Pros and Cons of the Expat Life
Communications with my friends and relatives in America and other places around the world remind me – sometimes dramatically – how very different my lifestyle is as an expat living in a large foreign city. From my 18th Floor Homestead, what I see outside my window each morning is vastly different from the simple country life I knew as a boy growing up on the Little Dry Fork. Plus, I am aware that my window view (and worldview) would be quite different if I were living in a city in other countries - and the view would be totally different if I were living in a rural setting in any country.
Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian explorer and leader of the Kon-Tiki expedition in the mid-20th Century, wrote of an experience he had as a young man. In his first trip to the South Pacific, he encountered two old Scandinavians who had lived in the islands for years. Here they were, living in paradise – tropical breezes, tropical beaches, tropical fruits and flowers, tropical girls – and what did they daydream about? They missed the gooseberries of their home country! For them, the simple, homely gooseberry had come to represent all of the pleasures from their early life which were not available in the islands.
For me, gooseberries matter not at all. However, it took me years to find steaks locally which match my memories of the glories of the good steak houses of my hometown. I still daydream about the shrimp nachos prepared by my favorite Mexican restaurant in that little town. I haven’t found anything yet to match that gooey, luscious, cholesterol bomb. However, James Beard points out that such food memories are associated with our early years and happy times. He wrote, if we went back today, we might find those splendid repasts were not as great as we remember.
Indeed, nature has mercifully rigged all our memories so that we minimize the pain and discomfort, and maximize the good experiences and sensations. We optimize the good parts and downplay the many neutral, boring, or bad experiences - unless, of course, they resulted in jail time, pregnancy, or an important bone was broken. Exhibit A: Remember your first love? It may have been a romantic train wreck but the memories of it make you smile today.
Certainly, this is true for me. As I regale my friends with tales of my old life, they must wonder why I ever considered leaving such a idyllic life. In my ramblings, no foods ever tasted so good, no skies were ever so clear, no fish were ever so willing to bite, and no afternoon on the golf course was ever so relaxing and profanity-free as in my time-blurred memories. Even the other drivers were courteous and skillful.
As he aged, the American writer Ernest Hemingway famously returned to many of the sites of his early years – the race tracks of Paris, the bull fighting rings of Spain, the safari of Africa, the canals of Venice, the indolent pace of Key West, and the hunting and fishing in the mountains of the western American states. Inevitably, the people were not as funny or dramatic or guileless as he remembered. The places were not as beautiful, remote, and untainted. Cities were not as clean, quaint, and charming. Everything had changed: the ease and comforts, the excitement, the people, the foods and drink…. The experiences simply were not as good as he remembered them to be. Indeed, Papa had changed also. Not as physically strong, not as ruggedly handsome and irresistible to women, not able to drink all night and fish all afternoon after a morning of productive writing, Hemingway himself had declined. Each attempt to relive those early glory days brought him more discomfort and disappointment than pleasure. Despite the advantages of fame and wealth, those original sensations eluded him.
I had a parallel but milder experience. When I was eighteen and went off to college, a new friend introduced me to the marvels of really good Swiss chocolate. After a small-town upbringing on American candy bars, this was a paradigm-shifting revelation. But, years later, even when budget and availability were no longer constraints, I could never repeat that initial sensation. Truly, you can’t go home again. You cannot step into the same river twice. The river has changed and you have changed. It is true for being an expat also. After you acquire a bicultural worldview, you cannot go back to the simplicity of your childhood tribe’s worldview.
Nothing will ever be as good as my first taste of fine Swiss chocolate. Nothing will ever be as sweet, trusting, and innocent as our first love. No pets could ever match the loyalty, grace, and antics of beloved dogs and cats from our past. Hemingway never admitted the novelty and charm of a first experience could not be reproduced. His attempts only led to disappointment.
I am determined not to make Hemingway’s mistake. As the saying goes, “You can’t go home again.” I won’t even try, regardless of how alluring the memories may be. I am often asked if I will take my son to America to live and go to school there. I always answer that, when all factors are considered, my current decision is that I can make the best life for him (and me) with our present address. But I hasten to add that this is my choice currently. Life, as we know, is full of changes so I reserve the right to make different decisions – minor or major – at any time. Ask me the same question next year (or next week) and I may give you a different response.
Indeed, one of the greatest benefits of having moved halfway around the world is, having done it once, it is relatively easy to do it again – either returning to your home country or moving to a completely new place.
Exhibit B: I have an American expat friend. John. After living in Thailand for ten years and marrying a Thai girl, John recently relocated with his new wife to Portugal! Settling in and studying Portuguese and searching for the best bakeries in his new city, he seems perfectly happy. But there are no promises that he will be making this new country a final change.
Following this pattern, I am raising my son to be free of the emotional constraints of a hometown. It helps that he lived in three different cities before he was four years old. He cannot tell you which is his hometown. For this boy, I want him to examine all future opportunities with a simple criterion: Will my life there be better than where I am today? It’s that simple.
In thinking about my own expat experiences, I made a short list of a few of the benefits and hazards of my present lifestyle. Note: Before you, dear reader, start packing your bags and searching online for the best ticket prices, please don’t assume that your experiences or conclusions will be identical to mine. As the car manufacturers caution: Your mileage may vary.
1) I have a car-free life. The benefits of not having a car as the center of my lifestyle and my self-image are immense. Expense, stress, complications, maintenance, comparisons with other people… they all disappear when you eliminate car ownership and rely on public transportation. (This is assuming, of course, that you live where good public transportation is available. But, even without such a good public transportation system, the newly available systems of rides that can be summoned and paid for with your smartphone make car ownership unnecessary and financially dubious.)
