“Your Chinese is so good!”

I hear this at least half the times I speak Chinese. And while I appreciate the encouragement, it is a tad hilarious.

I’ve had maybe nine months of lessons, and roughly the same of practical experience. And this is a language that can humble even native speakers at times. So no, my Chinese is not, in fact, good.

It is maybe barely functional.

I can order at a restaurant, or go to the market and buy groceries. I know to use 瓶 for bottles or 碗 for bowls. The difference between 二 and 两, or when 一 is yī and when it becomes yāo. But I can still mix up 没 and 不 when I’m not thinking. And the hand signal for 七 still escapes my mind fairly often when I go to pay for things. Luckily the vendors at the market are patient and willingly double check my 微信 total before I send them money if I’m not sure I heard them correctly (and they have more than once kept me from overpaying them).

I can usually answer the three main questions everyone asks about my son (boy or girl, how old, and where are you from?). If people get creative with the questions or have an accent from somewhere other than Beijing…then I may not get through the interaction without at least a few quizzical looks.

I also have more than a few conversations that are half in English and half in Mandarin, often with me practicing my Mandarin and the other person using their English vocab.

My lessons often involve learning very practical vocabulary that may not appear in any beginner's textbook. Things like 茴香 or 蓝莓, one of which I hate and the other my son loves. Or that 颗 is the measure word for 牙齿. And now I know how many 斤 of produce I buy because I’ve practiced that plenty.

Sometimes there are the inevitable errors when operating between languages. I’ve learned that cold brew sounds a lot like 卡布 and wound up with a cappuccino on a hot, muggy day. I’m constantly forgetting 燕麦奶 and end up saying 不要牛奶 and doing some pointing instead. The multitude of alliums trips me up, and I forget whether it’s 韭菜 or 韭葱 or 青葱 or 洋葱.

At least I can keep 北 and 南 straight. Although 东 and 西 are a bit harder for some reason. And I don’t get much call for using them, as giving/receiving directions in Mandarin is still far beyond me.

My tones are often incorrect. That’s a hazard of not learning a tonal language until later in life. Instead, I have a deep appreciation for grammar thanks to many years of Latin and Arabic, something that is all but useless in this context.

But I’m working on it. And I try to set realistic goals.

I don’t imagine I’ll ever be mistaken for a scholar of the language, but I hope to achieve a functional level of competence. To be able to do everyday life with only a few hitches in communication from time to time.

One of the hardest things for me as a chronic perfectionist and generally anxious person is learning to be ok with being obviously bad at something. In front of people. Often.

It’s definitely not a feeling I relish. But I also don’t have the time to dwell on it, or to spend single-mindedly dedicated to language study. I have to live life and improve in fits and starts.

And I’m raising a child who may speak this language with more confidence than I ever will. Some of his first words may be in a language I don’t really understand.

It’s an odd feeling.

Because to speak a language is to see the world through that lens.

He may reach for 家 before home. When he says 回家, what will he mean? Here or the US? Or somewhere else entirely? He will likely see the world in a way I won’t ever fully understand.

I’m grateful to be able to give him that opportunity. And it also makes it a little more poignant that our experiences in life will inevitably be different.

I’m not sure where language learning will ultimately lead him.

But for me, it is now a daily meditation on being good enough while clearly imperfect.

For another take on this same topic, check out:

Jasmine In Between

I Used to Be Good at Being Good

I’m sitting in a salon chair, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My hairstylist leaves to grab something, so I take a quick peek at my “Japanese” Apple Notes, trying to remember what I practiced in the mirror at home. I just want my hair cut and dyed. I know this. I practiced for this…

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2 months ago · 32 likes · 19 comments · Jasmine | In Between

When we landed, we had a furnished life that was totally unfamiliar.

We were still figuring out, as much as you ever do, how to be parents for our tiny newborn. I was learning how to not work and completely throw myself into it for the first time since I left formal schooling.

The day after we landed, my husband went back to working as his parental leave was up. And so I became a homemaker with things that weren’t mine in a new-to-me house with a baby I barely knew.

I had arrived, but I was still trying to find my feet.

Arrival was a moment in time.

Then came the doing. The figuring out.

The House

I try to find a comfortable position to hold the baby on couches that are hard and too large for me. I miss the big soft couch with the chaise section for me to put my feet up that is somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at the moment. I’m contorting myself into a new life.

Beds don’t come in the same sizes here. Buying an extra set of sheets is far more work than I’d have expected. Even the correct dimensions don’t seem to be quite right. There’s a variable I’m missing in my equation.

I hang pictures up on the walls of our house. It seems that every time we go away, at least one falls off the wall. Making this feel like home is a constant dance of three steps forward, one step back.

The Neighborhood

Everyday errands required more of me than there was to use. Yes, I was tired in a new parent kind of a way. But also in the having to decode everyday life in a new place way. In the way every person functioning in a new language is tired. The everyday wasn’t impossible. But it wasn’t automatic. It all required thought and energy.

The first trip to the grocery stores in my new neighborhood. Doing the mental math of conversion. Inventorying for what I need now, and where has what for some future date when I might need it. No chocolate chips to be found; I note this as something I should look out for.

Going to the local markets was more fun, and even more overwhelming. Stall after stall with the same vegetables. Mountains of peaches and watermelons. The familiar motions between vendors and buyers, but in a language I don’t understand.

New hand signals for numbers. And I can’t hear what they’re saying. Trying to remember from my language classes pre pregnancy. I make a guess and humbly ask the vendors as best I can to check my math. They do, and fix my errors.

