Montreal to Shanghai: A Greek Canadian Expat Story: S11E1

Have your immigrant parents ever visited you in any of your expat places? Georges' parents have and it shifted how he understood their struggles moving from Greece to Canada. We cover a lot more ground on his parents' immigrant story and how it has both positively and negatively influenced his own expat experience. 

Original publication date: July 28, 2022

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:35

Welcome to another episode of Geopats Podcast. This is Steph Fuccio, and I'm here to take you around the world in unique and interesting ways with expats and geopaths that dig into different cultures where they're living. What's happening this season is, if I'm completely honest, very emotional. We are talking to expats who grew up with one or more immigrant parents in the household. And I really want to get to the heart of this question. Did growing up with a or immigrant influence in their household impact their later expat life? This is something that I've been trying to dig out of my own brain, so I figured I might as well talk with some other folks about it. And so far we've talked to Alison, who had a Chilean mom, and then we talked to Chelsea, who's from the south of the US and grew up with a German mom. And now we're gonna talk to George, who grew up in Canada with two Greek parents. We talk about his parents' immigrant story. How, when, and why did they go over to Canada? Did he always want to move abroad, or is that something that kind of happened accidentally? What was the immigrant family situation around him in Canada before he left? Like what was his upbringing like? Did he feel weird, like I keep saying I did? And of course, his parents' immigrant influence on his work ethic. And we go into much more than that. So let's listen to the conversation with George. Thank you so much, George, for joining us on Geopaths and our special um adult children of immigrants who are now expat season that clearly needs a better summation. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

No, I'm happy to be on the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Fantastic. Now it is when we're recording this, it's the beginning of June, um, and this will go out in August during our micro season. And you're in a very interesting location right now. Can you tell us where you are?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, so I I've been living in Shanghai, China for the past few years. And um, I mean, recently, obviously, everybody's kind of focused on Shanghai simply because we've been in lockdown for the most part of two months now.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Um, so that's that's been very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

And as we talked about before I hit record, um the news is saying that the lockdown is over. And you were like, yes and no. Can you expand on that a tiny bit?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah, so we officially it was over on the first of June, which was about um two days ago. We're the third today. And when everybody went out kind of pouring onto the streets, it was like, okay, everybody's kind of psyched up. But like I went out to go meet some friends, and I realized I didn't bring water. Um, I didn't pee before I left the apartment, and just those two things, like basic things, turned out to come back and bite me because there was not even a convenience store to to get a bottle of water, and the bathrooms were all closed, the public bathrooms, restrooms, and things. So I mean, it was it was a nightmare. Like we walked for several hours um to give you the equivalent of like, I don't know, like 15,000 steps or whatnot. And I was like, Oh, I I have to take a taxi home, but the taxis weren't even operational yet. So it's it's kind of like uh like people are allowed out of their house, but the city's not back to normal.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Right, right. I'm trying to imagine Shanghai without a million convenience stores open. That is wild. That is wild.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Oh my gosh, wow. Okay, well, I'm sure in in true China style, everything will be back to or closer to normal pretty fast.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

On Monday, they they said that Monday, um, because we're on holiday, it's the Dragon Boat Festival today.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So probably on Monday everything will be completely back to normal.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. And uh for the listeners, if you'd like to hear more about this, we'll tell you how you can do that at the end of this episode. How's that for a teaser? Yeah. All right. So let's dig into your your geographical history. Um I from what I understand, you were born and raised in Canada. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, that's right. I was I was born in um Montreal, which is in the province of Quebec.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

And then you went to Hong Kong after college?

