Thursday, April 5, 2012

A to Z: Expatriate



One hears this word tossed around--"I'm an expat", or "expat rulings". One knows what "expatriate" means--a person not living in their home country.

But what does it mean, exactly, to be expatriate?

To some, the idea of leaving their home country and settling somewhere else conjures visions of the Wild West, of endless prairie, of new horizons. To some, this idea is inspiring, a challenge, a dream. To others it's as appealing as a rectal exam--why would you even consider leaving everything behind, your family, your home, your friends? What for?


Barring a cruel dictatorship that issued a death warrant to our families, or economic conditions that made it impossible to make a living in our home countries, most expats emigrated by choice.

Curaçao--and probably the Caribbean in general, especially those islands where offshore legislation make the financial industry thrive--is packed with expats. Dutch, Venezuelan, American, Canadian, Colombian, Indian, Dominican, Argentinian, German, British... You name it, it's here.

Few expats stay long; most move on after a year or two, on to the next new horizon, the next adventure, or simply back home. Very few stay as long as I have, even less as long as my boyfriend has (sixteen years).

The expat life isn't an easy one.

Why? You mean, aside from the general homelessness? Well, there's the foreign language factor, for example. In Curaçao, locals speak four languages: Papiamentu, Dutch, Spanish, and English. That makes life easier--at least you don't have to gesture your way through an order at a restaurant (with potentially disastrous results). But it does mean that conversation around you has a 75% chance of being in a language you don't understand.

Doesn't make for easy integration, right?

Then there's the whole immigration thing. You need papers--all sorts of papers. Most of us came here through a company that arranged those papers, but even so, there's the annual renewal of working permits, for example, or making sure you have your papers with you when you go anywhere, just in case you get stopped. It might sound like a small thing, and it is--a small reminder, every day and everywhere, that you don't belong. It wears on you.

Shopping for groceries is an experience. Very few of the things you're familiar with, the staples you grew up with--stuff as simple as mayonnaise, for instance--is available. Sure, they have Dutch brands, or Venezuelan, but it tastes different. It behaves different when you use it, say, to make a salad dressing. Your favorite brands? They don't even know they exist here. You experiment a few times, find a few adequate substitutes, learn to make do. And, again, you're reminded you don't belong. You didn't grow up here.

One of the most remarkable aspects of being an expat, to me at least, is the social one. Expats, the ones that emigrate because the company they work for asks them to, have a unique circumstance: our social lives revolve around work.

This doesn't happen when you're home because you're still around the people you grew up with, people you went to school with, that perhaps took a different path, went to a different college, ended up in a different profession--but they're still part of your social circle. These friends, along with your family, put you in touch with all sorts of different people, new people, new circles.

But as an expat, you're denied that variety. It takes time to build those connections, and usually people that emigrate for professional reasons have a pretty heavy workload--thus, no time to socialize outside the company. Your employer becomes your alma mater, and your colleagues become everything: your friends, your landlords, your dance partners, your lovers, even your adopted parents.

And your life is reduced to that very small circle of people. You live and breathe the company--in social gatherings, people talk about--taah-daah: work.

Being an expat has its advantages: it certainly is an adventure, and it's not for the faint-hearted. It's a revelation, a challenge of the most personal kind, a road to discovery of yourself, a broadening of the mind. I don't regret it, not for a minute.

But it's not a walk in the park.

29 comments :

  1. Having spent 10 years as an expat. in Norway I can vouch for a lot you say. However there is still no place like home.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed, Bob! Dorothy had it right--there's no place like home :) Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  2. I enjoyed this post because I am an expat (by choice) and have been one for almost 20 years. One of the things that I think happens, under the radar so to speak, is that you end up learning more about yourself than you do about the country you have chosen to live in. Everything, like you say, is reflected back at yourself. For myself, I have also learned more about what it is to be a North American living here in Latin America. Nice job with this subject and a very good E word.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So true, Sarah. Living outside one's comfort zone, be that village, city, country, or simple social circle, is always an exercise in introspection and self-discovery. Glad you're enjoying your expat experience :)

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. Haha--it can be :) It can also be a lot of fun ;) Thanks for the visit, Mira!

      Delete
  4. WOW! I didn't know. I'm a follower of your blog now. Have a GREAT week!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the visit, Margo, and for the follow--glad you liked this. Have an awesome week, too!

      Delete
  5. Don't think I could up-sticks and move indefinitely to another country - but perhaps for a season!


    Thanks for calling in at my blog earlier, btw! :-)

    SueH I refuse to go quietly!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree, Sue--it's a tough decision, and most people that do it, do so without even knowing what they're getting into in terms of what it really means. But it's a satisfying experience, one that makes you grow. Yep, a season might be a good way to try it out without making any permanent changes. Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  6. Well, you may also feel expratiado within their own country. Greetings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So true--and sometimes that's even worse, isn't it? Means there's nowhere to run, not really. Gracias por la visita!