The Systems

Every new thing I need to do seems to involve a new app I have to figure out. Some I figure out how to translate. Others I can’t. I have to shut off and turn on my WiFi connection 50 times a day as I toggle between US internet and the Great Firewall.

I can find anything and everything on Taobao, with 40 versions and 10 colors, but I also have to spend time combing through the options and figuring out the perfect Google Translate search terms to find the thing I’m actually looking for.

A new app for restaurant reviews. And a whole new set of standards by which they are judged. “Too oily” and “no flavor” are common refrains. Learning that thousands of five star reviews might just mean they gave out a free dessert to a lot of people. Being on a Michelin list doesn’t seem to correlate to great food, either.

Planning travel became a new kind of puzzle, double checking English name vs translation vs pinyin vs characters. Every app using a different combination of the four for the same place. Is it grand summit or guanshe? West lake or 西湖? Yuyuan or Yu garden? A cipher would have been nice.

It’s been a year, and things feel mostly different.

I know what a “Sugary McDoo” is (a caramel macchiato). I can usually figure out the right combination of search terms to find what I need. I have practiced the hand signals for numbers many times and get all but the one for 7. For some reason, that won’t stick in my mind. I still make mistakes and stumble figuring it all out, but it doesn’t feel quite so much like a test each time. Mistakes just happen and I move on.

Belonging is less about the moment of arrival than steadily moving forward with life. Rehanging the picture that fell. Checking again for chocolate chips. Finding the right combination of search terms.

The house isn’t quite home, but it is ours, at least for now.

My bed is still hard as rocks though.

Over the past few months, as I’ve been writing Home is Where the Suitcases Are, I’ve kept coming across things I wanted to share that didn’t quite belong in a full essay.

Lists I wish I’d had. Practical things that have made unfamiliar places easier to live in. Questions worth sitting with for a little longer. Small discoveries that have helped life feel steadier, more familiar, or more like ours.

So I made a place for them.

Today I’m opening The Carry-On, a paid companion space to Home is Where the Suitcases Are.

The weekly essays will remain the heart of this publication, and they’ll remain free. The Carry-On is for the things that can sit alongside them: practical resources, shorter personal notes, and opportunities to reflect and respond.

Inside, you’ll find three kinds of things.

Personal Item is a monthly note about the small things I’m keeping close: reflections, questions, comforts, and practical discoveries.

Side Pocket is where the practical resources live. I’m launching with The Portable Home Kit, The Leaving Well Kit, and Children’s Books to Carry with You—resources built from things I’ve learned, used, or wished I’d had while making a life across places.

And Postcards will be a series of simple prompts inviting you to share a thought, memory, object, or ritual of your own.

I want The Carry-On to grow alongside the essays. Some resources will come directly from things I’m writing about here. Others will come from questions I’m still figuring out—or, I hope, from things you tell me would be useful to you.

If you’d like to join me there, The Carry-On is now open to paid subscribers.

Subscribe now

And whether you subscribe for free or paid, thank you for being here. I’m very glad to have you along for the journey.

What will my son think of as home?

While I can’t know the answer, I do wonder about this often.

My memories as a child mostly happened in a small area of the US. Home was a defined place with geographic limits. Familiar roads, shops, people. I can still mentally navigate to my elementary school even though I haven’t been there in 20 years. Maybe the roads have been resurfaced or an overpass put in, but the basic shape of the places I grew up with and called home have stayed the same.

As I’ve gotten older, this has of course changed. Home is no longer such a fixed idea; it is no longer a dot on the map. That’s the essence of what I write about.

But my son is going to have a very different experience.

True, his life started in the US. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

He’s spent more time in China than in the country where he was born. He’s been to at least 13 cities here in his first year. He loves dumplings and millet porridge, and has tried fruits I’d never seen before living here.

The speech every Didi driver gives when we get in the car, the smell of durian in the fruit shops, the sight of ancient temples and enormous cities, the aunties on the street telling him how cute he is in Mandarin, the taste of cumin lamb or any of a million vegetables I’m still learning to name. All new to me. But to him, simply normal. Everyday. Ordinary.

Because they are.

And I wonder what that will mean later on. What things will he miss? What flavors will he crave? What sounds will remind him of this place we’re calling home?

Someday, will he smell crab soup dumplings and feel drawn to them without knowing why? Without knowing that he scarfed them down in Nanjing? Or will the taste of a good strawberry remind him of his first strawberry? High up on a mountainside in Yunnan?

Will he smell incense and know all the temples he’s seen? Or feel the crisp, cold of winter air and be transported back to Harbin in January?

I wonder how much of all of this he will actually remember. Or what will exist only in his subconscious mind, to be reawakened years later.

I hope he will remember this place. The things that make it special. I know that means there will be heartache. But also joy.

That’s part of having a portable sense of home. It’s always with you, and yet, you’re not always there.

And I hope that he learns to embrace the things that make a place feel like home. To hold onto them, tenderly. With care.

Because once we learn to do that, we can try to find home wherever we are.

We gave them passports and taught them to appreciate good food. We ruined our kids.

My mom has said this for years. And she means it. But maybe not in the way you might think.

When I moved to northern Mexico at 13, I became a reluctant, and then more enthusiastic, international traveler. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with an international move at the start of adolescence, but it quickly grew my experience of the world.

The food part came much earlier.

Not to brag, but my dad is a really excellent cook. And also a superb baker. I feel spoiled to have grown up with delicious home cooked meals most every day.

