List of the Month - Cities where I might have lived

Dreams - plans! - of leaving Beijing prompt me to reflect on some of the other places I might have wound up, if Fate had worked out a little differently, if I'd made a few bolder choices here and there, or if I'd enjoyed a little bit of good fortune at an opportune moment. It's quite an exotic list. (There's a fair bit of overlap with this early 'List of the Month' post on Jobs I nearly had.)

Places where I might have lived (and worked)

Cartagena, Colombia

In my first schoolteaching job, I quickly grew to resent the claustrophobic environment of the small boarding school and the small West Country town I found myself trapped in, and took to reading the overseas jobs section of the Times Education Supplement every week for solace. A post in Cartagena was one of the first that I applied for in earnest, but I only had a year or so of experience behind me at that point, and I don't think I even made the interviews.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Next up was a job at an exclusive girls' boarding school in the Argentine capital. Strangely, I did make the interview stage for that, although I suspect that I was a 'token male' included on the shortlist for the sake of maintaining an appearance of equal gender opportunity in the selection process. The other three candidates were all women, and it was one of them who got the job. I was relieved, in a way. As I sat in the London offices of the venerable education recruitment agency Gabbitas-Thring awaiting my turn for interview, they gave me a yearbook to leaf through: every single one of the girls pictured looked like a younger, prettier sister of Gabriela Sabatini (the gorgeous Argentine who was the sexiest tennis player of my college days). I began to wonder if this was a furtive part of the selection process: was I being scrutinized via a hidden camera, with my appreciation of the pulchritude of my potential charges being minutely studied, to my disadvantage in landing the job? Well, it's probably just as well I didn't get it; it might have been a bit too much of a temptation even for such an avowed asexualist as myself!

Port Stanley, The Falkland Islands

I didn't make the shortlist for this teaching job, either. These challenging postings must attract quite a large number of nutters. I suppose I was something of a nutter myself, even to have applied for it. Having been brought up on the heroics of Scott and Shackleton, I was fascinated by the prospect of living that far south for a while. However, I realised I would probably have gone stir crazy living in such a tiny community, and would not have lasted more than a year or two. I didn't fancy my moorland walks being inhibited by all the landmines and unexploded ordnance either. Also severely offputting was the 36-hour flight (possibly more) to get there on RAF transport planes, with a long layover halfway, at Ascension Island. Another lucky escape for me, really.

St George's, Bermuda

Now, for this one I made it to a final shortlist of two or three candidates, and still didn't get the job. Again, I am mostly relieved: I had formed a very negative impression of the excessive gentility and middle-class smugness of the island (a colleague at my current school, an ex-Navy man, had witheringly described it as 'The World's Biggest Country Club'). Perhaps I subsconsciously betrayed some of that distaste to the headmaster.

Durham, UK

Durham, on the other hand, I would have loved to return to. I'd done my teacher training course there a few years earlier, and formed a warm attachment to its many fine public houses. I'm not sure how I didn't get that job: the interviews seemed to have gone swimmingly, but...  Perhaps I was looking too obviously strung-out by ill health and mounting dissatisfaction with my existing position: I'd been plagued for two or three years with a not-terribly-serious but worryingly progressive-seeming disease (which might have been, but eventually proved not to be symptomatic of one of a number of rare cancers), and was about to suffer a catastrophic health collapse - perhaps as much mental as physical, after the emotional assault course of all those negative cancer tests - which took me out of the job market for a couple of years.

Leleuvia, Fiji

Not actually a city, just an island in the Fiji group. A very small island: in fact, just a fragile sand cay, rising only a few feet out of the ocean, and only half a mile or so from end to end, less than 100 yards across even at its widest point. But a veritable tropical paradise. I stayed there for a couple of days during my round-the-world backpacking jaunt in the mid-90s. This was round about the mid-point of my journey, and I was tiring of the road somewhat, after a particularly gruelling time in Australia: suddenly, the idea of settling down somewhere for a few weeks or a few months and getting a job to replenish my nearly exhausted cash reserves started to seem very appealing. And there were jobs going on Leleuvia, as jack-of-all-trade hosts/janitors for the tiny thatched hut 'resort' the island's owner had built: maintaining the cesspit, making runs over to the mainland every couple of days in an outboard-powered rowboat, entertaining the steady trickle of backpackers passing through (mostly twenty-something Swedish girls, it seemed: I was reminded of my discomfort in the  waiting room at Gabbitas-Thring!). It was a lotus-eating kind of appointment. I quizzed the two young Aussie pothead surfer dudes currently in the job about its pros and cons (they both mentioned the prodigious sexual appetite of young Swedes as not exactly a con): they honestly couldn't remember how long they'd been doing it!

