Anyone here old enough to remember the original Miama Vice TV show? I saw it on reruns, I think, when I was in my teens. The final scene of the proper big end-of-everything finale stuck with me and I’ve never known why. But every now and then I think of it and it makes me wonder.
We never did find out if he made it, or what happened to Tubbs back in the big bad Bronx. But that feeling of needing to have a fresh situation, to be in a fresh environment where you need to learn or assimilate all over again… I think that’s always stuck with me.
When I was in my early twenties I took a holiday to Hong Kong, mainly to see the sights but also to see the international film festival. It was awesome, and alien, and everything that I needed at that point in my life. I felt like I wasn’t done discovering, that there was more to see, to try, to experience there. Within a year I had passed a CELTA teaching certificate and got 6 months teaching experience under my belt, so I headed back to HK with a suitcase and a one week bed-only booking at a YHA hostel. I got jobs, I got visas, I learnt about the way of life, I went to uni to learn Cantonese… it was a dream.
But all dreams must end. After eleven years out there I was beginning to get bored. I was feeling the drag of the constant changes in visas, the sniping by bosses and the general crowdedness of the city. I made the monumental mistake of leaving HK to return to England. At the time it seemed like a good idea - doesn’t it always? But if I had sat down and weighed everything up, I would have taken a 2 or 3 month break, back-packed around southeast Asia, had a change. And when I had wanted to return to something familiar and routine, it would have been HK. That’s what should have happened. But didn’t.
Instead I returned to the UK and spent time assimilating to the foreign place it had become. People were smaller, more parochial, tiny-minded. Everything was too far apart and public transport was shocking. Food was expensive, rent-related bills a joke. And all my friends and found-family were still in HK. In one fell swoop I had cut myself off from normality, comfortable familiarity, and my favourite people. I lost it all. And it was my fault.
After a stint in the south of England, it came to pass that my job was up for redundancy. There was nothing like-for-like so I was free to take the redundancy payoff and run. I had a choice - go back to HK where I felt I belonged, or try somewhere else. Money not being my friend, I opted for Manchester, the place I had been born but never lived in. And so I hauled my arse 300 miles up the country and started again. I was in a city again, with bright lights, places open till late, neons and crowds and excitement. It didn’t have my friends, it didn’t have my circle: I had done it to myself again. I had cut myself off from everything familiar and everyone I liked.
I’ve been here coming up to 2 years now, and every day I regret leaving HK when I did. That was 7 years ago, and I’m still thinking about that. I still miss the lifestyle, the people, the place itself. But I can never go back (due to a little bit of back-stabbing that I’ve already been over) and even if I could, it wouldn’t be the same place. It’s moved on without me, and I should follow its example.
Sometimes I think about other places I could go to. But it’s a circular argument - if I go to a fresh country to start learning all over again, my friends will still be in HK and England. But if I don’t go somewhere else, what am I doing here? Treading water because I have bills to pay because I’m treading water because I have bills to pay?
You know how people say you need a third place - you have home, you have work, and you need another place that’s not either of those things, so you can recharge from the other two? I’ve tried a few different third places over the course of my life - martial arts, writing fiction, archery, going to the pictures. And while I still have an interest in all of these, it’s writing fiction that’s always been the main one. I cannot seem to get my own original fiction published for love nor money, so I continue with where I got started - fan fiction. I still watch movies and TV, I still end up with muses and I still write the further adventures of these characters. I get reviews and emails, I get thank yous and requests, and this fills a void that getting countless agent rejections have made (and continue to feed).
My third place then - writing - could be done anywhere. I did some of my best work on a repurposed Mahjong table in my spare room in HK. I’ve done some new stuff, for new fandoms, in my old shared house in Manchester and a completely new fandom, muse and story at this flat I moved into just now. I’m doing more writing than ever before, for the things I like and want to expand upon. I could take it anywhere with me, as I have Billy II my MacBook Air within reach at all times, and connected to SugarSync to back me up on a constant save basis.
All I need is somewhere to go, but it feels like the world is shrinking and my best bet is Mars. I’ve missed the Mars One programme and I’m too old, so that’s out. Maybe there truly is nowhere left. Maybe I’m oversimplifying and there are tonnes of places I could yet still find on Earth.
Maybe I just need to go further south, where the water is warm, the drinks are cold, and I don’t know the names of the players.
Now that would be a good place to start.
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