I maintain that my quality of life improved immeasurably after I threw off the shackles of the automobile. Don’t get me wrong; I had my first car when I was 16 and I have owned probably 25 or 30 cars in my lifetime. Some of them were real jewels and immensely fun and satisfying to drive. But, for today, my cars and my beloved motorcycles are only memories and a few photographs. They make me smile. Yes, I admit to occasionally getting the itch to twist a motorcycle’s hand throttle when I see someone on a nice bike… but I wouldn’t go back.
2) Language challenges. There are both benefits and special limits when you don’t speak the local language. I am an unabashed monolingualist. I have mastered a few phrases of the language in my new country and it is amazing what you can deduce from repeated experiences, tone of voice, context, and facial expressions. Any taxi driver’s first question in any language is invariably, “Where to, Mac?” Not being fluent in the local language is a decided challenge. But this can also be a benefit when you consider that most conversations are unnecessarily long and pointless. If I don’t understand, I don’t waste my time in listening to what someone had for breakfast. It does mean, however, my serious conversations about serious matters are limited to people who are quite fluent in English. Besides, my wonderfully bilingual son is my default translator now. When we go out together, CS will give instructions to the taxi driver while I look out the window. He is even better than the translation apps on my smartphone.
Another manifestation of the language obstacle is the chronic problem I have with receiving the occasional surface mail from the outside world which is addressed in English. I have tried several solutions but none have been entirely satisfactory. This is an example of the inherent difficulty when two languages collide inside a bureaucracy. Live with it.
3) Companions. In addition to language obstacles, it is difficult to find people who can truly understand me. It is almost impossible to find local residents who can understand my experiences and worldview. Thus, issues that may be vitally interesting to me are incomprehensible or unimportant to locals. Likewise, I may fail to appreciate the complications and consequences for local people about matters which do not affect me.
Fortunately, I have developed a local network of fellow expats with largely similar experiences and outlooks. We meet weekly for our Friday luncheons of fast food, observations about prevailing customs and fashions, caustic comments about the skills of local drivers, and attempts at humor. Roughly categorized as deplorables, unemployables, misfits, poor fits, unfits, reprobates, and English teachers, we democratically accept new members regardless of age, orientation, experiences, or wealth. (We do, however, have to maintain some standards so we vet the English teachers carefully.)
4) Assuming that there are no strong local biases against foreigners of your specific nationality or ethnicity, you will find it refreshing to be exempt from most expectations. Similarly, many of the unspoken rules which we learned as children in our native culture, become questionable or irrelevant in a new setting. For example, in America, I was always admonished to “eat with your mouth closed” and “don’t talk with your mouth full”. In my new culture, those same rules are not applied. Indeed, my expat-born son often urges me to eat with my mouth open for the full taste experience, and a mouth full of food is hardly a hindrance to the non-stop talking of the local residents.
I love the freedom to choose which customs and practices I follow. Provided that I do not break any laws, it is nice to go through my days being relatively unlimited by the norms and expectations of the local culture. (“That’s not the way we do it,” can usually be successfully countered with, “Yes, but I’m not one of you; I’m a foreigner.”) Being a foreigner makes me a member of a relatively small group which is largely accepted, welcomed, and respected… even if we are deplorables, unemployables, misfits, reprobates, etc. - and English teachers.
5) Counterbalancing the freedom from most of the expectations and requirements which apply to local residents, expats do have a few limits which apply to them but which do not affect the locals. Banks are sometimes reluctant to open accounts for foreigners because of tax and reporting issues. Visas and work permits for foreigners are not permanent. Depending on the individual’s situation and country, they have to be renewed periodically which is a bureaucratic labyrinth most expats dread. When language issues are also involved, communications about minute details can become difficult and frustrating, especially if they involve some legal point you are expected to be familiar with or whose regulations have just changed.
Exhibit C: I have a friend who has a three-year tourist visa. However, part of the requirements for this particular class of visa is that she leave and re-enter the country at least once every few months. Thus, my friend travels to a border city, walks across the border into another tourist-friendly city of a different country, then reverses the process and walks back into her country, thus fulfilling the requirement. Not a big problem or expense but this is an example of how expats are sometimes exposed to seemingly illogical requirements which do not apply to residents.
6) One of the greatest benefits of being an expat is the opportunity to begin a totally new life, complete with new possessions, new address in a new time zone, new routines, new job, new friends, and new worldview. Old projects, old relationships, old possessions, and old routines will inevitably be abandoned when we start a new life as an expat. They simply don’t apply anymore. Indeed, I see this shift to a new lifestyle as a priceless opportunity to carefully choose how to spend my days. It can be truly and literally a fresh start in life.
A word of warning, however: If you become an expat, beware of the hazard known as the “foreign ghetto”, a phenomenon where a group of foreigners eat, live, shop, work, talk, and spend all their time together. Certainly, you want to blend the most comfortable parts of your old life with the best of your new life. But you cannot explore and adopt the best of your new life if you spend all your time surrounded by deplorables, unemployables, misfits, reprobates, etc. - and English teachers.
What about you, dear readers? Are any of you considering becoming an expat? Are you dissatisfied and unfulfilled with your current lifestyle, occupation, relationships, or view out your window? Are you like Hemingway who periodically moved after he had fouled his nest so badly that relocation became a diplomatic necessity? It should be noted that Hemingway remarked that he never left any place he had lived without regrets. However, any regrets are quite tolerable when compared with the scintillating vistas from a new window. The same regret/benefits ratio can be available to you if you choose to accept the expat challenge.
And regarding really good steaks, any contributions to my Buy Me A Coffee page would be most seriously welcomed. Occasional culinary indulgences are wonderful, to be relished as time, availability, spousal patience, and budget allow. You can help with that last factor. Just click on this link and contribute generously.