And so, from a fairly early age, I have appreciated food and only slightly later learned to enjoy traveling outside of my home country.

But how was I ruined?

Well, it’s pretty simple. By opening up my world in these ways, my parents made it so I’d always look at the world with curiosity.

I won’t stop asking questions and looking for answers. Exploring. Wondering. Trying things I haven’t tried before.

Well, at least most of the time. New tripe dishes aren’t high on my list.

But I’ll gladly try the rabbit head coated in a fiery sauce, or the partially fermented rice drink with rose. Sometimes you discover something delightful. And sometimes you learn that cold rabbit head is just…fine. The list of things I’ve tried along the way is extensive, and there are really only a handful I wouldn’t try again.

Please, no more tripe.

Many times, I’ve experienced locals being an amusing combination of confused and delighted that I want to get a taste, literally, of the place they call home.

Every trip or move abroad has expanded my world. I’ve seen buildings carved with the most intricate craftsmanship. I’ve climbed mountains only to find locals quietly drinking tea or a home brew at the top. I have walked through ancient cities across multiple continents. And I’ve met people who have made new places feel a bit more familiar.

The more of the world I have experienced, the more complicated my idea of home has become. Once home is bigger than one house, one town, one set of flavors or one way of doing things…then you can find home in many places.

My curiosity has paid off.

But you can also end up craving foods that are hard to find and even harder to make. Missing places scattered across the map. Which could be another way of saying ruined.

I think, and hope, my parents are proud of the children they raised and the people we’ve become. I’m sure they wish we’d visit them a bit more often. But they ruined us.

They gave us passports. They taught us to appreciate good food. They filled us with curiosity and now they have to live with the consequences.

Now that I’m also a parent, I can do the same for my own son.

To feed him well. To take him places. To grow his world and make it fuller and stranger and more delicious than he ever thought it could be.

To ruin him, too.

One morning, someone posted a question in WeChat. “Can anyone recommend a place for donuts?” Suddenly, I had a deep craving for some sweet, fried dough.

I forgot about it for a while because life happened and my brain moved on.

Then, a few days later, I decided to order takeout from a new place that had some of the Beijing classics: zhajiangmian, doornail buns, and the like. I added a few new things to the order out of curiosity. Because why not?

One was something I’d seen in some shop windows around the city but hadn’t tried yet. It was four kuai for two, so I added it to my cart.

And that’s how I discovered tang erduo. A super sweet fried dough twist that reminds me a bit of a classic cake donut. I recently learned that they are generally eaten cold, but I warm mine up and enjoy them with my coffee to offset the absolute sugar bomb.

It’s funny to bite into something unfamiliar and somehow find something that tastes a bit like home: an unexpected moment of warmth. That’s exactly what happened when I bit into my first tang erduo. The craving I didn’t even know I’d been carrying with me was suddenly satisfied.

There’s probably a Bourdain-ism for how food unites the world, or maybe a history lesson about the movement of food and recipes. Both would probably help to explain why this little “sweet ear” could be totally new to me and also taste so deeply familiar. For instance:

Miranda Brown

Tang Erduo: The Missing Branch of a Larger Fritter Family

Depending on how you count, it’s been nearly a week since I’ve been back, but the fog of jet lag has yet to lift. This morning, I sat in bed listening to the chirps of birds outside my window and knew I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep. The funny thing is: I don’t particularly resent my body for refusing to cooperate—though normally, I’d be taking all…

Read more

3 months ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · Miranda Brown

Now, when I have an early morning and need a little something sweet with my coffee, I’m glad I know exactly what to order.

And it costs about twenty-five cents.

What unfamiliar food has tasted like home to you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Leave a comment

There is a constant tension anytime you relocate your life. It doesn’t really matter if you move across town or to an entirely new country.

You are losing things. And you are gaining things.

Both. At the same time.

The more often you do it, the more familiar this tension becomes. But it doesn’t go away. You just learn to live in it.

For me, this tension has flavor.

I miss tacos al pastor and lonches and bounty bars and focaccia and shish tawook and ful and blueberry sauce and maple syrup and lobster rolls (hot, with butter). Many of my memories of places revolve around food.

And…

I love exploring somewhere new. Trying delicious new foods and becoming a regular at my favorite noodle spots. The moment when an unfamiliar place becomes a place of comfort.

I’ve found ways to become comfortable in change. But there’s still the same uneasiness…at first. Maybe it’s quieter now. I’m not so anxious I can’t eat. That was twenty-something years ago.

Then, I was missing the only place I’d ever remembered calling home, journeying literally into the unknown: I didn’t get to visit the city we moved to beforehand.

And now I miss things about that city. There are things that feel familiar in a way I can’t quite explain. Things I long for in such a particular way.

The smell of the desert after a rare rainstorm; the odd mix of burning chicken feathers and dust. Mesquite charcoal and my favorite cilantro salsa. Baked empanadas filled with guava and love. The soul-filling comfort of sopa azteca.

Or another place I called home for a time. Not my favorite, but it was still mine. Another desert, but very different. Argileh wafting by and falafel frying everywhere. Mint in the summer and sage in the winter.

And now, here. Somehow there is an abundant supply of Lanzhou beef noodles in every place we visit in China. That was my first meal after arrival. After over twenty hours of travel and unpacking enough to shower, we went out to dinner just down the street with a three month old to eat hot, spicy soup in August. Something I already know I’ll miss someday.

