The Prime Directive prohibits Starfleet personnel and spacecraft from interfering in the normal development of any society. – Star Trek Television series
5.2 The Expat Bubble
The Expat Bubble
“Stranger in a strange land. - Robert Heinlein”
Think about a bubble or snow globe. On the one hand, everything inside is protected. On the other hand whatever is inside, in this case you, is isolated and frozen in place. This is the essence of the expat lifestyle, both good and bad.
I remember how lucky we were to attend the Vienna Opera Ball; I hadn’t brought a ball gown, of course, but managed to buy one from the Embassy’s used clothing outlet. There we were in the balcony at midnight watching the flower of Viennese youth dance to the Blue Danube waltz, naturally. But we were on the outside looking in. We had not attended tanzschule (dance school) every week in middle school, nor been fitted for a long white evening dress or black tails in high school. We were just onlookers. Expats, in other words.
Your employer offers school housing support, you earn many times more than the local school staff, and you can expect a lifestyle you could never afford in your home country. You have the opportunity to travel widely and your worldview is forever changed. You are privileged.
Expat Hazards and Traps
“You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense. - Aeschylus
”
In spite of these advantages, culture shock and homesickness will no doubt sideswipe you at some point. It’s a long way back home, and where exactly is home anymore? This sense of dislocation and frustration can lead to some bad expat behaviors. Let’s start with a lack of discretion.
Social Dangers
Photo by John Arano on Unsplash
The expat life has two features which can lead to disasters. One is a frequent temptation to drinking, drug use, and subsequent stupid behavior. Expat life is generally very social. Then add in the attraction of duty free liquor with the frequent passing through airports. This means plenty of opportunity to make an ass of yourself.
The second characteristic of expat life is its small-town feel. We’ve discussed this before, but the international school community is more like moving to Drain, Oregon than to New York City, at least in terms of everyone knowing your business. Social media makes things even worse.
Protect Your Reputation
Your reputation is golden, so develop strategies for protecting it.
Confide only in trusted friends or family.
Do not post indiscreet comments on social media, or at least give yourself a waiting period before going live.
Verify that your behavior is in line with local norms, especially sexual and dating norms.
Take sensible precautions when out drinking or clubbing.
Loneliness and Negativity
“The Slough of Despond. - John Bunyan”
Loneliness is a normal feature of human life; a person can be bitterly lonely in the midst of even social uproar, plentiful activity, and tight family ties. You may be more or less an extrovert or introvert. But certain features peculiar to expat life lend a different flavor and require dealing with.
Elements Peculiar To Expat Loneliness
For one thing you are far from home and will at some point suffer from culture shock. This disorientation and homesickness can lead to bouts of piercing isolation and loneliness, even clinical depression.
Staying In Touch
You would not be suffering from culture shock at home, as this is the water you have swum in since you were born. All is familiar and comfortable.
The lifestyle is also inherently transient. Most expats will not be spending their lives in the country but will move on within a few years. This means maintaining friendships will be more difficult; most of these relationships will fade away over time.
Compare this to camping with a friend you have known since middle school. There is a history, an ease, an intimacy impossible to recreate with a member of the nomadic expat herd. This lack may wear on you over time.
Cultures also vary in their social openness and warmth. Some cultures are at ease welcoming foreigners, while others hold back and socialize mainly with family and long-time friends or take a long time to accept an outsider.
Compare gregarious Italians to reserved British, for instance. You may feel left out. You are left out; you’re a foreigner. Language will also be a barrier, of course.
Particular Expat Categories
Families and couples typically respond in two ways: they either fall apart or they pull together. Fractures in relationships will be spackled over temporarily in the excitement, change, and stimulation. Children ditto; they might be overwhelmed or they may thrive.
You’d think singles, particularly women, might be particularly susceptible to loneliness. Yes and no. On the bright side, the peculiar setup of most international schools can lead to plentiful opportunities to defeat loneliness, mainly the proximity of living in school housing.
