WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE: THE THIRD SPACE
There’s No Place Like Home
BY LAURA BESLEY
Every summer my husband
and I go back to England to
visit friends and relatives.
We’re both teachers and have
therefore always been lucky
with how much holiday we
get. When I was still teaching
full-time, we used to go back
to England for three weeks
(and were still able to go
somewhere at Christmas or
Easter – sometimes even both
– to satisfy our wanderlust).
Now I am mainly a full-time
mum (I only teach on
Saturdays) and feel even stronger about going back to England every summer. Because
it’s possible, I go for longer (my husband always has to return early to go back to work);
partly to escape the oppressive heat of a Hong Kong summer and partly because I want
my son to spend as much time with his relatives as possible.
On one of the many sunny afternoons in England a friend of mine asked me whether we’d
ever considered owning a car in Hong Kong.
‘No, not really,’ I replied. ‘The congestion is a nightmare, as is the price of parking. And
the public transport is so good. I suppose it would be nice for getting out a bit more at the
weekend, to the beaches or the New Territories. If we lived there, I might.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you lived there for seven years?’
We both laughed, but it got me thinking about how I felt about living in Hong Kong. My
husband and I had been living and working in Germany before Hong Kong. When our
contracts ended there, we’d decided we wanted to live somewhere a little bit more
exciting. I’d been to China once on holiday – and loved it – and my husband had
thoroughly enjoyed a year in Japan previous to us meeting. We applied to Japan, South
Korea, Oman and Hong Kong. We decided on the two-year contract at the British Council
in Hong Kong.
That was in 2009 and we’re still here. The main reason is professional development. My
husband has done extensive training with the British Council and each time they have
demanded, as repayment, that he stay another year. He has now moved to a university to
gain some all-important experience in the tertiary system.
6 | November 2016