Jianbing. Probably the best breakfast available for less than two dollars. A savory crepe with spice and pickles and a crispy cracker and fried egg. Or some variation on that theme, to your taste. Breakfast is never going to be the same.

And in our travels here, there are already places I miss. And dishes that remind me of them. I think about the sweet water noodles from Chengdu at least monthly. That thought feels absurd and also totally reasonable.

I find that places work their way into my heart with their food.

And no matter how hard I try or how badly I want to, I’ll never be able to recreate these foods just how I remember them. Because the place was part of it.

I’ll carry them with me to the next place. They’re part of me now.

And perhaps, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to go back and have them again some day. Not exactly how they were. Because time passes and things change. But maybe I can share them with people I love and create new memories in places that are a part of me.

Places that made me, me.

Our fall of 2024 went something like this: I’m pregnant! We’re moving to China! Whoa.

It was a lot to take in. And somewhere between the joy and excitement and nervousness was the realization that we’d need to try and plan for a life we couldn’t yet imagine. A strange and impossible task.

I was building a registry for a life I wasn’t yet living, in a place I hadn’t yet settled into, with a baby who hadn’t been born yet.

Building a baby registry is a very personal task that ends up reflecting a lot of your personal choices and beliefs. I’m not going to tell you that you must have this particular thing or that another choice is wrong.

A typical registry assumes stability. This assumes transition.

I am going to try and give you a useful framing when taking on one of the most challenging tasks I’ve ever muddled my way through.

You can buy the best rated thermometer or the most absorbent diapers. You can research what ships well or what is available wherever you’re moving. You can build the most intentional and thoughtful registry possible. But there are still things outside of your control. Unknown unknowns, to borrow a phrase.

And so, to some extent you are building a registry as a place to put the anxiety of not knowing.

Each section is flexible and you can define it with what feels right for you. I’ve included some examples for what made sense for me…and what I wish I’d known at the time.

Things you’ll feel better knowing you have

Not because they solve every problem, but because they give you a few less unknowns. When my son got his first bad cold shortly after we arrived, I was comforted to know we’d brought all the essentials in our bags on the plane so we’d have them on hand for just such a moment. And the overwhelming feeling of trying to figure out what medication to buy is not made easier trying to operate in an unfamiliar environment or using a language you don’t know well.

Items might include medication, shampoo and conditioner, bubble bath, a tub, nail clippers, a suction bulb. Think health and safety.

Multiple sizes and stages of things

Babies will keep growing, whether or not your package has arrived. My son went from adorable but largely immobile to rolling, then crawling and also teething in the first few months after our arrival. Knowing that we had things we could safely give him to chew on made this quick transition a bit easier on us. He was still sleeping in a bassinet when we arrived, but only a few months later we had to move to a crib as he became increasingly mobile. This meant that having registered for a crib and moved it across the ocean with us unopened ended up being a great idea.

Having two or three outfits in the next two or three sizes (0-3 months, 3-6 months, and 6-9 months) gives you some breathing room as your baby grows. Keep in mind seasonal needs (winter vs summer) when doing this.

Same goes for diapers, toys, bottles, bowls, and spoons; having things for the next few developmental stages buys you time to learn your way around your new home before you have to panic buy anything.

Different ways to get around

It’s hard to know what daily life will look like and what kind of movement will be required. The US is dominated by cars, and a car seat is a must. But maybe you will be walking a ton and the roads don’t have sidewalks that are stroller friendly. A carrier might come in very handy. Or maybe you will use a stroller a lot, but the standard US size is too big and you need to make sure you have a rain cover for walking whatever the weather.

A stroller, car seat (FAA approved if you want to use it for plane travel), soft or structured carriers, and accessories all fall into this group, as do cargo bikes and whatever other modes of transport you use.

Things to remind you of home and people you love

One of the most difficult parts of moving was knowing we would be raising our son far from so many of the people we love. Being able to bring objects that remind us of them, or that help them to be present in our lives eases that. For us, that meant stuffed animals from our childhoods that we are passing down. A printed board book with the faces of our family members back home. Hand me downs from friends and cousins. Books we remember fondly. Family photos.

This is the most personal category, so really try to think about what would be meaningful for you. Maybe you’d like everyone to write a note to the baby at your shower and you can read them at bedtime. Or you’d like everyone to pick out an outfit and you send a picture of the baby in that outfit to them. Or register for books from local authors or with themes from wherever you call home.

The basics and a place to put them while you’re on the move

The thing about moving far away with a newly arrived baby is that you are, well, on the move. And so some things will have to come with you to care for your little. A truly surprising number of things, in fact.

A good (not expensive, just good) diaper bag to keep things organized is invaluable. Searching for a diaper 20 hours into a travel day when your baby is mid-meltdown is not an experience you want to have.

All the usual suspects belong here. Diapers, wipes, swaddles, bottles, burp cloths, wet bags, etc. I also found toiletry bags, pouches, or packing cubes to help keep things organized. And an empty lip balm pot or similar is a great way to DIY a diaper cream container without having to bring a whole big one with you everywhere.

Some self care

If you’re having a baby and planning a move, it is easy for you to disappear off the list. Try and make sure you stay on it. I’m thankful to say I had great support postpartum, but even still, it was difficult and stressful. Taking time to care for myself in the midst of everything that was happening was not a luxury. It was necessary. Having a moment, however brief, to bring myself a little joy just for the sake of it allowed me to keep going.