A teacher does not need to retreat to a solitary apartment and see nobody until school starts again on Monday. Just go down the hall and see if somebody is going to the Reenok (open-air market) Saturday morning or wants to buy season tickets to the Bolshoi ballet. Ditto for finding a travel companion.
If you’re not interested in dating, you’ll find plenty of girlfriends or guy friends to do things with. If you do want to date, here are two links. This thread highlights the “homely Western man dates beautiful local woman” situation. This one summarizes some pitfalls of dating locals; you could also just date another expat.
If you are gay, socializing may be easy or more difficult depending on the country, and more or less discretion may be required. But finding a community is not impossible; just do some research and persist.
Staying In Touch
Thanks to modern technology, contact has become immeasurably easier. However, in one way Facetiming too frequently may actually worsen loneliness. For one thing digital contact is second-hand and lacks the intimacy of human contact through the five senses.
The blogger cited above has some pertinent things to say about the downside of being far from home. Making local friends overseas is a delicate dance and she notes aptly that “we carry the burden of staying in touch.” She is a trailing spouse and must have had a bad day.
Too-frequent contact could also mean that you are so closely tied to home that you may set yourself up for increased homesickness. After all, you are missing out on the action. At low points you may yearn to rejoin them on the other side of the screen.
Dealing With Loneliness
If you are a gregarious extrovert, you require lots of social stimulation, while an introvert is perfectly happy spending large amounts of time alone recharging batteries. Whichever you call yourself, the primary way to deal with expat loneliness is positive action.
If you wait around for someone to rescue you from loneliness, you really will be lonely. You must force yourself out the door, make an action plan, approach people, become a joiner even if it feels unnatural.
Unhappy In The Bubble
Here are some behaviors that mean you might be stuck in a dangerous rut.
You isolate yourself; whine incessantly to friends and family back home; take up heavy drinking or emotional eating; devote all your free hours to binge-watching anything available; align yourself at school with the negative crowd who have nothing good to say about the country and school.
You may actually tip over into clinical depression, putting you in serious danger. This may lead you to break contract and go home. You may fall into an emotional state that calls for professional help. Or you may just remain miserable the entire time overseas, never to return.
What Doesn’t Kill You…
If you do survive culture shock and its attendant bout of loneliness, congratulate yourself. You are now officially a stronger, more resilient, more empathetic person.
We will next discuss how to avoid falling into this negativity trap in the first place, the boring stuff like get plenty of exercise. But by far the best defense is choosing the right friends.
Which friends you choose makes all the differences. If you hang out only with negative people in the bubble, guess what? Your time overseas will be either ruined or seriously compromised. So let’s move on to coping strategies.
Social Life
“You gotta have friends. - Bette Midler”
If you expect to survive culture shock, never mind thrive, you need friends. Who will these friends be?
School Community
We’ve touched on your cohort, the colleagues you stumbled off the plane with and went through orientation together. This is an intense relationship, and they most likely will be your first group of friends.
Also, if you are in school housing, socializing is just like a college dorm; knock on next door and invite whoever answers over for coffee. At school there will be your fellow teachers. Easy-peasy. These friendships are the path of least resistance.
Some of these friendships will be lifelong while some will fade away when or if you move on with the nomadic tourist-teacher herd. The title of this article hits the nail on the head. Wanderlust gene: how expats can spot each other at 50 paces by Kate Lord Brown. “You skip several months of ‘getting to know you,’ she says. Exactly.
But while you are together overseas, you will almost certainly be closer than you would back in your home country by the intense nature of your shared experiences and everyday proximity. You take the school bus to work, eat lunch and work together, live down the hall, and inhabit the same expat bubble.
The wider school community also provides options: parents, classroom assistants and other school staff, parents of your children’s friends, expat community members you meet through school events and activities.
Outside the School Community
If you have a particular interest or existing affiliation, the pathway to a wider friendship circle just opened up. This is one of the healthiest ways to combat loneliness and negativity.