San Francisco, USA

The South Sea islands would only have been a passing diversion; I couldn't see myself living there for an extended period - well, not in a place as small as Leleuvia, anyway. A month or two later, I found myself in San Francisco for the first time, and fell head-over-heels in love with the city (Mark Twain had warned me to expect the icy chill of winter in mid-summer there, but I was blessed with glorious sunshine for most of the two weeks I stayed there). One morning, wandering around Haight-Ashbury, I came upon - in quick succession (possibly on the same bulletin board, though I can't now recall) - small ads for a new housemate wanted and a job available as a 'barista' (the first time, I think, I'd encountered that silly word) in a neighbourhood coffee shop. I went to look at the house, and it was fantastic: a three-storey turn-of-the-century place, only a few blocks from Golden Gate Park. The other tenants - slacker types, recently out of college, but attempting to pursue creative endeavours or at least defer entry into the corporate ratrace for another year or two - immediately warmed to my "quaint English accent" and urged me to join them. I was tempted; mighty, mighty tempted. I blame my old Oxford buddy, The British Cowboy: he was getting married on the East Coast a few weeks hence, and I had promised to be there. I was so short of money that there didn't seem to be any way for me to come back again after the wedding. And I would have been becoming an 'illegal', outstaying my visa: I'm quite a staid and law-abiding fellow, really: I didn't fancy living undercover long-term.

Toronto, Canada

A few years later, I found myself working as a legal intern in the Canadian capital, as part of a student exchange scholarship programme with the UK. I knew my prospects for being able to make my way in the legal profession in England were bleak-to-non-existent, so I gave considerable thought to trying to qualify in Canada (and/or the US) instead; unfortunately, it would have taken time and money which I just didn't have to spare. I was hoping my host law firm in Toronto might throw me a lifeline by offering me a job as a paralegal while I studied part-time, but that didn't come off - too much hassle on the visa front, apparently. Perhaps that's just as well, too: I had been having a particularly bad run of romantic disasters during my year in Canada.

New Orleans, USA

A year or two later, I was visiting a friend in NO for the Krewe du Vieux carnival in February, and once again found myself being enticed to settle down there as an 'illegal'. The guy I'd gone to visit had done so successfully for many years, and had eventually been able to take advantage of an amnesty and get himself legitimate residence status. A number of our drinking companions in the characterful dive bars of the Vieux Carré had done likewise; and they assured me that casual - no-questions-asked - jobs were plentiful in that town, as barmen, tour guides... barmen. I think I might tire of New Orleans after a while; I don't think I could cope with its steamy summer humidity, for one thing; or with the ridiculous crowds of loutish college kids that Mardi Gras now attracts. But I would have loved an opportunity to live there for 3 months, or 6 months. I just didn't fancy the idea of being banned from ever entering the country again because of a visa violation.

Shanghai, China

A year or two later, with worthwhile employment in the UK proving almost impossible to find, I started scanning the overseas job offers in the newspapers again. And I did get offered a position as a 'canvasser' - prospecting for clients - for a wondrously dodgy little firm of 'financial consultants'. I didn't take to the company's owners. Nor did I fancy the job - dubiously legal, and certainly unrespectable. Nor did I fancy the mostly-commission remuneration package, or the prospect of having to share an apartment with another of their hapless drones. And when I did some research on the cost of living in Shanghai, I didn't fancy my prospects of attaining a comfortable lifestyle out there, however successful I might prove to be in the job. Even so, I was so desperate at that point in my life to escape somewhere that I did teeter on the brink of giving this job a chance.

Harbin, China

A little while later, I got approached to fill a teaching vacancy at a small private college in Harbin, in the far north-east of China (in effect, Siberia). Somehow or other, I'd got myself on to an e-mailing list for TEFL vacancies (I don't remember enrolling, but...), and they'd found me through that. Winter in Harbin lasts six or seven months, and temperatures are -20 or -30 degrees Celsius for much of that. One of their teachers (possibly more than one!) had got cabin fever mid-way through the academic year and done a runner. I was contacted in February, and asked to fly out at one week's notice!! A month, I could have done, no problem. Two or three weeks, I might have been able to manage at a push. But one week?! There's a visa to apply for, inoculations to get... notice to be given to my current employer... saying goodbye to family... packing. ONE WEEK??!! Ah, this is China (as I was to learn much more forcefully within a year or two).