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Is that yeah, yeah. So I did my my bachelor's um in Montreal actually, uh, McGill, McGill University, which is like, I don't know, I live like 20 minutes away. And um I was thinking about doing graduate studies, and the US kind of didn't seem like uh such a good option because you either have to commit to a full PhD, which is like eight years in the US. Um, the master's programs are not really a thing and they're quite expensive. So I figured, oh, you know what, either I'll I'll consider doing a PhD or just stop and and go work. But um a friend of mine, she had graduated uh a semester early and ended up going to Hong Kong to do her studies in in archaeology, and she told me a little bit about it, and I was like, oh, you know, that that sounds pretty cool. Hong Kong, like I've I've never heard really much about it, never seen much of like haven't really seen that part of the world. So uh I ended up applying for uh masters at Hong Kong University. Nice, and yeah, that was kind of the the beginning of the end.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

The end of what?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Of not going back to Canada. I mean, I I think I've stayed stayed there for for what's been like almost what uh eight eight years.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Right. Wow. Okay, so you went from Canada to Hong Kong and then over to China, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, so I I was originally I did two years uh at Hong Kong University and I was going to do a PhD um because my supervisor at uh at Hong Kong University was like, oh, you should do a PhD with um this supervisor at at Oxford. And I was like, okay, well, that's great. I I study anthropology, by the way. That's my um that's my my kind of major. So I found this supervisor at Oxford, and he's like, sure, I'd love to take you, but um, quick question. You want to do anthropology of China? Do you speak Chinese? I was like, well, not really.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Um, I I don't. He's like, okay, well, why don't you go away, study Chinese, learn Chinese, and come back.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Oh, oh yeah, you know, just next week. Come back next week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Well, I did. I ended up um I ended up kind of going there. So uh I moved to Chengdu in Sichuan province, uh, enrolled in the university and kind of studied Chinese for for a year full time. And then instead of going back to to Oxford, I just moved to Shanghai and started working and started my company eventually.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Wow. Okay, okay, and we will get to that. But um, let's backtrack a bit because though the whole season that we're doing in the during the because this whole season is about growing up with parent, a parent or parents who were immigrants and how that's impacted our expat lives. And so let's go way, way, way, way back to before you were born. And can you give me a little bit of or give us a little bit of a background on your parents' immigration story?

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah. Um, so both of my parents are, I guess, ethnically um Greek. So they were they were living in Greece. Um, and they in the 1970s, they were part of the this movement, this um kind of immigration movement to like kind of exodus that was leaving Greece at the time for for different kind of reasons of of upheaval and things. But um, my parents actually both left roughly at about my my dad left at um, I believe it was 12, and my mom at 16 from Greece. And um, they moved to Montreal, Canada, both of them, and they actually met later on when they were adults, like 28 years old, 29 in Montreal.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Um, my my mom comes from a smaller, kind of smaller family. She just has a brother, but my dad has like they're seven siblings, so like they're have like four aunts and like three or three uncles. So it's quite a big family, but um, yeah, they they they left Greece when they were quite young, uh, never finished their education really, because I think they had finished like um mostly primary and a little bit of high school. And they just came to Montreal, started working.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

So similar to my parents' story, it's ridiculous. Yeah. Well, my parents came over at different stages. I think my dad was 12 and my mom was 20 or her early 20s, and they met in beauty school in New York City, is what the story is. And um, yeah, and they both have like eight and nine kids on each side of the family. So I have so many ants and uncles and cousins and things. Yeah, that's wow, that's amazing. Okay, so growing up, did you think about living outside of Canada?

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Hmm. Um, not really. So I guess this thing about kind of having parents that are like who are who are Greek. Uh and my mom, my parents were kind of like um made sure that I didn't forget the heritage. So that means they for primary school, they actually enrolled me in a in a private Greek school because the uh the Greek diaspora has quite a quite a big influence in in Montreal. Yeah. So they do have private primary schools that are that are privately run and they teach you in Greek and French and English. Um, so I went to that for my primary school, and then uh after that, my mom set and sent me to Sunday school or like Saturday school, um, where we would go from like 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. studying geography, studying literature, math, whatever in Greek. Um so that was the element like academically, and culturally, we'd also kind of um go to the big events, like cultural events, holidays, Easter, like at the churches and things. So um it wasn't that we were fully assimilated, um, because my parents were were were the first ones to immigrate, and I was kind of the first generation. So I think the influence was quite strong, but at the same time, um as someone who was born in in Montreal, I kind of did have a little bit of of distance. I was like, well, I'm Canadian, you know, it's like I I have no every time we traveled to Greece, because we would travel to Greece for summer vacations every couple two years.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Um, I was like, uh, this is a little bit like foreign to me. Um, I don't like the way they do things here, like it's not really my way of thinking or doing things. And um, it was kind of like I I thought I belonged in Montreal. I thought I was kind of Canadian or in between.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Okay, this is bringing up a question for me because this sounds really similar to my own experience, but with with Italy instead of Greece. Um, when you were growing up in Canada and Canadians that weren't of Greek heritage were around you, did they ever say, Oh, George is acting like that because he's Greek? Like, did they ever assign some of your characteristics to like your parents, like like that cultural heritage?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

