Out with the New Normal

I was walking #rhinopug down Queens Road the other day when the craziest thing happened. We were walking by a crosswalk and as we passed by, the ticking noise that signals that it is time to cross the street started up. Rhino took an immediate 90º right turn and headed for the intersection. It might be because he knows that we would have to cross the road to get to the dog park but I have to believe that reaction to the sound was behavior that he unknowingly learned from two years of walking the Hong Kong streets. It’s easy to recognize the Pavlovian behavior in dogs, but it’s harder to notice these changes in ourselves.

With every three months, I think there is a noticeable change in the way you adjust to a new place. I set a reoccurring calendar notification that marks that day.  Yesterday I got the 8th and final 3-month reminder in Hong Kong, and today, like Pavlov’s dogs, I woke up just before my last November Project alarm as a leader here.  With these two final reminders, I can’t help but reflect on how my normal has changed.

When we moved here it was loud, busy and erratic. Over time, we figured out how to find food and not take the train past our stop. We eventually learned how to ignore the smell of fish sauce, old garbage, and dried shrimp, and zone out from the constant noise of traffic, chatter, and, construction. The lady in the apartment across the alley doesn’t even keep me up at night when she yells into her phone into our apartment.

Tolerating to the new normal is inevitable. But embracing the new normal is what makes it leaving the old normal tolerable.

We lived here a year before starting November Project Hong Kong. We passed through some loosely formed communities but never really held on to any of them too tightly. After the first year, it wasn’t an easy decision to stay but we agreed to stay for six more months. In that period of time, we started November Project and that made it easier to stay the next six months and so hard to leave this time.

There are things that have become normal that I have started to take for granted. For instance, the other day it dawned on us, wherever we live in the US, we will not have the opportunity to eat dinner with 12 people from 8 different countries and still have so much in common. This has become my favorite aspect of our new normal here.

This community is special. It is amazing how much common ground we have with Germans, Indonesians, Chinese, Austrians, Spaniards,  Singaporeans, Brazilians, Swedes, French, Kiwis, Brits and of course Hong Kongers just because we have all left our old normal and like to be active. In other words, #justshowup and #freefitness can mean as much as anything when it comes to bringing people together.

I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten to meet some many great, open-minded, and positive people. I’m grateful that a multi-dialect English conversation has become normal, that phrasing sentences in a way that is understandable for non-native speakers is comfortable, that every Wednesday I can show up to the fountains and see the same great faces is normal, and that hi-fives have become less discomforting if not normal for others.

Jetlag is the best metaphor for moving away from home. When you get there, it takes you a long time to get adjusted and right when you’ve gotten adjusted its time to go. I feel like I’ve just settled here into place in this community and its just now time to leave.

I’m bummed, but at the same time, I know that there are many in this community who have adopted this new normal. I am really happy with the future NPHK leaders. There is no doubt in my mind that this community will be a welcome new normal many people for many years.

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