老外说——为何一定要四处旅游，四海为家？

【老外说】是一档以“采访”老外为主的节目，帮助大家更好的了解中西文化差异，一窥英国人、美国人日常生活。每周一更新。本栏目适合精听/泛听。可做听写练习。

有些人天生不愿按部就班成家立业，结婚生子，定居在某处度过一生。今天采访到的这位老外就是这样一个人，让我们来听听他的理由吧。

I'm not always on the go. I mean I will stay somewhere for a few months. I was in one place in Thailand for 5 months, Bangkok for 3 months. So it's not that strange. It keeps life interesting to move around every few months. And actually, we're moving in 2 days to the south of Bali. Right now we’re in Ubud (乌布). But I think, really, having the internet keeps everything kind of stable. And having a very general routine, maintain stability.

Gwen

So that's why you called yourself digital nomad.

Yeah, a digital nomad is just anyone who lives abroad or moves around and makes money online. It's really perfect if you can earn some kind of income that's higher than the cost of living where you are. That’s part of the appeal to me, but part of it originally was just that I wanted to be in China. I had a tourist visa. I had to renew or I had to leave every 60 days anyway, so that brought me to Chiangmai (清迈) two times, brought me to Hanoi (河内). 2018, I was back and forth—Taiwan and Yunnan. In a way, I was forced to change locations. Otherwise I would have just stayed in Yunnan. But I do love traveling. It's just that to stay in a comfortable place, a cheap place.

Gwen

Where did you originally pick up this kind of lifestyle? Because it's not quite popular and common among Chinese, older people and young people. So is it common in your country? I mean this kind of lifestyle.

No, it's not common. Most of my friends from home, from high school or from college, did what they were supposed to do. They found a job, they found a place to stay. And in America, it's actually harder because usually apartments are not furnished. So you have to get your own bed and your own couch. And a lot of those things come from your parents. Right? A lot of times you inherit something from your grandparents, right? Your grandparents die, and then you move out, a few years later, then you take a table and this kind of thing. So in America, it's trickier than in most countries, because you have to transport and all of those things are costly. It takes time. So it's too much work for a lot of people to move around too much. And also when you quit your job in America, you lose your health insurance so you have to find a new job quickly.

For me, I got started because I wanted to live abroad after college. So I went to Taiwan. I was an English teacher. And then after that, I just started teaching online instead. And then what I started doing was finding ways to teach online as much as I could. So just hour after hour, which was really tiring. But it allowed me to save some money.

Because now there is COVID. There are so many people who want to work from home. All these companies have been flooded with applications. Now the pay is not as good. I kind of wanna move on from online teaching, but yeah, it was a really convenient way. Actually, I wish I had started earlier because I was traveling in Europe in 2017. I ran out of money. So I almost made it. I had a few days left to go before I met with my family in Ireland. Oops. Yeah, could have saved better.

Gwen

This idea of traveling around emerged when you were in college, so you never really wanted to settle, have a job and work like other people, like your classmates.

Yeah, that would just be so depressing and so demoralizing (使士气低落). Had I never traveled, even if I were still living in the US and I had a job and an apartment, I would still have been looking for every way possible to save money on the weekend or before work, after work anyway that I could, so that I could quit. And then maybe start a business or do something differently. So, no matter what I can't tolerate this normal, typical American life.

Gwen

Where did you have the impression of the routine job would be depressing and mortifying (难堪)? Because most of the people are doing it. They are just living the life. They're just like you said, tolerating, like you use the word, you were in college at the time you never worked. How come that you already felt depressing and modifying to say that in the future, if I worked as a white-collar worker, then I would be sit around in the office all day and just modifying a way of life. So where did the impression come?

I think all my life I hate having my schedule, go according to a normal timetable. I've always hated it. I always just wanna do what I want all the time.

Gwen

Like your parents?

Yeah, but it's not their fault. It's that no matter who it is, I always hate having a routine. That someone else is dictating to me. I think it just struck me as terribly boring. But I actually think that part of it I could have done. I just really, really wanted to go abroad. That was the main reason it wasn't teaching. It was I wanted to go abroad. I wanted to live somewhere outside of the US. I’ve been in Europe before. I just love that feeling of being in a foreign place.

Gwen

So did you make up your mind when you were very little or gradually had the idea of…

That's a good question. I don't really know exactly where that came from. I can tell you that when high school friend went on the class trip to Germany. So the German students stay in October. And then the American students go in April, they do this trip every two years. This was my sophomore year in high school, and he was telling me about the trip and what they were doing. It was like, can I do this? I really wanted to do something like that.

I took German. I started taking it in my Junior year, so I was 16. I studied it for two years. Finally, when I was 17, with just two months to go till graduation I got to go. Actually, I didn't even host to (接待) the German until he visited the next summer in 2011. But I just love that experience. I love everything about it. And then I studied abroad in France. And so I just wanted to go to more and more countries. Originally, I wanted to go to Russia actually and be an English teacher there. But I realized the jobs in China paid better. We're easier for people to get used to, I guess.

Gwen

So the reason lies in the traveling experience itself.

Yeah, and I think probably there's another element of just not wanting to, being tired of American life, being tired of my experience in high school and college, being tired of American culture. Also, I think there's another kind of subconscious element, which is I need to gain an advantage in life, I need to get more money or power, or be more interesting than I am. I'm not just gonna be a nerd working a white-collar job who goes home and plays video games or something. I wanna live a life with a little more adventure. I wouldn't describe my life as that adventurous, but at least I get to be around foreign cultures, which is good enough for me.

你是喜欢长期定居在一处，还是像这位老外一样，喜欢在一个地方待上几个月再换一个地方，总是保持着新鲜感呢？

大家还想听“老外”说些什么？欢迎留言哦

-等你很久啦！-