I guess, but I also didn't have that many. I mean, I don't know what the the right word to use in this. Like, I know some of my friends would just be like, oh, I didn't have that many white friends, but I was like, Well, I mean, what do you consider Greeks? Or like, are Greeks kind of not white? But basically what they mean is like um the the kind of French Canadian or the Anglo-Canadians who are like, oh, that's so interesting. What did your mom make? Like spinach pie or like risotto or something? It's like so mind-blowing. I didn't really have that many friends who were um who were like born and raised many generations in Montreal. Most of my friends were immigrants, if not Greek, Lebanese, Italian, um anything.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Oh, so your immediate like friend bubble and whatnot was was pretty mixed with folks that weren't like in Canada for a long time, like generations and generations.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah, because the primary school, at least all of my friends were Greek. Their parents were at least both Greek or or and most of the parents were immigrants, um, even though they might have been younger or older. But uh for primary school at least, um, everyone around me was was just Greek. And uh then for high school, so Montreal has this interesting policy. Um, if your parents didn't finish um their primary or high school in Canada, the children are forced to go to a French-speaking high school. Um, this is kind of language politics to make sure that like French continues as a language, especially among immigrant groups.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

So I went to this French public school, and um there everyone was kind of like immigrants, but not just Greek. It was kind of like from uh Afghanistan, from Syria, from Italy, from anywhere in the world, Haiti. So we were kind of like, oh, okay, there was there was like two or three French Canadians, and the rest like all immigrant kids.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

That sounds great. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Okay. So it sounds like you that there was such a big cultural mix that you didn't really have not the opportunity. Let me see, how do I say this? That there wasn't okay, let me back up and and and personalize it. Where I grew up in New York was similar to what you're talking about, but then my family moved to Pennsylvania, where the majority of the people around us were multiple generations in the US, if not in Pennsylvania. And so we were the weird ones that were from other places, and that was a supremely weird place to be at the age of eight. Um, but it sounds like you didn't have that kind of fish out of water kind of cultural experience in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah, I guess because like New York, um Montreal is, and I mean, I guess New York has an advantage in that sense over Montreal because there is that very strong New York identity, like you're a New Yorker. There's no such thing as a Montrealer, it's more a it's more an immigrant location rather than an identity. So yeah, we don't like people are not like, oh yeah, I'm I'm kind of a Montrealer, and everything that that's associated with that. It's just Montreal is a is a kind of place that is made up mostly of of immigrant um groups. So for me, I was kind of like, okay, well, the state of things is everyone at some point is their parents are kind of immigrants. I did have a few friends who were like purely Quebecois, like from Quebec, province of Quebec for many, many years, the generations as well. But um, for most of them, it was kind of like, yeah, they were if they were if not first generation, second generation at most. So we never really had this thing. It's like, oh, you have um you're surrounded people and you're really the odd one out, not really in Montreal.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Oh, that's beautiful. That's really cool. So, were there any times at all because you were kind of still even though you weren't the odd one out necessarily, I'm sure there were things where, as especially probably as a teenager where you were like a Canadian teenager and you had immigrant parents, were there any things that weren't really like matching viewpoint-wise that you can share?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Definitely. I mean, the most the funniest and and and kind of um almost cliche example is um if you remember my big fat Greek wedding, have you seen that?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

