Bewildered frustration turned blissful simplicity

I read an article in a local ex-pat magazine this week, written by a Chinese woman, about the benefits of living in Shanghai, and not knowing how to speak Mandarin fluently. How as an American (or any ex-pat) you can sail through life, oblivious to the conversations going on around you – the arguments, the negotiations, the small talk – and pretty much live in a dream world.

She’s right.

When I first arrived in Shanghai, I was frustrated by not understanding what was going on around me, not knowing what people are saying, and by the difficulty of  bartering a price in the market. When people would talk to me, I could say nothing in return but ‘thanks’ or ‘no’.  And even now, that I’ve picked up some Mandarin to where I can put together tiny sentences, I still have no idea what is going on around me.

It’s actually, pretty nice.

For a person who always likes to know what is going on around her (and likes to have a handle on it all too)  it took a while for me to let it all go, and just jump in the back of that cab and go for an insane, horn-filled, jerky car-sick inducing ride. I now love sitting at a table with my wonderful coworkers, and just stare off into lala land while they talk about life in Mandarin. (Though there are many lunches in English too, don’t get me wrong, it’s not ALL Mandarin.).   And while I am still distracted by the random old women speaking very LOUDLY in the grocery store, I have no idea why they are talking about noodles so loud, and really — does it even matter?

I think it’s easy to become so caught up with everything else going on around us in life — the hustle of a large city, social networking, 24/7/365 lifestyles, smart phones, media coverage of everything — that we forget to forget about it all and just remember what is important. Or even more so, we stop paying attention to ourselves, and just focus on everybody else. At least I know that I do.

Now that I’ve realized how blissful ignorance really can be, I’m going to start practicing it. Not in an ignorant way of “Oh, nothing around me matters, I am all there is.” but “Everything around me will do it’s own thing, regardless of what I am doing..so I am going to focus on me, and not them.”

I’m calling this blissful simplicity. It’s my new religion, and you can join too.