My name is Luying

Bonjour chers lecteurs! This is Luying, a Chinese girl who is living and working in Paris for the moment. Since I was a little girl, come to Paris one day became the dream of my life. Lots of people asked me, “Why France? Why Paris?” Well, why? To be honest, I don’t know exactly either. Maybe because I was born in Shanghai, the "Oriental Paris"... Nov. 1^st, 2004, I arrived the land of France. 5 a.m., Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, I still remember the feeling of excitation. After 12h flight, different city, different people, different language, and a different life began…I spent the first 6 months in Amiens, 120km north of Paris. It was the first time that I left my parents and lived alone. Besides study, I started to learn what life is and how to live by myself? And indeed, I learnt a real French way of life. The French food is also totally different from Chinese food. Bread is instead of rice, coffee is instead of tea, knife and fork are instead of chopsticks as well. Christmas, 2004, I came Paris, faced the Eiffel Tower, with a deeply breath, I could not believe that my dream realized. Yes, it was true. I was in Paris, real Paris, and the most romantic city in the world.April, 2005, I moved to Paris. I wanted to find something special here. I did six months internship and one year CDD in my recent company. Autumn 2006, I chose came back school and spent one year to study MBA. Feb. 16^th, 2008, I graduated and began another one year CDD in the same company.Almost three years life in Paris, have I found what I expected? I was already in love with Paris when I stepped onto the plane.I’d venture to say that we all flew here with grandiose illusions of the city, although upon arrival, none, it seems proved close to the reality! My nightmare:The thing I really hate the most here are the French administrations, especially the “Prefecture”. Can you imagine how many times I have been the Prefecture? More than a hundred times!!! Each time, waiting and waiting; each year, to change the “Titre de Sejour” becomes the most headache for me, you cannot count how much time and energy I wasted. But when I am telling the story to my French friends, they are used to say, «C’est la vie!» «C’est normal!» with a shrug.The very moment:
What I really enjoy here is travelling around Europe. Sometimes when I am really fed up with the life here, I just gett on the train and without knowing where I am going to. I have taken more than 35 000 pictures during the last three years. I use the film to record my life.Homesick:
If I never left China, I could never have known how much I love my country. How much do my parents love me? Once I returned Shanghai for holiday, mum showed me a notebook of dad, where he use to write down all the SMS from me: my heart suddenly hit and the tears fell off. I'm enjoying myself here, but I'm homesick, a lot. Well, just few words about me and my life in France: I don’t know how long I will stay and how far I will be. I just want to enjoy the moment, to meet new people and discover new things !