So that's literally it's it's very accurate because um at one point they're roasting a whole lamb on the spit um for Easter. And my dad would do this. I mean, we we didn't live in downtown, um, we lived in the suburbs where there's mostly like um like third, third, fourth generation Anglo-Canadians, a few French Canadians. So my dad would set up this like huge barbecue um on our front yard with this like this this beard um lamb just kind of roasting for like six hours, and people would stop and they'd be like, Jesus, what is that? Do you see that thing? Um and then some of my friends would make fun of it, even though they were maybe immigrant children as well. Um, they'd be like, Oh my god, like savagery, what is your dad doing? That's like a whole animal just roasting on the fire.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Oh, it's a stories, yeah. I absolutely, absolutely. My my parents both grew up kind of in a rural area uh in Italy, and they once we had a house in Pennsylvania, they loved having animals in the backyard, like chickens and things, and they'd tie them up and whatever because they didn't want them to go into the neighbor's yard.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

But it was this a very uh keeping up with the Benjamin's kind of suburbia experience, and people are like, What are you guys doing?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

I mean in the news last week I saw that it's very cool in Silicon Valley now that like be raising your own chickens and like all of these other things. And I'm like, oh, now here you are, like 40 years later. Now it's cool.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Oh well, we had those, but some of them were over. I guess that was their transition period before I was in in the story. Um, like I had stories of my grandmother when they were living like six of them in like a two or three bedroom flat downtown. Um, my grandmother at one point, I heard this story and I was just like horrified. Apparently, they were getting a lamb or something for for Easter. This was in the 70s, like late 70s, beginning 80s. My grandmother slaughtered the lamb in the bathtub, like full-on bled it out in the bathtub and and prepared it. I was like, you killed a live animal in your bathroom, like that's horrifying. Like, I would never take a shower in there again.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Um, and then like when my oh really my mom in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

I there's there's the very real reason I was a vegan for a decade in my in my teens. And not not infrequently, might I say. Yeah, it's traumatic when you're a kid, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

I wasn't born, thankfully. Like I I never like managed to to experience that, but um like that thing about the the live live animals. I think later in in our house that in the suburbs, somebody, one of our uncles gave like our one of our uncles is from Rhode Island in the US. Um, and he gave my mom this like Chinese rooster, just like beautiful decorative little rooster thing. And this thing, my mom's like, okay, what do I do with this though? I'm not gonna eat it, I'm not gonna kill it. Um, he's like, Oh, just keep it as a pet, just keep it in the yard. But it's like we're we're like suburbs, is you're not that I don't know, I don't know in like Pennsylvania, you said like how far your neighbors are in the suburbs, but in in Montreal, the houses are like not attached, but you have like I don't know, 10,000 square feet, and then there's the next house. So if you have a rooster like crying out at at five in the morning, they're gonna hear it. The cops, the cops show up and they're like, Do you have a wild animal back here? My mom's like, just a chicken, just like a rooster. They're like, uh yeah, ma'am, that's a wild animal. Like, that's that's not something that you can have here.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

So we did have the same.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Okay, so let's I think we have a uh a lovely view of your of your growing up in in Canada. So let's do another time snap and try to put the two together because I'm I'm trying to figure out if having immigrant parents, uh, and to be totally transparent, if having immigrant parents has made us has made it easier for us to be expats or harder because we know the cultural barriers that might exist, or somewhere in between. Like do you remember when you first lived overseas? Like what the biggest adjustments were for you.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, so well, I guess maybe for the the kind of first part that you said is kind of having parents that um are immigrants. I guess one of the biggest influences that that it gave me was that my dad, so I'm sure like most most immigrant parents, both of my parents were working themselves to the bone. Um very successful, but still it did not come at at kind of uh uh a very um easy, easy life that they they wanted to. Um my dad was driving taxis when he first came, and then he opened a small garage and eventually grew it to open up like his own car dealership, which he he had for many years. My mom opened up uh she was working as a cashier in in a fruit store and eventually she bought the whole thing. Like, I mean, it was it was funny. She she bought it for like a million dollars cash back in the day. Uh, she sold it. That's that's what she ended up selling it for. And um they just kind of used the money to make another business and and whatnot. But my dad and that that um car dealership, they ended up both running it. My mom doing the financial part and my dad doing the the operations and everything. He would work like six days a week, six, six and a half days a week, um, nine to nine often. So I would I wouldn't see him that often. I'd see him maybe on the weekend, one or two days.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

So are you saying that you were very much so a workaholic when you first moved to Hong Kong?