Simple things like a robe, nice water bottle, comfortable nursing/pumping bras if relevant, earbuds/earplugs, toiletries you love, or just anything that makes you feel cozy are great. If it’s an option, meal gift cards are great. And if you can, a small luxury that travels well so you can have something nice for yourself when you arrive. Maybe your favorite chocolate bar, or a lotion that makes you feel like you’re at a spa.

This registry isn’t about having everything. It’s about giving yourself a margin for error (or growth), some comfort, and a bit of continuity in your life when everything else is changing.

Of course, my registry did not perfectly cover every need we eventually had. Nothing could have perfectly prepared us for this version of life together.

But that isn’t really the point of a baby registry.

The point is to see the uncertainty and say: we know change is coming, and we will meet it with care.

-Eva

Out to dinner one night with a friend, we’re talking about the different things we miss about home, and the fun parts of living in Beijing.

While we eat from an all-you-can-eat buffet of various Chinese dishes. Delicious.

I ask if there’s anything she’s had a hard time finding, since she’s been here much longer than we have.

Without hesitation: Reese’s.

She tried shipping them from the US once, but it didn’t work out.

For some reason it reminds me of a roommate I had while studying in Irbid, Jordan. She somehow convinced the owner of a corner store by us to stock peanut butter and her favorite cigarettes, Newports. I could understand the peanut butter, but I was always a bit puzzled by the cigarettes.

Either way, I understood the urge.

The comfort of a familiar flavor. I think even if you’ve never lived abroad, you can understand the desire.

A cookie that your great aunt made a certain way and no one else has ever figured out how she did it. The pie you always have at Thanksgiving, or dad’s special steak recipe. The fast food breakfast burrito you only get on the long drive to grandma’s house.

Not fancy, but special. It means something to you.

So when I managed to get ahold of some Reese’s, I made sure to get some for the next time I saw her.

Because they might be just a candy, or they might be a taste of home.

-Eva

It’s summer in Beijing, and that means it’s moving season. As the school year ends, the farewells begin.

As we prepare to leave the first farewell of the season, our host points to their door. Hanging there are many copies of a magnet. It has a picture of a poem hand embroidered by my host in red thread.

On the back is their contact info. What a sweet farewell gift to give your friends.

And they left out an address book for us to all write our info in for them. Color coded to this particular place, so they know where we were together.

When people rotate in and out of the city every year, you get a lot of experience with goodbyes. And you experience many different kinds.

I guess it’s something you get good at with this lifestyle: the goodbye.

I’ve also said my fair share of goodbyes over the years, sometimes knowing I’d almost certainly never see someone again, sometimes insisting we’d stay in one another’s lives forever.

The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

People pop up unexpectedly. Like the friend from high school in Connecticut that we ran into on the streets of London while we were there for three days. We turned a corner by the Bank of England and nearly ran into them as we scurried across the street, late for lunch. Or the college friend we ran into on a mountain in West Virginia while we taught another friend how to cross country ski. The world really can surprise you in the most unexpected ways.

And then there are those people who were deeply important to who I was at the time, but our lives took us in different directions. And that’s ok.

But saying a truly good goodbye, that is an art.

One that leaves the door open and allows you to connect but doesn’t make promises that can’t be kept.

I think about the time they spent embroidering the poem. That they said they couldn’t read it without tearing up as they told us to take one. I paused to read it on the ride back, and I teared up a bit as well. It’s a beautiful poem translated from Chinese into English. And it’s about goodbyes.

There’s a certain comfort in that. A feeling, carried from one language to another, still easily understood.

And now I want to learn to do goodbyes well, too.

The magnet hangs on my fridge, alongside many others from our travels. And like the others, it holds memories.

But it is also a note from a friend. Their goodbye.

And also, whenever I see it, a small hello.

I sit at a patio set several floors up in the shade of a nondescript umbrella. The sun is shining and the sky is vivid blue. This is something people in Beijing comment on as a matter of course. The skyline glitters with unique buildings that stick out unexpectedly. I listen to birds chattering away and grandparents chasing after their grandkids as they walk beside the river. It is morning in Beijing.

I sip my coffee and pet my dog as she shoves herself into my legs asking me not to stop.

This morning ritual has brought me peace and comfort in my new life.

Granted, most Beijingers don’t use their balcony this way, if they have one. Usually, it’s a place to hang out laundry, and maybe have a few plants.

So this is a distinctly imported use of this space.

But sitting here and drinking my coffee, listening to the birds, petting my dog…

It helps me feel a quiet comfort here. To be grounded. Not in a “I’m so at peace here” kind of a way. Just in a “maybe I don’t have to live in anxiety all the time” way. Because leaving your job of 10+ years, becoming a parent, and moving to the other side of the world and to a country where you don’t speak the language happens to come with some anxiety. In just a three month period I removed nearly every part of myself that felt familiar.

This gives me a few minutes to catch my breath. To organize my thoughts. Maybe catch up on my Chinese language homework.

It brings together the familiar and the new.

Coffee. Preferably iced. Doesn’t matter how cold the weather is.

A new skyline. New birdsongs. New conversations I overhear but don’t understand.

I’ve learned there is a peregrine falcon that lives somewhere nearby. And I can estimate how good (or not) the air is on a given day by how clearly I can see certain buildings.

Having a just-turned-one-year-old means I don’t get a lot of time to myself. I’m usually sitting on a cushion on the floor of his room or pushing him in a stroller or standing in the kitchen cooking while he watches me from his chair.

So this time helps me get back to myself.

Just me. Alone.

Or, with my dog. But she doesn’t talk too much.

It’s when I think about essay topics, or where I want to travel next.

