A Compass from South Korea

Dan was one of the most popular teachers at the centre. An American from what he described as the countryside outside Las Vegas, he had a warmth and humour that drew students into his lessons. He seemed comfortable in a classroom in a way I was still learning to be.

Our birthdays were two days apart: his on 25 February, mine on the 27th. I was approaching my first birthday in China; he was approaching his third.

He had set himself a travel ambition: to visit a new country for every birthday. That year, a trip to Japan and South Korea would bring his total to thirty-four countries, matching his age.

I found this extraordinary. I was still pleased with myself for having reached China.

Travel was a favourite subject among the expats I knew. Conversations covered destinations, airlines, diving holidays and places everyone wanted to visit next. Andy planned trips around diving, while Dan seemed to count the years in countries.

Living in China had opened up a different map of possibilities. Places that had once felt impossibly distant were now destinations colleagues casually discussed over lunch.

When Dan returned from South Korea, he brought me a keyring with a small compass attached.

It was a modest gift, but it meant a great deal. He had thought of me while he was away. Given my ability to lose my way between work and my apartment, a compass also seemed rather appropriate.

I still keep it on my keys in the UK.

During the Qingming holiday, Dan suggested spending a day together. We met at the centre, where it quickly became clear that neither of us had planned anything.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

I had assumed he would have an idea. Apparently, he had made the same assumption about me.

After about ten minutes of this, we settled on a walk around West Lake.

It was warm and busy, with visitors stopping for photographs along the paths. Dan noticed people taking pictures of us, although I barely registered it. I was becoming accustomed to attracting occasional curiosity, even if I didn’t always understand it.

We walked for a while, talking, before deciding to find something to eat.

This prompted another lengthy discussion in which both of us insisted that the other should choose. The restaurants were busy, and neither of us felt particularly confident navigating the menus. Eventually, we found a bakery and bought a selection of bread.

Much of it was sweet. Dan missed the bread he knew from home, while I was still working out which unfamiliar fillings I liked.

It was an ordinary afternoon: a walk, some indecision and something to eat. But spending time with someone whose company felt easy mattered. I was building friendships in a place where, only a few months earlier, I had known nobody.

On another evening, we went to a restaurant at the Kerry Centre. I ordered mushroom and cheese risotto, enjoying the familiarity of a meal I hadn’t eaten for some time.

Although I had arrived in China with little interest in alcohol, that evening introduced me to a White Russian. Its creamy coffee flavour appealed to my sweet tooth far more than the beer or whisky I associated with drinking.

My mother had once suggested that I simply hadn’t found a drink I liked. Apparently, there was something in that.

Looking back, though, the drink is less significant than the company. What I remember about those early months is how quickly colleagues became part of my life outside work. We shared meals, filled days off and helped make an unfamiliar city feel less unfamiliar.

Dan had been in China long enough to find routines and develop frustrations. I was still discovering almost everything. We didn’t always see the place in the same way, but we had enough in common to enjoy an afternoon without much of a plan.

For someone who had once wanted every detail arranged in advance, that was a small change of its own.

And of all the things I brought back from China, that little compass remains one of the most personal: a reminder of a friend, an early chapter of my life there, and the time when I was still finding my way.