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. #ExpatLife #LivingInChina #ChinaExpat #ExpatStories #MovingAbroad #Audiobook #ExpatFocus 👉 Visit Expat Focus at https://www.expatfocus.com 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? 17:22 Letters, emails and lost history 19:43 Voice actors and finding new perspectives 23:21 Chinese soil, grapes and wine 26:16 Where to find Chris 🎥 Video/Transcript – https://www.expatfocus.com/china/podcast/a-vineyard-a-castle-and-three-decades-in-asia-chris-ruffles-expat-story 📝 Show Notes In a Strange Land – https://linktr.ee/InAStrangeLand Treaty Port Vineyards – https://www.treatyport.com 👉 Follow Expat Focus here: RSS | https://www.expatfocus.com/feed YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@ExpatFocus Podcast | https://www.expatfocus.com/podcast LinkedIn Page | https://www.linkedin.com/company/expatfocus LinkedIn Group | https://www.linkedin.com/groups/673267 X | https://x.com/expatfocus Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/expatfocus Bluesky | https://bsky.app/profile/expatfocus.bsky.social Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/expatfocus TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@expatfocus Mastodon | https://mastodon.social/@expatfocus Website | https://www.expatfocus.com