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Well, I didn't honestly, this was something that I was like, I'm never gonna be like this. Gotcha. Because at the end I was like, why would somebody work themselves to death? I mean, it doesn't make sense to me. Life is about enjoyment and everything. But I realized then later when I started moving to Hong Kong and and things, um, one is that you have to put up with a lot of crap wherever you go. I mean, that that was kind of like, oh, my parents have to deal with clients, have to deal with tax services, have to deal with learning the language. I mean, here they are, they they barely learned Greek as kids. Like, yeah, they learned it, it's their mother tongue, but they never had um higher education. And they have to learn English and French to like operate within Quebec.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Right. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Um, so that kind of thing, I guess unconsciously left an impression on me that um when you move somewhere else, it's really about doing whatever it takes to set yourself up. There's no, there's no really there's no support network. You're not like going there and you have a million people who are willing to support you and whatnot. So I guess this was probably the biggest influence. Like when I went to Hong Kong, it's kind of like everybody's speaking Cantonese, everything's so different. Like people are eating with chopsticks, they're eating things that I had no idea about. Um, there was like people were cramped in small spaces. And I was like, hmm, I wonder if this is what my parents thought when they first moved from Greece to to Montreal. It's like they're having to eat, I don't know, roast beef and mashed potatoes or something. I don't know, whatever they they they came and saw. Like my mom said when they were on the um, I think it was my dad. My dad took the boat from from Greece to um to Canada.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

So uh he told me, he's like, Oh, I I can I'll never forget when they gave me like the May West. Do you know what the May May West are? Like um they're kind of like a Twinkie. They're oh okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

That's like they're coated in chocolate.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Actress, yeah, but that's there's really oh no, yeah, it's just like a May West is a brand of of of like Twinkie, I guess in Canada, that's just dipped in chocolate and it never goes bad, just like Twinkies. You can keep it there for forever. And that's what they were given on the boat, like a Coke and a May West for for their their their snack or or whatever. So my dad's like the nastiest thing in the world. He's like, I couldn't, I couldn't bring it down.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Oh my gosh, yeah, it has Mae West, the actress, on the package. That's hilarious. I've never heard of that before.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah, oh I don't even know. I never ate one. I don't think I've ever had one myself.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

No, I've never seen it. That's wild. Okay. Wow, that's probably like me and um what is it, the egg tarts? Oh, in in Hong Kong, Asia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My reaction to that. I'm like, ah, certain things I learned to like, like I still really like and crave, but that I've never gotten used to.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

That's probably still healthier than these, though.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Like the May West looks manufactured food.

unknown 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Oh my gosh. So okay, so it sounds like when you hit some not some walls, but when you had some challenges when you in your first year or two or whatnot in Hong Kong, that you were able to kind of pull from your parents' experience to make it better for you, easier for you? Did that help at all?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Um, yeah, I guess probably like well, it it was interesting because many times my parents were not completely on board me leaving to go overseas, which is the interesting thing because um I'd I'd been traveling. I guess I did have this this bug within me, this travel bug, even though I I I felt like okay, I'm Canadian and whatnot. Um, as before starting college, I was like, you know, I need to leave, I need to travel. So I started traveling. Like, first I told my mom, okay, I'm going to Kenya. I was 18. I was like, I'm backpacking to Kenya.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

And she's like, Well, hell, hell, if I'm if I have anything to say about it, you're not going there. I was like, What do you mean? She's like, You are not going to Kenya alone. Like, I was like, Okay, how are you gonna stop me? You're gonna take my passport, that's legal. She's like, No, just like, don't expect your key to work when you come back. And I was like, Oh, okay. Um, so I had to compromise. No, I compromised. I was like, okay, how about Nepal? Like, how what if I go to Nepal? Mom's like, what's Nepal? Where what where is Nepal? So she ended up letting me go to Nepal, oddly enough. Um, and then I I went to like Vietnam after like the next summer after that, I went to Vietnam and I went to a few places. So I was really intent on exploring things, but um when I decided to really move away, and it's like, okay, I'm gonna go to Hong Kong, and then I didn't come back after the two years, um, and I've been here like since I guess 2013 or 14. My parents continuously ask me, like, when are you done with this whole thing? Like, thing, whatever thing means.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Right? Whatever you want to call this.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah, and I'm like, I I find it interesting that they asked me that question because it's like, okay, well, I've decided to leave the life that I had behind to go overseas and to build something. Why is that so hard for for them to understand? Considering it's like, oh, they made that same exact voyage.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