The Moscow AV guy was the Maori husband of a New Zealand diplomat. He loved rugby and back in Auckland, performed the haka even though he was the sweetest and least scary man. In Moscow he immediately joined the Moscow Dragons RFC and found a diverse gang of friends right away.
The advantage to seeking out a wider circle is that you cannot just bitch about the school copy machine, the unfair administration or parents from hell. Guess what? Nobody cares; they’re involved in their own concerns.
And guaranteed, these new friends will all have interesting stories. Teachers tend to be a certain kind of personality with similar life experiences. Expats in your new expanded circles will be different and have fascinating stories. Go for it.
Having Fun Overseas
Join, Explore, and Travel
Be open to growth and get your butt out the door. The possibilities are endless once you start looking. If you are a runner, look up Hash House Harriers (“a drinking club with a running problem.”) Join a Trivia Night team at your local. Attend church. Volunteer at the orphanage. Join the birding group, go salsa dancing, take a cooking class, sign up for walking tours. Get on the Embassy mailing list and attend outings that interest you; search Meetup or similar expat sites.
Adventures and pleasures sort themselves in categories, starting with the prime motivator for teaching overseas, meaning travel.
Travel
Home entertaining
Culture
Sports and outdoor activities
Clubbing and going out
Travel
Start with the activities mentioned above, get out the door and engage with the city and country. Between your teacher-friends and the new expanded circle you’ve cultivated, chances to travel together will come up.
Travel, of course, is one of the prime reasons to teach overseas, so do not turn down any chances. Most likely teachers have a relationship with a local wizard travel agent who can put together trips and find amazing deals. Cultivate this person.
Since you now live overseas, you can take the overnight train with friends to Venice just to eat Italian food. You can spend spring break at a Red Sea resort or attend the theater in London, and all of this without a 14-hour transatlantic flight and jet lag.
Entertaining
Since expats live for all practical purposes in a small town, dinner parties and gatherings seem to be more common than back home, where you might typically be inclined to have the weekend pizza-movie night and a big shopping trip to Costco on the weekend agenda.
Eventually, people run out of energy for throwing parties, but then they can move on to the next posting and start all again.
Overall, expats seem to fall more into the extrovert group, not the introvert. Something about the fact that they all rolled the dice and abandoned their old lives makes them particularly outgoing sorts in the first place.
Culture
If opera, art museums, and music matter to you, let’s hope you factored this into where you applied. In Moscow we regularly attended the Bolshoi and in Vienna the opera, for instance. Just find like-minded friends, figure out how to stay informed, and go. Life is short.
Sports and outdoor activities
This club is a ready-made group of friends.
If sports and the outdoors are very important to you, check out the possibilities a bit ahead of time. Consider bringing your own equipment and start looking for like-minded expats or locals even before you arrive.
Clubbing and Going Out
Do some research first and gather local sources of events and locales. Research the limitations and norms. For instance, Spanish restaurants may not even begin serving dinner until 11 pm. In some countries drunk driving laws are strictly enforced, and I mean strictly.
In some countries homosexuality is actually a crime, so best be discreet. Hundreds of expats are currently residing in foreign prisons for drug smuggling, so rethink careless drug use.
Top 10 Overseas Survival Skills Recap
1. Understand basic everyday differences.
2. Respect an alternate worldview
3. Successfully navigate the expat bubble.
4. Survive the stages of culture shock.
5. Accept the differences from Western values.
6. Rely on common sense ways to stay safe.
7. Maintain healthy social life and friendships.
8. Keep your family and children happy.
9. Deal with family and friends at home.
10. Go back home and readjust successfully.
You’re about to have the time of your life. Have fun!
5.3 Health and Safety
“I wake up every day and think, “I’m breathing! It’s a good day.” – Eve Ensler”
Schools In Unhealthy Places
You could be taking years off your life if you work at a school in a heavily polluted city. “I was sick most days with respiratory problems from the lead used in the fuel of the millions of cars that jammed the roads…lethal air and strange and toxic smells emitted from factories…the worry of food being tampered with, vegetables grown in toxic soil.”
