cqchen life

The recurring thought of this week: WHAT IS MY LIFE? In the span of a week, I flew from Beijing to Almaty on my own (where I’m now writing this from my balcony as a fuchsia sunset pains the sky), hiked two lakes and three canyons, all while I started my two full-time jobs.

Four years ago, I could never have imagined my postgrad life looking like this. Honestly, even a year ago I probably wouldn’t have. I think I always saw myself jumping straight into a quasi-corporate job in New York right out of college, maybe in journalism or at a nonprofit, something I loved, but mostly, something I could imagine myself doing.

But I realize now, some odd weeks out from my Stanford departure, that the greatest and most unique learning from there was the desire to to fill my life with the unknown places, the unimaginable experiences, the unanswerable questions.

According to Find My, I’m approximately 2,500 miles away from the closest person I know (hi, Vivian). Many more times that amount to reach the people in the places I know, back home in the US. While I’m more objectively alone than I have ever been, or may ever be, I somehow don’t feel as lonely as I’d imagined.

I guess the first thing that helps are the jobs. The thinktank I work at is relatively small, where everyone gathers around a family-style lunch and cake when it’s someone’s birthday. Though most people there speak Russian to each other, I can still interpret the closeness from tones and can of course speak English with the younger employees myself. I’ve become quite close with the office manager girl, Tlektes who is from the western side of Kazakhstan over 50 hours of a drive away, going out to drinks with her last week and going stand up paddleboarding together this weekend. The work itself is self-paced and self-designed, the kind of research freedom I love and the gift of time and quiet space I cherish. And at The Daily, I’m jumping in headfirst, meeting people and fighting small fires as I start. The work is a jack of all trades job to a tee, where scrappiness and creativity are needed just as much as organization and promptness. Altogether, work has been a good deal of mental stimulation while not being mentally exhausting.

There’s also the palpable warmth of this city itself. The streets around here, in the city cienter at least, feel so alive. People of all ages stroll through the shady tree-lined streets, sit on benches enjoying live music, and chat at the many outdoor cafes and bars day and night. There are children everywhere — even at night, in strollers or on tricycles or just running around. People here are so friendly and despite the relative pervasiveness of English, are fueling my Russian learning motivation.

On this note, there’s absolutely no better language learning mechanism, not the violent Duolingo owl or childhood years in Chinese afterschool, than movng to a new country in a new langage. I can more so empathize now with my parents’ pilgrimage to the US in their twenties, experiencing that blanket lanugage immersion that nearly requires action. Thus, despite picking up just a few phrases before arriving (thanks to Anna and Natalie) I learned the Cyrillic alphabet and counting to 100 on my second day so at least in a sense, I am literate. Kindergarten it might be, but I set my goal now to be able to join my office lunch by the end of the summer. Also, since Russian is the colonizing language, I do hope to learn some Kazakh as well, though apparently that is used less frequently, even here.

Now it comes the part of the blog where my thoughts get random. I only learned a couple days ago that “Almaty” in Kazakh means the father of apples — it was here that apples were domesticated.So random, the knowledge does make the apples I picked up at the market even crisper, even sweeter. Which helps a lot in my typical post-China lack of hunger — I primarily have existed on yogurt, bread, and fruits. Coffee, too — the many specialty coffee shops here from across the general Eurasian range are quite good.

Oh, and of course, the hiking trip! I joined an overnight tour to the Saty region a few hours away from Almaty, leaving at the crack of dawn on Saturday to return Sunday evening. It was a wonderful tour of the regional scenery, from lush green (literally turquoise water) lakes to desert canyons that were hiked in 45 C sun. A little parallel to some Coloradoan national parks from last summer, but still quite different on this side of the globe. Kaindy Lake was truly one of a kind. It’s an icy, turquoise lake embalming a sunken forest of spruce trees, formed after an earthquake a century ago.

The canyons were impressive as well. All part of the larger Charyn Canyon, known as the Grand Canyon’s little brother, the 154-km long canyon stretches almost to eh China border. The main part of it is red sandstone, containing a Valley of Castles with majestic formations. The area was once the bottom of the sea, millions of years ago.

The other sites we visited were Moon Canyon and Black Canyon, originally named Valley of Death for its danger to earlier nomadic travelers who sometimes fell to their deaths in the night and made from volcanic rock, basalt I believe. The river that runs through it runs different colors in different seasons, according to my coworker Anna. This weekend, it was green.

I also met some interesting people. I particularly befriended Setareh, a girl from Liverpool about to start at Central Saint Martins for textiles in the fall. We bonded over thrifting, paddle boated Kolsai Lake together, ran home in the dark to our guesthouse from the night bonfire together, and generally spent many hours together in the hot Kazakh sun. There was also Nicole, a lady from Munich who’d quit her job two years ago to then traveled to 30 countries, and this tour was her last stop before going home to Germany. I also met Barbara, a Polish woman who worked at a Swiss winery and had traveled to over 70 countries somehow because of that job. A little inspiring, perhaps…

Alright, anyway, I certainly have more to say about this beautiful city, my reflections on identity here, more seriously about the Kazakh state, but I am tired, the sun has set long ago, and I’ll save it for next time. Paka!