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People always say: Don’t. Date. Friends. Alas, I’ve never been known to do as I’m told. In 2017, we moved to Shenzhen, China. I left my village of 800 people in the west of Ireland and became one of the 12,000,000 people living in Shenzhen. I thought I’d feel intimated by sharing a city with 12,000,000 others but one of them was my best friend/boyfriend. Wherever I went, he was my home, not the small village nor the big city. I hadn’t done what I was told, you see, in that I decided to date my best friend. It could have been a big risk but I knew immediately that I was home. Tasting incredible variations of Chinese food made me appreciate my new home also. We once came across a small, beaming man, serving food from the back of his white van. He was hunched over as if he carried the weight of life on his back but he grinned with a smile too big for his face when I gave him a 50 yuan note. He proceeded to load two plastic containers with sticky rice. He then handed the containers to us and gestured with callused hands for us to serve ourselves. My brain salivated over the options; spicy tofu, sour pickles, fried cauliflower… We helped ourselves and sat on the footpath to eat. We were greeted by encouraging nods from taxi drivers who were equally surprised to find such a treat during their late-night shifts. We filled our bellies hastily as it started to rain. On we cantered towards home, rain trickling our cheeks, sending a chill to my bones while my feet became wet and wrinkled in my sandals. My boyfriend pulled me closer; an umbrella suddenly appearing above me, though it barely covered him while shielding me entirely from the rain. The rain suddenly felt warm on my face but in fact, it wasn’t rain at all. Happy tears are strange. They tend to appear in intervals of sweaty hands and a leaping heart. I cried all the way home that night because how could someone love me so much as to sacrifice themselves to the rain in order to keep me dry and safe? What a shock it must have been to my Mother, answering the phone to her crying daughter on the other side of the world who seemed to be raving on about a stranger in a van who gave her dinner, something that sounds so sinister in the west, yet charming in the east. Ooops. Sorry, Mam. So you see, I didn’t do what I was told and it was the right choice. On the other hand, when we travelled back home to Ireland for Chinese New Year 2020, the year of the rat came with its own brand-new choice. Everyone was telling me what to do, and I didn’t blame them for it. Their orders came in in a tangle of newspaper headlines: Don’t go back. -Avoid all non-essential travel. -Your boyfriend has asthma, he could die if he went back. -Covid-19 death toll rises above 1500. -Think of how lucky you are to be in Ireland right now. The sudden end to our China adventure was not what I expected. I will miss the adorable three-year-olds who I taught and grew to love. I will never forget the country of amazing people who offered their congratulations every time I tried to speak Chinese. I often think about the man with the white van and a worker’s hands... At a time when some people are scared to eat Chinese food or too nervous to sit beside an Asian person on a bus, let’s not forget to be kind. You can wear a medical mask through the airport and still have the time to be respectful. Let’s not leave such a beautiful country behind. I will miss Shenzhen but no matter where I am, I am home. On a first date with my best friend three years ago, I asked him to move to China with me. People always told me: Don’t. Date. Friends. I’m glad I didn’t listen. Now I am loved, I am safe, and I am home.