Birmingham, UK

I might have been 'saved' from a life of globetrotting if this job had come through. I wasn't very enthused about the idea of living in Birmingham - one of England's least attractive cities, and least attractive accents - but it was my last chance to make use of my expensively acquired legal training. I was up for a post as a 'case officer' (assessor, investigator) for the Criminal Cases Review Commission - a government body which is the last avenue of potential relief for prisoners who've gone through all the stages of appeal in the courts. Very exciting and worthy work, inquiring into possible miscarriages of justice and abuses of the judicial process, and - just once in a while - securing the release of someone wrongly imprisoned for a long term. I made the mistake of allowing myself to get my hopes up about this rather too much. At the first interview round, I hit it off well with all the people I would actually have been working with; and the HR manager confided that I'd got the best scores they'd ever seen on the aptitude tests, and that I was a shoo-in for the job. A month or two later, I had to attend a second interview with the board of governors, and managed to piss off each of them in turn. Perhaps it was my distaste for Birmingham subconsciously sabotaging me that time?

Washington, D.C., USA

I was pretty devastated by the implosion of that CCRC prospect, but... another chance of salvation seemed to come up just a month or two later. I was visiting friends in the States, and an attractive young woman at a dinner party started telling me that I'd be just right for her company, and I really ought to apply to them. It was a business analysis firm, and they needed presenters to deliver the keynotes of their latest findings to their select clients in a jaunty lecture format. Ah, public speaking is my thing. This really seemed like a job I could do. Not a lot of room for creative input (the lectures mostly scripted for me), and rather too much travelling; but the starting salary was very nearly more than I had earned in my entire working life up to that point. I had a couple of interviews in DC, which went swimmingly well; and then another in London, which didn't; but I managed to keep the prospect alive by badgering the contacts in DC who'd liked me. They were on the brink of making me an offer, but.... this was only just after 9/11, and it had for a while become next-to-impossible to get any kind of visa, let alone a long-term working visa... even for a nice WASP like me. I still sometimes think about that salary: I think I really would have had difficulty knowing what to spend it on.

Edinburgh, UK

My last chance to avoid Beijing, in the early summer of 2002: not a job, but an offer of a free housesit. A couple of very good friends up in Edinburgh, after the birth of their first child, decided that this would be their last chance to opt out of the rat race for a little while and do something irresponsibly fun; so, they took extended unpaid leave, bought a beat-up camper van, and headed off for six months or so on an odyssey around Eastern Europe. I love Edinburgh to bits. And I'm sure I could have found a job of some sort up there. And I probably could have lived quite well on the dole for a while, since I wasn't having to pay for accommodation. And I was just about to come into a modest wedge of cash - withheld commissions from my last job, which I'd had to take legal action to recover - so a job wasn't such a pressing concern anyway. But... I suppose I have a bit of a work ethic hang-up: I really feel I ought to be working; and, ideally, in some sort of professional job, appropriate to my formidable educational qualifications. And prospects for work of that kind in Edinburgh seemed very poor. And I had already accepted a teaching position in Beijing, so I suppose I felt I should honour my word on that. Damn. A six-month free holiday in Edinburgh would have been peachy!

Suzhou, China

In my first year in Beijing, I was offered a job setting up a new language school in Suzhou - one of China's most picturesque old cities, full of parks and gardens and canals. I think I was a bit dubious about the company running the show, couldn't quite see why they'd be offering such a responsible position to someone who'd barely been off the plane six months. I was still finding my feet in China, didn't feel quite ready for such a challenge yet. And I was rather enjoying myself in Beijing, wanted to see out at least one full year here.

Changsha, China

Ditto the above. This "We love you on the basis of a five-minute interview: please be our new principal" job offer came up a year or two later. It was suspiciously good money, and a short-term contract only - "Just set the school up for us, then get out and let us keep all the profits for ourselves"; not the most satisfying arrangement, but at least it meant I could treat it as an extended - and supposedly high-earning - break and then return to Beijing (which I was still enjoying at that time). And Changsha, capital of the central southern province of Hunan, does seem to be the source of all the prettiest Chinese girls I have met. I can't remember why I passed up this one now; a faint stench of dishonesty about my would-be employers, I suspect.

Kunming, China

Kunming is generally acclaimed as one of the nicest cities in China - laidback people and a Goldilocks climate all year round. A private college I visited down there in the course of my job as a quality control inspector for a UK education company offered me a job running the UK company's courses. Since I was still working for the UK company at the time, I said no without a thought. I got sacked a few months later, and began to wonder if the offer might still be on the table. No. Oh, well, it was shit money. And the college wasn't actually in Kunming, but 20 or 30 miles outside. Still, it would have been a chance to move down to Kunming. If I were going to try living anywhere else in China, I think Kunming would be the likeliest bet.