It was decided ever since the Shanghai lockdown that I would run from China.  That was the deal breaker.  The 'why' was indeed a no brainer.  Look around you, expats were constantly leaving ever since and very few were replacing them.  Bars, restaurants, and gyms were closing left right and center.  Generally the economy in China and especially Shanghai was decimated from the zero covid policy and didn't really recover.  Trump's tariffs were the final nail in the coffin.  You could make a case the downturn happened even before all of this.  But besides the economy, life was just no fun.  There were an increasing number of restrictions and rules in all aspects of life, and people were becoming even more anti-social and isolated.  Nightclub raids were happening frequently too.  I could go on and on.  This was becoming like back home in Vancouver, the famous 'no fun city'. 

Since the pandemic ended, China tried to woo foreigners back with visa-free agreements, tourist friendly policies, and lax visa regulations for workers but few people were biting.  They were rightly skeptical.  They noticed for example that the government never really apologized nor admitted the zero covid policy was a failure.  So foreigners would ask, "Why should I trust such a government if they can't even trust their own people?" and they would naturally decide not to travel, trade, do business, work, or otherwise engage with China.  Who knows, there might even be another sudden lockdown. 

So yeah, an exit was a no brainer.  Where the brains would come in is the timing and logistics as to how and when this would happen.  The amount of planning for  something like this is monumental.  You could say in some ways that I was "inspired" by the bosses of gyms, restaurants, bars, and massage parlors who suddenly closed up shop one day and ran away with the money.  Then the employees would turn up and find the doors locked and no way to collect their salary nor with any explanation of what happened.  The amount of times this happened during my time in China was in the HUNDREDS!

I don't exactly condone this practice.  This is a despicable way of doing things and one of the owners of the gyms we went to actually did this.  But I began to ask questions.  Why would these bosses so commonly abscond like this?  Why do they have to plan in secret?  It then became obvious:  in China you have to keep your plans hush hush otherwise people will find out and try to derail them.  In a communist country, your business is everyone else's business.  You have no business, really.  Combine this with the fact that most people want their money out in a declining economy.  They will do it by any means necessary, legal or illegal, moral or immoral.

Drawing from this, I realized that if I was serious about walking away from China then this is the manner in which I would have to do it.  If I tried to consult with others first, maybe friends, mentors, or life coaches who were based in China, they would all argue against it.  I tried that route.  As a proof of concept, they did exactly what I predicted they would do.  For all the expats who left post-lockdown there was a sizeable camp who refused to or couldn't because they were tied down with a family or assets in China.  It also became obvious after several repeated conversations with my wife that she wasn't willing to leave China and start a new life with me.  This was even during the lockdown we talked like this.  So then further discussions with her would be pointless.  It came down to this:  for my own mental sanity and self-preservation I would have to abscond.  

So how exactly?  Well the planning was going to take years.  At the time and leading up to this, there was no master blueprint.  But there was definitely a roadmap and a sense of how this was going to happen.