In August 2020 the AQI in Delhi was 597. By comparison a sunny spring day in Oregon AQI is 23; statewide fires that same autumn poisoned the air for weeks. Just try to imagine breathing that every day. Should you work in unhealthy conditions?
As always, do your research. Here are some resources:
Geosure – app that rounds up safety data and warnings.
US Department of State travel advisories.
Center for Disease Control (CDC)– alerts by level.
World Nomads – insurance company that does a good job rounding up alerts and providing good general advice.
Evaluate the Dangers
“I was happy in the midst of dangers
and inconveniences.
- Daniel Boone”
“One child developed an odd muscular twitch that wouldn’t go away.” This HuffPost reminiscence from a diplomatic spouse is illuminating, unnerving, and inspiring, all at once. Of course, this decision matters most if you have children. Consider these hazards:
1. Insects carrying disease (roaches, mosquitos, vermin), tropical diseases like malaria and dengue fever, tropical rashes, and asthma - are there vaccines for these diseases and how clean are school facilities i.e. mold?
2. Air and water pollution – check the air quality index AQI. Do school facilities have good air purifiers and how frequently is outdoor recess impossible?
In some countries, coal-fired plants, vehicle exhaust, chemical and industrial factories, and burning trash spew toxins without any restraint. Not every country forbids leaded fuel.
In others like India, Thailand, and Burma, the agricultural burning season darkens and clogs the skies every year. This top 10 most polluted cities roundup is shocking. China shows some improvement but India is worsening.
3. Adulterated food and water - if you can’t flush the toilet paper, you can’t drink the water, so how will you access clean water? In Russia 5-gallon Nestle water jugs were delivered and set up weekly. Will this be possible for you?
Precautions
“Precaution is better than cure. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Once you have a handle on exactly how dangerous a location might be, you can make an informed decision. Don’t automatically cross a school off your list, but be proactive. Plenty of teachers work happily and profitably in polluted cities. However,
Be up to date on all necessary vaccinations, especially if certain diseases are endemic. Follow State Department guidelines.
Bring prescription medications with you, enough to last. Occasionally, local equivalents are just fine, but verify ahead of time.
Use a water dispenser or safe bottled water and consider installing air purifiers. Some schools may have effective air cleaner systems.
Discuss your concerns with the school.
Research, read blogs, and talk to staff.
The decide whether to go, but first evaluate the risks. I know all this sounds like you should never leave home, but risk can be managed (mostly.) Of course, think twice if you’re bringing young children with you.
Health Issues
Insurance
Pre-existing health conditions could be a show-stopper. Schools won’t not want to hire someone who will explode their insurance costs. Thoroughly examine the school’s insurance policy and read every word.
Read the fine print and think about worst-case scenarios.
You never know when disaster may strike. Verify exclusions, pre-existing conditions, dates of cover, and medical facilities the school uses. Consider buying a backup personal policy from World Nomads, which can be expensive but may be necessary. Or just don’t go to a school without good coverage.
Disability Access
There is no ADA overseas (the A stands for American) and countries vary wildly in disability accessibility. If you use a wheelchair, for instance, you might have a problem at the school or in school housing, never mind out in public. There are no guarantees, so discuss this with the school in advance.
Emergency Services
Even if the school’s insurance coverage is excellent, you might also consider evacuation insurance. God forbid you need specialized treatment outside the country or have a bad accident while traveling.
Keep the Embassy emergency number on speed dial.
And do you know what number to dial in a health emergency? It’s not 911, that’s for sure. Find out before you need to know and keep the phone number handy.
The overseas world features at least two unique medical issues. One is what is currently (Feb. 2020) happening in Wuhan China; you could end up quarantined or locked out of the country. The variables shift daily. Editing this today (April 2021) it all seems prophetic, doesn’t it?
You might also learn the term medical tourism and take advantage of the savings. The cost differentials are stunning. A $40,000 hip replacement would cost $17,000 in Thailand, for instance.
