Experience with a country (Japanese, to work, children)

[Jaggy001]

From experience ... once you have been outside your home country for more than 6 years then you are out of touch and it makes it much harder to go back.

[Teak]

Originally Posted by Jaggy001

From experience ... once you have been outside your home country for more than 6 years then you are out of touch and it makes it much harder to go back.

Right, and you may not necessarily fit into the culture in which you are an expat, no matter how hard you try. Thus, you feel like you are what? Between cultures? Non culture? A man (woman) without a country? We need a new term, perhaps, to explain this phenomenon.

Whenever I go back, I listen to my friends talk about their jobs, their bad boss at work (does anyone brag about a good boss?), their new boat, the new type of roof truss that they will use on their new house and so on. No one really wants to hear about my life in expatville. It is not because they are impolite; it is more because they have no frame of reference to understand.

I could rant on this topic for a long time. I have too many anecdotes....too many.

[effie g-tad]

^

LOL! they tend to become a different yet somewhat quite homogenous species...

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by Teak

Right, and you may not necessarily fit into the culture in which you are an expat, no matter how hard you try. Thus, you feel like you are what? Between cultures? Non culture? A man (woman) without a country? We need a new term, perhaps, to explain this phenomenon.

Whenever I go back, I listen to my friends talk about their jobs, their bad boss at work (does anyone brag about a good boss?), their new boat, the new type of roof truss that they will use on their new house and so on. No one really wants to hear about my life in expatville. It is not because they are impolite; it is more because they have no frame of reference to understand.

I could rant on this topic for a long time. I have too many anecdotes....too many.

I have an awesome boss. Bet you wish you had my boss. In fact most of my bosses have been pretty decents.
Weird no one wants to hear your life. If I'm gone for a long time and come back home people want me to say how it was. It's me who has the difficulty of where to start.
You have non-curious friends?

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by effie briest

^

LOL! they tend to become a different yet somewhat quite homogenous species...

You are quite the goofball.

[effie g-tad]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

You are quite the goofball.

huh? i had to look that one up, you know...

goofball - definition of goofball by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

[M3 Mitch]

Good question. I think the one that *wants* to be more Indian, will be more Indian. If the American wants to get into the Indian culture, and assuming he went at 20 and stayed till 50 he must dig the culture, or else can't organize a return-home trip - if he joins the culture, he'll be pretty Indian, probably will still speak with an accent but if he goes native he'll probably be accepted. I know this is my experince in Ukraine and Russia, and I am never there more than 3 to 5 weeks at a time. I know people who have spent months to years there but don't speak the language, understand the culture, whatever. A more extreme example would (probably, no first-hand experience with this) an American who works for ARAMCO, stays in the compound, does not socialize with the Saudis, could spend a whole career there and still be just an American from Peoria.

Likewise if the Indian guy *wants* to maintain his Indian identity, he can, or he can establish an American identity, although, again, he'll probably speak with a distinct but not hard to understand accent. Particularly now, if you want to stay up on news "back home" it's easily done via internet.

[clongirl]

I believe that wherever you were raised..that's the culture where you will fit in the most.

My husband, born/raised in Ireland (though living here in the US for nearly twenty years now) still considers himself Irish first and foremost. He feels like he connects with and understands the Irish culture far more than the American one..

He has his "best" lifelong friends in Ireland and doesn't quite connect 100% with his American buddies here. There are traits, subtleties, and little personality differences that he understands and "gets" that a person living there (even for a long time) will fail to see, notice, or comprehend..
He stays connected and understands Irish sport, and oddly enough even feels more "at home" with a group of Brits in a bar over a group of Americans any day.

[Teak]

I also think that there is a big difference as to whether one marries into a social network within the new culture, or brings a native-culture spouse along. If an American marries into an Indian family, there is a stronger probability that he or she will eventually assimilate than if he or she had brought an American spouse along to India. Marriages in many places are not just two individuals coming together, but the melding of two families and two social networks together.

[Teak]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

You have non-curious friends?

Well, some friends have never been outside the USA so they cannot really understand the attraction of other countries or cultures. They have no frame of reference to think that another group might have more interesting food, or more reasonable ways of dealing with issues.

Another set of friends typically take short-term trips (vacations, service projects) to other countries and, of course, want to tell you all about it. If we talk about our experiences, nearly every comment that I make is met by, "Well, in the Philippines......" (to use that popular country as an example).

I guess I may be a better listener than talker in that I tend to listen to their stories. I know what my life is like, so I am more interested in what they have to say.

One example, a friend introduced me to a couple who were expats in a neighboring country. In a 2 hour and 30 minute lunch, the other couple went on and on about where they lived; what they did; what the culture was like....for 2 hours and 25 minutes! (I know, because I looked at my watch.) After 2:25, the wife turns to me and asks, so how is it in Malaysia? I talked for maybe 5 minutes, and then her husband says: "Ah, we have to go now." I didn't care. I had learned more about where they lived.