A Year in Relfection - To Find Oneself

Wow, this has been quite the experience...

I have found myself throughout the year trying to summarize my experience to people who may have or may have not been reading my blog and I have been telling them all sorts of things.

China is wonderful -
It has beautiful mountains, wonderful people, interesting food!

China is OK -
It has decent museums, people who always want to practice English with foreigners, and the food sometime seems repetitive.

China is terrible -
Some streets have smoldering garbage piles on their sidewalks, businessmen offer you morally gray job 'opportunities', and the food can make you sick.

I have even told some people 'I have found myself'... uh oh. Even I roll my eyes at that one.

But really, how does one not find themselves when they are traveling or teaching abroad - and what does it mean?

In the context I used it - late one night, chatting with a friend on gchat - I said that I found myself and it was nothing new. It was a refreshing change of something internal to something that was always there. Something supremely mundane. *sigh*

I believe the way it is commonly used, usually by travelers, involves a recognition of ones self that was concealed before an event, such as traveling to a different place.

At this moment I would like to reinterpret the word and say that I have found myself...in a different way.

I have found myself on this trip. But this statement is incomplete to what I truly mean to say.
I have found myself eating dumplings.
I have found myself surrounded by friends.
I have found myself ...ecstatic/confused/lost/full/wealthy/embarrassed/prideful/... on this trip.
I have found myself experiencing China.

I could have 'found myself' any where, and it would have been different (and yet similar). I can eat dumplings in New York, as I have with my brother in the past. I could have been surrounded by friends as I was in college. I could have been ...ecstatic / confused / lost / full / wealthy / embarrassed / prideful / ... as I have in various other times and places where I have found myself.

In this sense, I believe that 'finding myself in China' means I have found myself with a whole wealth of experiences I wouldn't have experienced, had anything been different.