And make the never-ending mental to-do lists that come with motherhood; answer a few emails.

I recently planted some flowers and herbs in a planter on my balcony. They make it feel a bit more like home.

I still miss my garden at our house and my two large raised beds where I could grow beans and tomatoes and squash and potatoes and peppers and herbs and whatever else struck my fancy. Where praying mantises appeared each spring on my trellises dripping with green beans. And where I fought with squirrels about whether my seedlings should stay in the ground or not. My blueberry and blackberry bushes that were just starting to fruit.

But my little container with mint and basil and flowers is a start. Herbs I use in dishes I love. And some Shasta daisies that remind me of the house where I grew up, and a picture standing surrounded by them with my grandma.

So I make my balcony into a space of my own…to use my own way. Growing some plants and putting down roots. Sipping coffee and petting my dog. Listening to the sounds of a city I’m slowly starting to learn.

It’s a small way of laying claim to this place. To saying this is also home. At least for now.

-Eva

Oh no. I’m five minutes into taxying for a two and a half hour plane ride with just myself and my son. And he is NOT amused.

I’m trying all the usual things and nothing is doing the trick this time.

I resist the urge to catastrophize, but only just barely. I reach for every toy I have with me. The bottle. Snacks.

Nope.

But then the person next to me grabs the air sickness bag from in front of her and starts tearing off little pieces and putting them into the bag. Confused, I look over to see what is going on.

She calmly hands the bag to my son, who is now happily trying to get the pieces of paper out of the bag. And just like that, the whole experience changes.

Traveling with a baby often comes with the feeling that you are responsible for not only your child, but also for everyone else’s experience (and feelings) around you.

I don’t know if that woman could see the impact she has in that moment. I hope she could. I thanked her as profusely as my limited language skills allowed throughout the flight as she continued to come up with new ways to entertain my baby. Eventually, she would chase him down the aisle of the plane as he attempted a great escape via crawling past us.

Looking back, she didn’t rescue me from disaster. She didn’t save my life. Truthfully, she only spent a little time from her day helping me.

But I remember it.

And once I started to notice these moments, they were everywhere.

We were eating a late dinner at a restaurant, and maybe half of the baby’s food was making it to his mouth. The high chair and floor were getting a decent meal too. But instead of looking like they were dreading the inevitable cleanup, the staff were playful with him, waving hello every time they passed with a dish for another table. The bartender even offered him a small baked treat as we were ending our meal. We happily did our best to clean up his mess on our way out, and they said goodbye to him like he was an old friend.

On another trip, our driver (also a mom) checked in before we started traveling again after every stop to see if the baby needed a diaper change or if I needed to nurse. Rather than feeling like I was making our logistical situation more complicated, I felt cared for. She even picked up some fruits for the baby to try when she learned he was starting solids. Because of her care, he got to try some of the best strawberries I have ever had.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year thinking about what makes somewhere feel like home. Sometimes it is a familiar routine; the rhythm of daily life. Sometimes it is the people you love, and who love you. And sometimes it is a stranger on an airplane giving your baby an airsickness bag filled with scraps of paper.

-Eva

Moving to China with a three month old meant there was no easing into travel with a baby. We just had to figure it out as we went along.

Living on the other side of the world from the US has changed what travel looks like for us. Places that were once bucket list trips are now just a long weekend away.

And so we have been making the most of the opportunity! In the first year of our son’s life, we took him across China by plane, bullet train, and Didi—from mountainside rice terraces to frozen northeastern winters.

And what have we learned along the way?

First, we learned that we are very fortunate to have a baby who can adapt quickly and fairly smoothly to changes. Without that stroke of good luck, this probably would have been a lot less fun.

We also learned which items were actually important for our lifestyle while traveling and which ones we could just make do without.

Washing bottles in a renovated, and very old, Chinese home in an ancient city? The reusable silicone bag came in extremely handy. Pop the bottles in there with some boiling water (thank you, China, for always having tea kettles on hand) after washing them out for a nice clean bottle and relatively lower stress.

A sleep sack and a sound machine were invaluable for us to be able to keep the essential elements of the bedtime routine stable wherever we found ourselves. Whether the baby was cosleeping on a kang or had a crib in a separate room, they held a bit of the familiar and allowed us all to know what to expect.

At one point, I slept with the baby on a tatami in a nook of our hotel room among the rice paddies on the side of a mountain. He had just started crawling and they didn’t have any cribs available, so I was unsure how much sleep I was actually going to get. But once the sleep sack was on and the sound machine started, he settled right down for bed.

It’s not all easy, by any means. The first few train trips we did came with some unexpected hassles as our seats weren’t together and people were not willing to change seats so we could be together. I once sat in a middle seat with the baby on my lap for a three hour flight, with middle-aged men on either side. And there was a train conductor who helpfully told me my baby was hungry after I’d just tried feeding him (unsuccessfully) for the third time.

I try to remind myself that all of these situations are temporary.

Traveling with a baby can make it seem like a difficult moment will never end. Often you are physically trapped. The crying on the train, the nap that was way too short because the car ride ended, the stranger telling you your baby is cold when you’re just trying to get to the bathroom. And it can feel so hard. But then the train arrives. The baby sleeps. You get where you were going.

The moment passes. And you get to experience some amazing things along the way.

There are plenty of unique quirks of traveling here with a baby. Gate checking a stroller seems to be very uncommon, to the point that some airports really seem uncertain about the process. Many families here have strollers that are far more compact than the US versions and can be put in overhead bins. We still travel with our stroller, but it is a little bit of an experience every time. It is hard to know if it will actually come out at the gate, or if we will need to find our way to the checked baggage area to retrieve it. Having a baby carrier on hand becomes extremely helpful in these moments; I use my ring sling for this because it packs quite small.