And but did they have to like was there? I'm not sure exactly what was happening in Greece in the 70s. Like, was there an economic reason why they had to? Yeah. So, and I can only say this because uh everybody I'm talking to, and my own experience says that is has the same reaction of the immigrant parents going, wait, we made this comfortable for you. Why are you going through this pain? That's kind of like the thing that's coming through. It's like, no, no, no, we created this bubble for you to be protected and have a lovely, safe, boring life. Why are you leaving it for the pain of living in a place where you're not familiar with everything? Like that, that kind of feels like maybe what the parents are doing, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

I'm not them, so that I mean that makes sense. If it's a common theme, then I but like my parents did have to leave Greece out of necessity. Um, I forget if there was like a junta, there was kind of a military takeover um a little while earlier, and the economic situation was abysmal. Like millions of Greece left, millions of Greeks left Greece at the time, yeah. Um, to go everywhere. But um, yeah, it's not the same for me, obviously. I I didn't have to leave. My parents are like, we spent all these years building this comfortable life. Like, why do you not want to stay here and and subject yourself to everything we had to?

SPEAKER_02 30:33

I know because because you put me on a plane when I was four, and I've always wanted to see more. It was my response. I'm like, because that my travel bug, I'm pretty sure started because of my parents, the same people that don't understand why I like this life. I don't know. How how young were you when you got on a plane the first time?

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Oh, I mean, um, well, we would travel a lot, like we would travel regularly to the US, like when we were very young. Um and then we started traveling to a bunch of other places, including, I guess, Greece and things.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

But um I never really it was never really like Yeah, I thought it was just normal. I mean, traveling kind of felt normal, but not something that I had to do myself. Like if you said, Oh, okay, I'm gonna travel alone to go to all these places. I think that started like in my late teens or kind of early adulthood.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Yeah. Yeah. Did they ever, even though they weren't excited about you going so far away and going through all the stuff that probably seemed familiar to them, did they ever give you any advice that really helped you kind of settle in in the places that you were living in overseas?

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, my mom's like, be smart with your money. Like, don't don't be like dumb with just buying whatever anything, dropping money like that. Um, keep your head down, do not call attention to yourself, obviously, especially where you're living. At least they were there. My mom was like, at least we're living in a fully democratic, kind of legally protected um country. You're not, so don't do anything stupid anywhere. Um, and she's just like, also don't forget, if you get tired of it, you have the benefit of just getting on a plane and coming back to us. I was like, you don't need to make it sound like so. I was like, this is my life. Like, it's not like, oh, I get tired of it every day, but I'm not gonna run away from my my life.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Yeah, yeah. You you mentioned that you have a business there now in Shanghai. What can I ask what the business is?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, so I just um I I kind of help um Chinese with either real estate, immigration, or study abroad. Um, if some of them want to study in the US or the UK, um, I kind of help them with with the process, and that's been going on for years now. I mean, this market has been happening in in years for China, so it's still quite quite a good business.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Gotcha, gotcha. Has it got like had a hit with the the pandemic? Because I know that we're like travel restrictions have been so tricky the past couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Oddly enough, no. I mean, business has been booming all throughout like 2019 to date. I mean, the demand is still as great as ever of people wanting to study abroad. So, I mean, who knows? Who understands?

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Fantastic. And do you think about going back to Canada?