In Chiang Mai I suddenly developed vision difficulty and had to bail out of school “week without walls.” The doctor correctly diagnosed and treated the problem, the procedure cost virtually nothing, and her English was great (naturally) as she’d trained in Boston. If I ever need knee replacement, I know where I’m going.
Mental Health
Aristotle said it best – mind and body. To maintain your sanity and happiness, let’s just repeat the standard advice:
o Exercise – although depending on the level of air pollution, you might consider working out in the gym if the school air is filtered to minimize the toxins.
o Eat healthy, drink moderately, sleep well, repeat.
o Avoid risky behaviors.
o Nurture your support network.
Safety Overseas
“An ounce of prevention is worth a stitch in time.
Benjamin Franklin”
Actual vs. Perceived Risks
There has been a ton of research on this issue. Suffice it to say that humans are fundamentally irrational in this matter. Humans tend to over-react to spectacular risks and underreact to common dangers.
“People worry more about earthquakes than they do about slipping on the bathroom floor, even though the latter kills far more people than the former,” for instance.
Note: it might provide some perspective to compare threats perceived by travelers to the USA. This summarizes what Aussies think of traveling to the US: guns, terrorism, civil unrest, natural disasters. They also exaggerate the dangers SEE Actual vs. Perceived Risk.
Political Hot Spots and High-Crime Countries
Besides health hazards, you might also be putting yourself and your family in a dangerous situation by moving to a country experiencing instability or one especially prone to crime. A country can undergo a coup or riots and become unsafe in a flash.
The voice of experience from an ISR thread.
Best to create your own evacuation plan. I always had USD cash ($2000) + local cash, 2 liters water, passport, basic survival gear, and 2 changes of clothing in a backpack for grab and go. If it was a country where dressing local made me invisible, I also had 1 set of “native” clothing. In an emergency minutes count, as borders close quickly. You can bet locals will need to help their families–NOT you. Embassy staff plans fall apart when embassies are overrun. Best bet is often to head to nearest border crossing and bribe to get out. This is the voice of experience talking by the way.
Some places are inherently or currently unsafe, either due to crime or political uproar. What should you do? Should you take a job at that school? How can you practice due diligence? Here are some basic steps:
Follow the news.
Check State Department alerts. This example is Guatemala.
Remember that your Embassy is not responsible for you, although they can assist.
Be blunt and just ask the school what their safety plan is. The director may try to make light of dangers, but you’ve done the research.
Then make an informed decision. Why do some expats stay? Here is one answer from Amanda Isberg on the front lines of Venezuela. Here are some other horror stories, which may give you pause.
However, notice a few mitigating factors in both these posts :
1) Not all these countries/cities are universally dangerous
Decide for yourself if it’s worth the risk.
2) Proper care and behavior can definitely mitigate the risk.
3) Some people have a higher tolerance for crime than others.
4) Sometimes the benefits outweigh the risks.
5) Just remind yourself that the US can also be very dangerous.
Common Sense Precautions
These red plates stand out. and mark you instantly as a foreigner. Never mind that it’s an expensive Western car!
You might as well be wearing Day-Glo since the locals can peg you as a foreigner at 100 meters. And if that weren’t enough of a tell, teacher cars in Russia, for instance, were registered as diplomatic vehicles and featured red license plates.
Expats are perceived as wealthy and therefore a high value crime target, mostly petty crime. Get over it and take sensible precautions.
Try to blend in as much as you can, do not flash anything that looks expensive, lock valuables out of sight, be nice to the guards at school housing. The usual precautions apply of course i.e. drunk alone at night in a dodgy neighborhood is asking for trouble, isn’t it?
Schools that keep your passport, most typically in the Middle East, are generally a red flag. Without a passport and/or exit visa, you are at the mercy of the school. Think twice about going to such a school.
Terrorism
Of course a terrorist can mow down dozens of people on a sidewalk or classroom. Oh, wait a minute. That was in Parkland, FL, Newtown, MA or manh places in the US _______fill in the blank. The risks are completely random and impossible to truly defend against.
