nice little life here, and recently I had some great ideas that would propel me into a situation that I would like to keep doing, plus I’ve been wanting to try out a business idea that I’ve had for a while and just need to do the research to make it a reality.

So for me, the emotional decision is China.

Yet these opportunities that come along sometimes shouldn’t be just fed by emotion, which is why I needed my family’s support to help me make my decision.

So what does the job entail? What do they want me to do?

First of all, the company I work for is a logistics company specializing in cross-border e-commerce.
We help big companies that have e-shops registered in America, Europe, whatever get their products to people who want them like China, Taiwan, Korea etc. It involves finding & partnering with air-freight companies, developing Customs handling systems, and Warehouse Management Systems, and partnering with Last-mile delivery partners.
My job is to generally set up those channels. Ie America à China = 1 channel. Americaà Korea = 1 channel.
I had a heavy hand in the Europeà China channel.

So for this particular assignment, essentially they want me to help open up our UK operations.  However this is difficult because we currently have ZERO presence in the UK.
When we set up the Netherlands, we had our sister company, a freight-forwarding company in which I could talk to them, instruct them on which Customs licenses to apply for, direct them in other ways to make sure everything was on the right track, and then also use their offices & general support of the office staff there to begin looking for warehouses and talk to Dutch Customs and software declaration companies etc.

The thing is, I AM one of the perfect people for this job. I understand our company well from working in our China office, I understand how people think there and what they expect, and this is important because the thinking is Chinese and is sometimes at odds with ‘western’ thinking, yet in knowing the difference and understanding what European regulations, whatever require, I can work as the bridge for this, which is obviously quite important.
I know most of the programmers and people who are the heads for the individuals projects, ie. Warehouse Management Systems, Order Management Systems, Knowledge Management Systems, Operations, Strategy Development etc.  Why?  Because I’ve worked with these people, I go to lunch with them every day and moreover they’re nice people.

Plus I understand the processes which is required for everything to work, because I’ve already done it for the Netherlands setup.

Also, since I have the UK passport, I don’t need a visa, something which the Chinese staff generally have big problems with.

The result, the decision?
I WILL be travelling to the Netherlands and the UK to have a go at helping to open the UK operations for the company.  It will be great experience in general, great career experience, and it’s a chance to live somewhere new, whilst still working in a Chinese company, which means I won’t lose my Chinese so much, which is a good thing of course.

It’s really saddening for me though, because as I say my heart is with China, not Europe.  There are so many things that I haven’t done yet in China, and so many things that I’ve just started to enjoy even though I’ve already lived in China for over 5 continuous years now.
Such as some proper escapes on the motorbike.  Driving on the mountain roads just outside Beijing is exhilarating!  Going on adventures with the motorbike, there are some caves South-West of Beijing, nearby where they found the Peking man, that look incredible.

Also there’s a section of the Great Wall that you can actually drive on.  Well with a motorbike at least.

For these 2 things, I’m definitely going to do before I leave…and I will document.

But another thing is that I’ve been wanting to create a moto-vlog on YouTube about living and driving a motorbike in China.

I’ve been preparing myself for ages, and it’s really only just starting to happen. A good friend of mine introduced the concept to me about a year ago, and I’ve since written down many ideas about what I need to do, bought a specific motorbike vlogging camera, learnt iMovie on my Mac, realised it didn’t do everything I wanted, and since bought Adobe Premier, which I’ve also only just learnt how to do with the help of a friend.

In fact then this friend- Galen and I were going to do a joint motorbike series in Beijing, doing adventure trips and getting more and more foreigners interested in riding a motorbike in China, as it really is a great experience.

However that’s apparently all going to shit now.  which of course makes me sad because I was really looking forward to that.

Also in June, 9th, 10th, 11th  with Blackbridge racing to Ordos, in Inner Mongolia for a motorbike track weekend, and it was absolutely awesome!  Expensive, but incredible.
This is something I would love to do again, because I know that whilst it IS expensive, it’s a lot cheaper than doing it anywhere else, and because there’s hardly anyone on the track it’s a lot better as well.  So that’s another huge sinking feeling.

Then there’s all my trusted friends.  I’ve been getting into the local pub quiz, which by the way, last week we won.  Each Thursday night a drunken pub quiz where you also get points for each shot you drink. Plus I get to do it with a great American friend – Shaun.  So yep there goes that as well.

The guy from Blackbridge – Adrien, was quickly becoming a good friend, and he’s the kind of guy that shows you exactly how much fun Beijing can be, even if you’ve lived here for 5 years and have got bored a little bit, he’ll show you interesting things and introduce you to even more interesting people.

Plus I just moved into a very nice shared apartment with, ironically a Dutch girl, it’s convenient for everything I need to do and it has an amazing sports centre beneath that I haven’t actually got to properly try out yet.

She’s also been introducing me to a bunch of her very cool friends which is nice.

And for all those people that are wondering why the hell I’m in china, or still in china in the first place, I have to tell you, its and amazing place.  There’s many things to be impressed about China. One thing, amazing e-commerce, and with that amazing delivery times. Whatever you want to order, you’ll be able to find it.
Things have improved drastically in the last 5 years for which I’ve been living here.  It is now, in my opinion one of the most convenient countries to live in in the world. Yeah some people don’t seem to have their head screwed on properly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t wade past these people and get to ones that are all there, and meet a whole bunch of nice and interesting people that genuinely make your life better in one way or another.

So, yep …. This is a sad experience for me because it involves basically packing up my entire life, sending most of it back to Australia… which who knows whether it will arrive or not, and then moving to the Netherlands and basically live out of a suitcase with no friends in between two countries that have terrible weather and for which I generally dislike because of the overwhelming boringness of small places.  Yes England I’m calling your country small and boring!

And it rains all the time in both countries, did I mention that?  Ahhh crap.

But on the plus side, I have a very good friend that lives in Bordeaux- Pierre, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with him.

I’ve already been planning a trip from Amsterdam to Bordeaux which according to google maps will take 11 and a half hours… easy.   There we go, I’ll record that and maybe I can get my ‘Iron Butt’ award for doing more than 1,000km in one day.

Also a good friend from Beijing – Maxime, might be moving back to France, specifically to Bordeaux as well.  Some friends from back when I was in France are now living in the UK, so perhaps I can see them too.

Yet… at the same time, even in Beijing with a friend that lives 30 mins away it is difficult to catch up with him.   So the reality of the situation dictates that I’m in for a pretty lonely experience.

So I guess you can see why the emotional reasoning is not there.

As my friend Edward advised me, we are two people that always wanted to work in some form representing Australia, whether it be government or whatever.  If I do the 2 years, get the experience, I will be in a much better position to do whatever I want back in China or in Australia for that matter.

So there’s always that.  Before I was thinking of quitting anyway, and venturing out on my own, it would be daunting yet I was still considering it.
Part of my plan with that was to move to Chengdu as I always wanted to do as it’s such a nice city, where Michael and Victoria live and to do my research for this business idea there and in peace and test out whether or not it would work.

Anyway, we may still get to see that in two year’s time.