      Delete
  7. I want to be an expat, because I do find the idea an adventure, a challenge, cosmopolitan, and romantic (not the lovey dovey variety). I've always dreamed of working abroad for a country. I did it for a little bit, for an internship, and totally felt the social issues, and going to Ethiopia for two years come June is going to be a real test if I can do it. It's nice to see that you enjoy your life, that you don't regret it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gwen! Ethiopia?? Wow--I'll be looking forward to hearing about your experience there. It's sure to be an horizon broadener!

      Delete
  8. I thought many times about living in another country, but I'm not sure I'd want to make it a permanent move. Unless, of course, I could convince my son to add on extra quarters so Mom can visit for a month once in a while :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha--yes, it's a hard choice, Li... Especially in terms of leaving your family behind. Thanks for the visit!

      Delete
  9. It sounds like a hard thing to be an expat. I'm too much of a homebody to consider living somewhere else.
    Great A-Z post!
    Nutschell
    www.thewritingnut.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, glad you liked it :) It is hard, but it's got its rewards, too :)

      Delete
  10. I'm an expat too. For me, it means separation from the rest of my family. That's the hardest part, but it makes you strong and self-reliant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can imagine, Francene. My family is somewhat dysfunctional (just a tad, haha), so that makes the separation easier. Still, it's hard. Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  11. I've moved several times within Canada, and even between provinces is a huge pain for paperwork, insurance, taxes, etc ...not to mention the completely different cultures, even within the same province. Where I live now, Victoria (on Vancouver Island) is a 1 1/2 hour ferry trip from Vancouver and when we moved, I felt like it was to a completely separate country it's so different.

    Knowing what a pain that is, I feel I can empathize with you, yet I also completely understand that my experience barely scratches the surface of what moving to a whole different country would be like.

    I wouldn't be against trying it... like, for a year or two, but I would probably return to Canada in the end, back to the west coast.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, Ms. Monkey... It's the same, just different :D Sometimes, like someone else commented above, you can feel like an expat in your hometown, so I get how you can sympathize with this. You should try it, though--a year or two is just right, and it's an experience unlike any other. It changes you, makes you more "whole", somehow. You'd like it. Oh, I know--come to Curacao! :D

      Delete
  12. I moved to the other side of the country and have often felt similar things. Yet not quite to the degree you have. You still need papers in the US now... even if you are a citizen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, really? Unbelievable... Yes, I can understand how that feeling of "homelessness" can apply even within the same country, and more so in a country as huge as the US. Whenever I'm there I'm constantly surprised how different each area is from the others. Miami is almost a separate country; California, too, and within CA there's so many differences. The East Coast is, again, different, as is the Midwest, or the South--which, in turn, is very different from, say, Texas, or Arizona. I love it :)

      Delete
  13. A wonderful reminder of what it feels like to live totally and well in another country. My first experience living overseas had me buying canned foods at a tiny grocery store by picture since my vocabulary hadn't caught up. So many elements of daily life are different when living elsewhere. But even my first trip to the east coast felt like I had moved to a foreign land! Excellent post for A-Z.

    ReplyDelete
  14. A fascinating post. I'm still not sure if I envy you or not!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi, I found you via the A-Z Challenge. This post is really interesting for me - I also wrote about expats - as I am a Brit living in Spain, but about 15 years ago I was a Brit living in Hong Kong. The two experiences couldn't be more different. Here and now, I have a child and a partner and we are trying to build a life. In Hong Kong I was footloose and didn't really ever consider my position there or how I was integrating or where I might be heading.

    ReplyDelete
  16. There's nothing easy about being an expatriate, that's for sure. I've heard people rhapsodising about living abroad; how life would be so much easier etc and it always makes me think, are you being serious?! I have no experience of being an expatriate myself, but I was involved with a close friend's experience. She emigrated with her parents, but she really struggled at first. And it wasn't worries about visas, passports, permits, overseas medical insurance and all the top level things. Those things were a matter of due process, it was clear that they'd be completed in time. There was even a vague timetable as to when it would happen. But there were other things. She was scared of losing her friends here, about whether her accent was going to make her stand out, whether she'd be able to make friends there, whether she'd be able to be herself. I can't even remember how many times I found myself on the phone to her at some unsociable hour because she wanted to talk to someone from the place that she still saw as home.

    And then the little details, like chocolate. She couldn't abide the chocolate over there, she couldn't get hold of her favourite cereal, suddenly she'd never be able to have those fantastic burgers from her favourite restaurant any more.

    The thing is, living abroad is a very different beast from going on holiday. A holiday is a break from real life, emigrating is leaving one life and starting another. No-one in their right mind can say that's an easy matter. That's not to say that no good can come of an expatriate life, quite the reverse. But as with any kind of life, with the good comes the bad.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks for this thoughtful post. While I have no immediate plans to pick up and move to another country, I've thought about it. Actually, I take that back: I've dreamed and romanticized about it. I know it would be a lot of work, with both pros and cons. So, maybe someday. When I'm ready to leave my mayo behind. ;)

    Have a great weekend!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...