Author: Joy

I am a 60-something year old South African of Chinese descent. Although my heritage is Chinese and I cannot live without rice, I feel more connected to South Africa and the diverse South African culture than I do to China. I have lived all my life in South Africa. South Africa is a beautiful country, with wonderful coastlines and beaches, incomparable wildlife and some beautiful mountains. We have long, hot summers and tolerable winters, with snow only in a few places. We seem to have it all. I am fortunate to have travelled a little. I have travelled to London and Scotland in the UK; Sidney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast in Australia; New York, Boston and Colorado in the US; Beijing, Shanghai, Canton and Xi’An in China; Hong Kong and Mauritius. I would like to travel more and on my bucket list is Japan, Italy and the Northern Lights. At some point, I would like to visit China again, I was last there more than twenty years ago. I have worked for large organizations nearly all my life. I have been fired once, nearly fired twice, and as recent as last year, I was retrenched. But I have also been promoted, won excellence awards with monetary awards and once awarded with a trip overseas. I think I can claim to have experienced it all! The retrenchment that I recently experienced was bitter sweet because I had already reached retirement age. So theoretically I should have been sitting at home by my pool anyway. But it was still a shock to find myself with no reason to get out of bed every morning for more than six months. So yes, I am still on the wrong side of 60, that won’t change, but I am no longer unemployed. I am not certain how long my current employment will last, but I am content for now. And should I find myself unemployed for any length of time again, I think I would do things differently. For example, I will make those plans to travel and tick a few more desires off my bucket list.