Cynically, we’ve actually felt safer traveling in a place that has had a recent terrorist event. That mean plenty of guards, barely any Westerners, and wonderful service. In Cappadocia, Turkey after an incident, we had the entire site to ourselves, with only a Ukrainian tourist family for company and lots of guards with guns.
Women and People of Color
“Sexism is everywhere, bro. I don’t know if it’s ever not somewhere. - Billie Eilish”
Sigh. There is simply no getting around it. Attitudes have changed but not enough. It’s still a man’s world with the dangers and everyday annoyances that weigh most heavily on women and minorities.
Particularly in the Developing World, open displays of racism occur with godawful frequency. From veiled women in the Middle East to catcalls in Italy, women are viewed as weaker and therefore more vulnerable to attack.
Behavior that would not be worth a second thought at home, as in dress or public behaviors, can be provocative in some countries. As always, do your homework.
Police and Corruption
“I’m not against the police; I’m just afraid of them. - Alfred Hitchcock
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In many countries, not all, bribery and police corruption may be the norm. The best advice? Do what your Embassy suggests. Trying to bribe an official is not a good idea. Suggestions if you are stopped by the police:
§ Always carry your official ID card, which is generally required at all times, but do not carry your passport unless you absolutely must.
§ Keep your phone charged and have the Embassy or Consulate emergency number handy. Your school should provide instructions for what to do in this situation.
§ Don’t do anything stupid or be rude and aggressive. Be firm and sit tight.
Traffic Is the Greatest Danger
“They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic. - Steve Wright, comedian
”
In terms of statistics, transportation is far more likely to get you killed or injured than any other hazard. In my years overseas I was never robbed or assaulted; however, I was involved in two car accidents in Thailand, #2 on this list of accidents per capita.
This is probably about average. If you do decide to buy a car and drive, practice extreme defensive driving and abide by local norms. That means if everybody drives on the sidewalk, you should too.
Much of the problem arises from cheap, barely roadworthy cars dumped on the local market, inexperienced drivers, lax or non-existent licensing, lack of infrastructure like shoulders and zebra crossings, jam-packed buses, and swarms of motorcycles. All this is in addition to the usual speeding, drunk driving, and general carelessness. Good luck.
Perspective On Safety
“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. - Tacitus
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I’ll just leave you with two thoughts and two book recommendations.
There is no such thing as perfect safety. Just prepare as best you can, then live your life joyfully.
The world is actually much safer and more civilized than it has ever been in human history. Try to maintain perspective and relax.
Steven Pinker’s 2011 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined presents authoritative data proving that things are as peaceful today (homicide/violence against women/war) as they have ever been in history.
Otto Bettmann’s The Good Old Days - They Were Terrible! highlights the painful realities of American life in the 1800s, like adulterated food/child labor in sweatshops/rampant opium addiction…
So take care of yourself, do the research before you decide to sign that contract, take sensible precautions, and enjoy the adventure.
5.4 Family
Couples Surviving Overseas
“Ideally, couples need three lives; one for him, one for her, and one for them together. - Jacqueline Bisset
”
You may be single or overseas with a partner or spouse, plus children. In addition, everyone has family back home. The expat life produces a unique mixture of blessings and strains on families you would not encounter in your home country.
The Department of State even has a separate arm devoted to supporting diplomatic families. “Family life abroad can be very exciting,” they note. But they end with an offer to provide “guidance and referrals to those experiencing personal challenges.” This is a delicate way of saying that it won’t always be easy.
Couples - 3 Scenarios
1. Teaching couple
If you are a teaching couple, you’re going to be seeing a lot of each other - inside the school expat bubble, commuting back and forth to school together, going to the same events and parties, friends with the same people.
2. Business person + teacher trailing spouse
If your spouse/partner does not work at the school and you do, a different dynamic results. The business may demand long hours, lots of travel, and brutal amounts of stress, leaving less energy for the relationship.