SPEAKER_00 33:30

My dad is my mom, kind of, I guess, knows that. Uh, I don't, I mean, I I personally I don't know why, but I find I mean, Montreal is a beautiful city and there's nothing like it in the world in many ways. Um, the culture is just so vibrant. Um, it doesn't have the crime of like what you'd find in a major metropolis. The crime rate is quite low. Um, I I mean there's so many things to love about Montreal, but in the same way that it's it's a tiny little island, like it's literally in the middle of a river, and I find it just a little bit too small to to kind of contain my my future and my what I what I want out of life. So I don't see myself going back full time, like relocating there.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Um, possibly, I guess, like this is the thing. My mom, my mom knows this. She's like, Oh, I don't think you don't like being near us, it's just Montreal's not really your thing, I guess. Um, but my dad pushes me like every time we talk, he's like, Okay, when is the China thing done? Like, when are you coming back? Like, literally, just when is the China thing done? I'm like, it's not a thing, it's like my life, and it's not done. Um until but it's it's an interesting thing because I did I did bring them here um in 2019. I went I went back to Montreal to visit at the end of December, and I brought both of them back with me to Shanghai, yeah. Um, so they can stay with me for a while. So I brought them to Japan and Korea for like a month. We just kept traveling everywhere, yeah. And um they were like, it was it was actually the best trip I've ever taken in my whole life. I never thought it like traveling with your parents could be the the funniest, the most kind of um interesting thing you can do. But it allowed me to see my parents, um, their sense of of kind of wonder of being able to be immersed in something completely new, like they were in Canada at the time, but without having to be on survival mode, right? Because I was taking care of everything for them. So, like um, my mom was trying out like new foods, and like she at one point she was like bowing to everyone in Japan. I was like, don't overdo it. You're like overdoing it. She's like, What do you mean? Like they're bowing. I was like, Yeah, I know, but you don't need to like do it like 20 times. Um, but I was just I was having the time of my life, even though I was like booking hotels and flights and restaurants and everything. Um, and then they got stuck in the lockdown actually in Shanghai back then. Oh no, because we we got back from Korea, and as we just as we got back, everyone started wearing masks and it was like February, and then Shanghai was like complete lockdown. So they got stuck here for three months living with me, like almost. Wow. But it was it was eye-opening.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Wow. Okay, well, that brings us full circle, and that is also a really good introduction into your own podcast. Can we tell the listeners something about that?

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah, so um, I mean, uh I experienced the first lockdown when the when the virus started like happening in Wuhan, China, um, and then it started spreading throughout other parts of China. My parents were here, and we had just gotten back from from Japan and Korea. And basically uh we had this lockdown, but we were still able to go out, buy our necessities, come back home. So that whole thing was over after like a few months, and we obviously had to wear masks, but China kind of managed to contain it. Fast forward to um, what was it, March of this year? Uh apparently it started spreading across Shanghai, and people had no idea until it was like, oh, the cases were were kind of tripling each day. So the government instituted kind of this really hard lockdown. And it it's not I've I've seen a lot of things, like I've traveled to a lot of places under different conditions, but I never thought that a city like Shanghai um would ever have this kind of um severe lockdown where you're not allowed out of your front door on on kind of harsh penalties.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Well, don't tell us too much because the podcast is going to Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Well, I mean, this this this whole thing just revolves around the fact that we could not really access supplies. That was the that's the biggest thing that I think um turned everybody off of the city a little bit is that they decided to make this hard lockdown, but the logistics were definitely not up to the situation. So we were all stuck without stuff, and that's basically what the podcast is about. I'm I'm interviewing different people to see how they actually managed to make it through and and what kind of things they encountered during that time.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

And the name of the podcast is Shanghai, the city that never eats.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Oh gosh. I mean, I I I giggle, but then I frown at the same time because it's just it is so I'm glad it's over. Um yeah. And it it'll be definitely an interesting lesson. Um, yeah. So I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

I hope it's over.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Yeah, me too. But we'll we'll see. I mean, who knows?

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Yeah, they uh yeah, there's where are you now? Are you are you in Croatia?

SPEAKER_02 38:59

I am I'm in split Croatia.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

Yeah, yeah. Um so north, north, north of Greece. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

I went a few countries up, yeah. If you knew where Game of Thrones was filmed, yeah, yeah. It's down in Dubrovnik, we're just north of that.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yep, yep, yep, yep. Um but yeah, so it dipping back into the connection between growing up with immigrant parents and you being an expat in Asia, is there any other influence that you think watching your parents uh maneuver their immigrant life in Canada had on your expat life at all?

