Life As An Expat Is Not All Sweetness And Light

By Author: Donald Saunders
Total Articles: 84
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Sitting at home and looking out across your windswept and rain soaked garden it is all too easy to picture yourself with a new life in a new country, but just how does this picture in your mind's eye live up to the reality once you have moved overseas? Well, this is not perhaps as simple a question to answer as you might imagine.

Perhaps the greatest problem is that there are such a large number of variables to consider and so many factors which are simply not known at the outset. It is easy, for example, to believe that the fact that you do not speak the language is of little importance as, at least in the short term, you will probably be able to get by in your mother tongue and will always be able to pick up the language in the longer term. But just how easy is it for you to learn a language and just how simple easy is it to learn the language of your chosen country?

You might also be looking forward to all that exotic food, but just how is a perhaps marked change in your diet going to affect your health? You might well have enjoyed some wonderful high quality restaurant food on holiday trips but is this really ...
... the sort of food you will be enjoying day in and day out when you are shopping and cooking for yourself?

The problems are of course relatively minor when you compare them to trying to adjust mentally to living in what is not only a different country, but often a very different culture. Those things which you have thought of as both curious and fascinating when on holiday could well present you with considerable difficulty when they are part and parcel of your everyday life.

The majority of countries with a sizeable expatriate community develop a substantial support network, which often includes an expat club which holds regular meetings, organizes outings and events, distributes its own newspaper and a great deal more. At first sight this might seem to be extremely comforting but it is often worth thinking about why the expats in the country to create such an extensive support network. Indeed, when you see the extent to which the lives of many expats revolve around the activities of the expat community you might find yourself asking why they moved overseas at all.

In reality many expats find that, once the novelty wears off, they regret their decision but have all too often burnt their bridges and now find that they have choice other than to stay where they are and make the most of what is a far from an ideal situation.

This is not of course the case with all expats and, as an expat myself, I can tell you that there are many of us who are very happy with our decision to live abroad and would not wish to turn the clock back. For many hundreds of people each year the decision to move overseas is the best decision they have ever made and one which they assuredly do not regret. By is it possible to tell which group of expats you are likely to fall into before you make your decision?

Unfortunately, you can never be certain, but there are a number of things which you can do to increase your chances of your decision being one which you are glad you made.

The most important thing that you can do is to try the water and this means effectively living in your country of choice for a reasonable period of time before you cut your ties with home. And the important word here is 'living'.

It is no use merely visiting the country regularly on holiday, staying in a hotel and dining out in restaurants. You need to spend at least a year in the country and throw off any idea of being on holiday. You have got to make a conscious effort to live as you would wish to live in the long term, keeping away from tourist areas and activities and integrating yourself into the local community. Live just like a local, doing your own shopping and cooking and taking the time to learn something of the local history, lifestyle and culture, while at the same time making the effort to learn the language.

If you stay away from the expatriate community and integrate yourself into the local community from the start you will soon discover whether or not you would be making a wise decision to move overseas permanently.