Fortunately for us, China is an extremely baby friendly place. Family restrooms, nursing rooms, and high chairs are found pretty much everywhere. Many restaurants have plates and silverware just for small children. There are even family-specific hotel rooms that have single beds alongside a king bed, kid friendly bathrooms, and play areas. All of this infrastructure helps reduce the number of things we have to worry about. Even when there wasn’t a nursing room or a changing table in the restaurant we were in, people helped us make do. More than one restaurant has been kind enough to let me use a private room to nurse or do a quick diaper change.

So for me, traveling with a baby has made me reflect on how little we really need to feel at home. Not the perfect situation. Not everything you could possibly ever need. But familiarity, safety, and being close to the people who help us explore the world around us. As it turns out, those things travel quite well.

-Eva

Within a week of finding out I was pregnant, we learned we’d be moving to the other side of the world as soon as possible after the baby arrived.

Talk about big news.

As we shared our excitement with the people we loved, a quieter realization started to settle in: our village wasn’t coming with us.

Thankfully, our people showed up for us in a big way through pregnancy, the newborn haze, and all the logistics of preparing for an international move. I genuinely don’t think we could have done it without them.

But eventually, the day came when we boarded a plane and landed on the other side of the world.

And when we arrived, people were already helping.

Our home had been set up with temporary furnishings. Someone took me to get a SIM card. The fridge was stocked with basics.

In a way, that built-in, non-optional help became the first bridge toward building a new village. I didn’t have to ask for anything. People just showed up and did what needed doing.

Looking back, that was true of our original village too.

They showed up unbeckoned. Dropped things off. Checked in. Pitched in.

The difference was that with our old village, that kind of care felt familiar. Expected, even.

This new version didn’t.

At first, the asks were easy to say yes to.

Want to go to the market?

Want a Vietnamese coffee?

Want to chat for a few minutes?

Easy yeses.

Those easy yeses slowly became something more.

People introduced me to friends. Other parents. One mom, who I had only just met, casually told me about the intrusive thoughts she experienced after her first child as we drove to the market. There was something quietly profound about realizing that people I barely knew were willing to be vulnerable with me. It silently signaled that nothing was too much. That there was room for honesty here.

I met people just by walking around with my baby. As it turns out, people are very drawn to a baby with a full head of blond hair.

Parents with teenagers who missed the baby phase would happily hold him for a few minutes, giving me a chance to eat, breathe, or have an actual conversation.

I joined a baby group in our community and started going to playdates with my not-yet-mobile baby, who mostly slept through them. He may not have gotten much out of it, but I did.

When the group leader needed to step back, I volunteered to take over. Imperfectly, if I’m being honest. Writing this now is probably a reminder that I need to pay that commitment forward a bit more intentionally.

Coffee became another easy entry point. Someone would suggest meeting up, and since I pretty much perpetually need coffee, I’d say yes.

Eventually, those coffees turned into conversations, and those conversations turned into people offering hand-me-down clothes, recommendations, support, and friendship.

Then winter came.

I worked up the nerve to send a message asking whether anyone had cold weather gear their kids had outgrown.

And people showed up.

We got exactly what we needed.

There’s something uniquely vulnerable about asking for help when you don’t like asking for help. The anxiety isn’t just in making the ask. It’s in wondering whether the request will be ignored. Whether you’ve overstepped. Whether you’ve misread the relationship entirely.

Being met with generosity instead feels like equal parts relief and joy.

Still, I apparently needed to learn this lesson more than once.

When my main breast pump died just before a trip back to the US, I did what I always do: tried to solve the problem myself.

I submitted a warranty claim. I made do with manual options. I researched replacements.

Eventually, after we returned and I still had no solution, my husband gently suggested the obvious: ask the other moms.

I could see the logic. I still hated the idea.

But I worked up the nerve and sent the message.

Within minutes, I had multiple offers of free pumps.

Within 24 hours, I had two exact replacements.

It honestly still kind of shocks me how quickly people stepped in.

Not because I wouldn’t do the same—I absolutely would.

But because some part of me still struggles to expect that kind of care from people I haven’t known very long.

Maybe that’s because we’re all trying to create “home” far from home.

Maybe it’s one of those things that happens when you become a parent.

Maybe both.

Lately, it feels like the phrase everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager is everywhere.

And sure, there’s truth in that.

But I wonder if there’s another side to it.

For those of us who are perfectly happy being the villager—the helper, the one who shows up, the one who says yes—maybe the harder thing is letting ourselves actually need the village in return.

Maybe the real challenge isn’t building the village.

Maybe it’s trusting that it exists.

Maybe it’s giving people the opening to show up for us.

Maybe that’s how you realize the village was already there.

-Eva

I don’t remember the first time we used this phrase.

It probably came about at some point when I was a teenager and my family was living in northern Mexico. We spent the summer before my senior year of high school living in a hotel room in Ohio. Or, at least my mom, brother, and I did. Dad had to stay and keep working. So why a hotel room? Because there were security threats and it was deemed not safe for the rest of us to stay.

In what I can only imagine must have been a horrifically difficult situation for my parents, we packed up in 24 hours and left. My brother and I never went back; we just went on with our school years in the US.

The roots of the phrase probably started before all of this, but I think it solidified in this situation. Because most people probably don’t think of a Radisson as “home.” But for a summer, we did.