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Oh, well, you just I mean, I just thought of something now that you asked me about the the lockdown. Is I was one of the lucky ones because um my mom, even though she she grew up Greek and things, she was kind of like um very independent, strong-willed woman, quasi-feminist, even though she never like experienced any kind of feminist um movements or activism. And uh, I have a brother, we're we're two boys, and she would be like, Okay, you guys are not gonna sit here and watch me cook, you're gonna help me out.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Um, which is unlike many Greek mothers who kind of spoil their their boys. Um, so I learned to cook through through my mom, and she has this terrible habit of stuffing the kitchen and the pantries and the freezers with food, like dry food, frozen meats, um, flour, butter, whatever. And I'd never thought that this this habit rubbed off, but it did.

SPEAKER_03 40:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

And lucky for me, because and lucky for so we were four living in in my apartment. The entire house was like prepped for war.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

You were ready, even though you didn't like intentionally do that. Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

I was like, oh my god, we have enough dry pasta, beans, butter, flour, we have frozen meats and things. Like, we can survive this whole pandemic without ordering anything almost.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

That's so funny. Hey, when you were growing up, did your parents have like multiple refrigerators and freezers packed? Mine too, yeah. Okay, I don't I kind of went the opposite way where I keep the pantry kind of slim, but I do have the horrible thing of when I stay in a hotel, I will grab everything that's free. Yeah, yeah. And my husband giggles and he's like, mm-hmm, doing it again, huh? I'm like, it's yeah, it's it's good. Just because I'm not using it right now doesn't mean I won't need it later. I even if I don't even want it or need it, it's it my hand just starts to that thing definitely was helpful.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

If I hadn't had that from my mom, um I know some some kind of um people don't cook, they really do not know how to like cook an egg. Yeah, and they don't keep anything at home. I think that was the biggest thing. Some like expats don't usually eat at home. They or they order out or they go to restaurants. So people got caught without oil or sugar or or or flour. Right. Um, well, especially for European immigrants, the the wars were kind of within memory. So they they're they're known to keep sugar, flour, and oil always stocked in in the house.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Right, right, right. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, and wow. Well, I can't thank you enough for going down this time snappy kind of immigrant expat experience. I think this has been super interesting to hear about the multicultural upbringing that you had and how it led you to Asia, which is still dot dot dot, still going. Like you don't have an end date, and why should you? I mean, you're building a life there. So that makes a lot of sense. So thank you. Thank you for coming on here and for sharing the story.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

No, I think it was a a great experience, and I think maybe if if my um my journey doesn't end in Asia, it might actually ironically end up back in Greece. That's an option that I've been considering more and more. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

I so hear you on that. Yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, I ended up in Europe. We were actually in Albania, my mom's side of the family is from Albania, and my dad's side is from is from Naples. And so I we ended up um in Albania for a year last year um accidentally, and I was like, wow, I knew I was trying to move to Europe, but now I've really gone to the blood, you know, the the blood source. What is my saying? My heritage.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

It was wild. Well, definitely wild. Um, if folks want to find you online and and tell you how interesting they thought this conversation was, is there anywhere way they should reach anywhere they should reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Um that is a a good question. I guess they could probably just send it to the email. So um I guess talkematicmedia at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

When George talked about his mom visiting him in China and her being able to explore China without the the struggle of being an immigrant, that reminded me of something that Allison and Chelsea both said about that intense struggle of needing to navigate things while trying to do everything in a new culture with a new language and all of that. And so George was talking about that as well. So There's a lot of connectivity between what the three of these folks have said over the past few conversations and what's swirling around my brain and what has been swirling around my brain for a long time. So the next one's really hard to do. The next episode's really hard to do. It's me, Melissa Lent of Tired in My Twenties podcast and a dear friend for first and foremost is has agreed to interview me about my own experience, asking me very many of the same questions I have asked Allison, Chelsea, and George. Even though we're not wrapping up the season yet because there's one more episode, I do want to say that I have deep appreciation for immigrants that move from any place to any place. What they do is so hard. Thank you so much for listening, and I appreciate you so much.