A Vineyard, A Castle And Three Decades In Asia — Chris Ruffle's Expat Story

British author Chris Ruffle joins the Expat Focus Podcast to talk about three decades of life in Asia — and the vineyard and Scottish castle he built in rural China. Chris left Yorkshire in the 1980s with a degree in Chinese and has since worked across China and Taiwan as an investor, winemaker and writer, most recently publishing the audiobook In a Strange Land. He explains how a frustrating search for a decent bottle of wine led him to plant a vineyard in Shandong, why the winery ended up looking like a granite castle in Aberdeen, and what it really takes to operate a business in rural China — including the handbag a safety inspector requested before signing off on the build.

Chris and Carlie talk about homesickness, the friendships that come and go with every move, the letters his mother quietly kept for decades, and what future historians will make of a generation that stopped writing them. If you're weighing up a move abroad, already living far from where you started, or just curious what three decades in Asia actually looks like, this episode is full of stories you won't have heard before.

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00:00 Welcome

00:30 Why Chris left the UK

03:13 How the vineyard dream began

05:01 Building a Scottish castle in China

07:14 Bribes, handbags and doing business

09:46 The audiobook: In a Strange Land

11:29 What exile teaches you about displacement

15:17 Where is home now?