It was the place we returned to, where we stored our school supplies for the upcoming year, where friends knew they could find us. It was where we watched Michael Phelps swim and break records at the Olympics.

I don’t remember a ton about that summer now, but I do remember finding it amusing that a hotel room really did start to feel like home.

I’m also not sure when we all realized that we’d refer to wherever we were going back to as “home,” be it a hotel room, a friend’s house, or a dorm room. But at various points it dawned on us all that we did just that all the time.

Before moving to Mexico, we’d moved once in my whole life. And then things changed very quickly.

I started boarding school, spent school breaks crossing borders, and became surprisingly practiced at packing up and settling into new places…at least superficially.

I can’t imagine the turmoil my mom must have experienced with everything that happened. But somehow she created home for us in our hotel room.

Looking back, I think that’s what the phrase came to mean.

Home wasn’t the hotel room. Home was the stability my mom created inside it. The memories we created together. And we found that somehow we could do that wherever our suitcases were. Maybe with effort, or time, or the right shift of perspective. Not without challenges or discomfort. But it could be done.

Over the years, home would become apartments, dorm rooms, borrowed bedrooms, Airbnbs, another hotel, and eventually a house on the other side of the world.

The suitcases kept changing destinations. The question stayed the same: how do you create a sense of home when things around you are not permanent?

It’s a question I’ve mulled over many times, and one I’ll continue exploring here.

This has also stayed with me as I am now a parent, creating a home of my own for my family. What do I want my son to think of when he hears the word “home”?

-Eva

One thing that surprised me after moving to Beijing was how infrequently many expats seemed to eat Chinese food.

Granted, we had visited China before and already enjoyed many regional cuisines. I’d also learned to make a number of Chinese dishes over the years, so incorporating them into our regular meals felt natural.

Still, I assumed that living in China would mean eating Chinese food even more often than we had in the United States.

Instead, I found that many internationally mobile families seemed to recreate home through what they cooked and served at their own tables.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more this makes sense.

The foods we cook at home do more than feed us. They provide continuity. They create familiarity. They help define the rhythms of daily life.

For families who move every few years—especially those raising young children—those familiar meals can become an important part of identity. A quiet but meaningful way of carrying home from place to place.

That’s not to say there aren’t other reasons people may be hesitant to embrace local cuisines: picky eaters, food allergies, simple personal preference, or sometimes more complicated assumptions about unfamiliar food cultures. Those realities exist too.

But this idea of food as continuity has stayed with me.

And, if I’m honest, after nine months abroad, I’ve started to feel it myself.

At first, the novelty of being here made it easy to lean heavily into Chinese food. We were excited to explore, to try regional dishes, to make the most of where we were.

But over time, I found myself craving familiar flavors—not necessarily American ones, but the meals that have become part of our own family’s rhythms.

Tacos. Thai food. Burgers. Pasta.

The kinds of meals that feel less like a particular country and more like our version of everyday life.

Partly, this is about comfort. Partly, it’s about decision fatigue with a baby-now-toddler in the mix. And partly, I think, it’s about creating continuity.

So I recently put together the first iteration of a loose weekly meal framework for our family—not a rigid plan, but a set of themes that make everyday decisions easier:

Monday: Mince — ground meat in various forms

Tuesday: Taco — broadly defined flatbreads, tacos, wraps, and Mexican-inspired meals

Wednesday: Wings & Water — poultry and seafood

Thursday: Meatless — no meat

Friday: Takeout — order in or go out

Saturday: Social — meals for sharing with friends

Sunday: All Day — dishes that take time

It’s simple, intentionally flexible, and likely to evolve.

But I’ve realized it’s serving a purpose beyond meal planning.

Structure can be its own kind of touchstone.

A familiar rhythm. A small way of making daily life feel recognizable, even when the broader setting is new.

Home, it turns out, is sometimes built one meal at a time.

— Eva

Imagine moving abroad with a three-month-old and trying to predict what liquids your family will need for the next two to three years.

Now imagine making those decisions while profoundly sleep deprived, packing up your entire life, and making rapid judgments about what comes with you and what goes into storage.

It’s a unique kind of logistical roulette.

Then you arrive in the place you’re now calling home. Eventually, the boxes and suitcases that took months to cross oceans arrive too. You unpack. Life settles, at least a little.

And then you realize that some of the decisions you made in survival mode don’t actually match the reality of daily life.

This is probably inevitable.

At some point, if you’re lucky, you travel home. Or friends visit. Or someone kindly offers precious suitcase space on their return trip.

And suddenly, you get a chance to course correct.

So what made it onto my shopping list for our first trip back?

• Shampoo and conditioner

• Bubble bath / body wash

• Lotion

• Zinc diaper ointment

• Tylenol

• Motrin

• Cough syrup

• Saline spray

• Hand sanitizer

• Toothpaste

Later, I would add:

• Allergy medicine

Did this mean a suitcase filled mostly with liquids, each one carefully wrapped and nested inside increasingly improbable containment systems to prevent leaks?

Yes.

Was it entirely worth it?

Also yes.

Because while this was partly about convenience, it was also about something else.

Peace of mind.

The comfort of having the things you know. The products you instinctively reach for when a toddler spikes a fever, develops a rash, or refuses bedtime because everything feels just a little off.

These aren’t profound objects.

But touchstones rarely need to be.

Sometimes the things that make a place feel like home are surprisingly ordinary.

And sometimes they arrive in a checked bag.

— Eva