American’s world tour starts in Shenzhen
Writer: | Editor: Betty Ye | From: | Updated: 2016-06-07
Jordan Lee Shipman
American Jordan Lee Shipman came to Shenzhen out of an overwhelming impulse to see the world.
“I was working at my parents’ farm at about 2 a.m. one day. I was exhausted and bored and then I made up my mind: I will go off to see the world,” said Shipman, 21.
Shenzhen seems to be a good spot to start from. “My uncle has been in China for many years. He kept urging me to come to Shenzhen, saying it was an awesome place and it would be fun.”
Despite opposition from his parents, Shipman packed up and came to Shenzhen in June last year. It is the first time for him to leave the U.S. “I’m tired of the way of life in the U.S. I want to spend some time in other places,” he said.
About a year later, he doesn’t regret his decision, which seemed frightening to his parents. “My uncle was right. It is an awesome place and I’m having a lot of fun,” Shipman said. “I don’t feel as tired as I was in the U.S.” Trivial things like having dim sum, riding on the subway and going to pubs in this “different kind of world” can all send a thrill through him. “I have come to appreciate a lot of things after I came to Shenzhen,” said Shipman. “I feel a lot more grownup now.”
After lending a hand at his uncle’s English training center, Shipman landed a job at a kindergarten in Nanshan District.
Life is only getting richer as days go by. When he discovered a frisbee club, he was excited. “I used to play it with my dad and it reminds me of home.”
Another spare-time hobby of Shipman is to talk to people on WeChat, which he now uses all the time. “It is really a good platform. It is a lot more private and has a lot of functions that Facebook doesn’t have.”
He said he doesn’t know why WeChat is not as popular in the U.S. as in China. “It deserves to be used by more people in the U.S.”
After traveling around for some years, he said he will eventually go back to the States to enroll in college to study space engineering. “I want to travel around the world as much as I want to have an adventure in space,” he said.