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YORKE: Longing for a simpler life - and more storage

One hundred pounds. I arrived in this country about three years ago with one hundred pounds of stuff in two suitcases. Fast-forward to today and I can hardly fit my stuff into a five-by-12-foot storage facility packed to the ceiling.

One hundred pounds. I arrived in this country about three years ago with one hundred pounds of stuff in two suitcases.

Fast-forward to today and I can hardly fit my stuff into a five-by-12-foot storage facility packed to the ceiling.

How does this happen? Is this where all those student loans have gone? Is all this crap an extension of me? Why and how do I have so much? I guess I, too, am part of this consumer-based society in which we accumulate so much material crap.

Throughout time, there have been nomadic people, people who can carry all of their earthly possessions with them wherever they go in a cloth sack. The more things you have, the less mobile you become.

For those of us who are not members of the Fortune 500, having less stuff is just easier. A friend of mine was talking about the idea of living with only a 100 things. What would that be like? Pair of socks - one thing. Mobile phone - another thing. Jeans - another thing. Could I do it? Would it be liberating or stifling?

Having a lot of things makes me less mobile, which is weird considering how nomadic my existence feels. Would life not be easier if everything were paired down to the basic essentials?

Last summer, my mom and I had to make some big decisions and consolidate our stuff, moving from Shanghai to Hong Kong. The apartments are much smaller in Hong Kong than mainland China. The move was agonizing and we felt that we had really done well, parting ways with many things and sticking to the bare-bone essentials.

Now, my mom tells me, "We have too much stuff in our Hong Kong apartment" and she goes on to tell me that she has friends there who live on a boat in the harbour, a small wooden boat where they are surrounded with only the bare essentials. "How liberating would that be?" she says. (Oh Mom, please do not get anymore ideas.)

So, here I sit in Chicago, a humble art student, staring at my storage locker, overwhelmed by three years of accumulation. Life would be so much easier if I were a true nomad carrying all my worldly goods in a cloth sack.

Now I plan my sojourn back to Hong Kong this summer and promise myself I shall travel light this time. No more overweight baggage and no more tears at the airport when the person at the baggage counter weighs my stuff and tells me the devastating news. Nope, I am turning over a new leaf and I am going to be one of those cool people who shows up to the plane, unencumbered, with no carry-on baggage and just one small (non back-breaking) suitcase that will be whirling on the luggage carousel when I get off the plane.

My new goal is to be a modern-day nomad.

Minus the storage lockers in Chicago, Port Coquitlam and Shanghai, of course.

Naomi Yorke is a Port Coquitlam student who lived in Shanghai, China for four years, writing about her experiences twice a month for The Tri-City News. She now lives in Chicago, where she's attending art school, and continues her column.