3. Teacher + non-working trailing spouse
Or you may be that peculiarity of the expat world: the trailing spouse. It could be the wife or the husband; in the case of this charming blog post, it’s the husband, “In which I discuss how tricky it can be being the expat partner, but ultimately realize there’s way more to gain than there is to lose from the experience.” What puts the trailing in trailing spouse is that the partner’s job brought them overseas. The other half just came along for the ride.
One day in the Moscow library, empty at the time, a parent confided her distress. Her diplomat husband had been assigned a tour to Russia and she’d had to quit her very satisfying career. She wept bitter tears over the painful lack of purpose and loss of self-esteem that was her daily life. All I could do was listen and provide kleenex. I’d been in this exact spot and once spent a miserable spell locked in the bathroom, crying like a teenager.
In many countries the 2nd spouse literally cannot get a work visa or even work online and would in fact jeopardize the visa of the 1st spouse. That would damage the relationship of the organization or business with the local government. This means the unemployed trailing spouse is well and truly stuck in professional limbo. Which leads us to…
Stresses and Opportunities
Strains Unique To Expats
If both partners are on board 100% with going overseas, the adventure can strengthen the relationship and keep even a creaky marriage going longer than it might otherwise. Or the stress can blow open any rifts spackled over at home through routine.
As difficult as it might be to manage, each partner must feel valued. If one of the couple does not want to abandon their life and go overseas, things will almost certainly end badly.
If one of the partners cannot find professional validation and respect, a make-work job or volunteering with the Ladies Aid Society isn’t going to cut it either. “Adultery and fractured marriages are rampant in the expat world,” says Robin Pascoe who has written widely on the issue.
With all the temptations, things can go south. What to do? Talk to each other in depth for a start. If one of you really does not want to go, my advice is, don’t go.
This excellent summary from ExpatFocus Can Your Relationship Take the Strain of Moving Abroad Together? pretty well sums up the difficulties.
Sexual Pitfalls Overseas
The expat life features some sexual temptations a marriage would likely not face back home.
1. Many cultures have a much more relaxed attitude toward adultery and prostitution. Remember that America was founded by the Puritans.
A spouse who is working long hours and away from home a lot may fall into this trap and really not face much social stigma. Except for the spouse, of course.
2. Some countries are havens for sex tourism and mail-order brides and so even a very average-looking expat might be considered quite a catch.
This thread features a lot of snark but illuminates the complicated depths. Remember that frequently it’s not your good looks they’re after but your bank account.
Family Back Home
Single or partnered, pretty much everybody has relatives. Several dynamics peculiar to the expat life are in play. Let’s focus first on the negative aspects of this atypical lifestyle you have chosen.
Aging Parents
Who takes care of aging parents? This can be a thorny issue and must be sorted before you get on that airplane. If your parents become ill, will you have to relocate and abandon the adventure? Will you need to take a long leave and return home to make arrangements?
Are siblings nearby and willing to bear the burden? Might you move mom or dad overseas and find affordable care, in Turkey or Thailand, for instance? Could they tolerate the disruption?
These are questions to sort out in advance of need.
Decisions must be made jointly with your other family members.
It all depends on your relationship with your family.
Friends and Family Reactions While You’re Overseas
Instagram Life (Jealousy)
You know how other people seem to be having way more fun on Facebook than you sometimes? Your family back home may grit their teeth when they see you floating down the Venice canals on a long weekend, a trip they have dreamed of for years.
Your adventures seem so exotic (they are) and their life so prosaic (it can be.) The best advice is not to overdo the bragging.
Nobody Much Cares (Indifference)
After you have trotted out a few well-rehearsed tales, people back home typically return to their own concerns. Perfectly normal, and really, what else did you expect? You will discover that the only people who truly understand are fellow expats.
Wish You Hadn’t Gone (Disapproval)
Some family back home may put pressure on you, subtle or direct, to return home and take care of business i.e. mom and dad need help, you dumped your house and financial chores into my lap and I regret saying yes, etc.
Your parents may express horror every time a disaster or international incident occurs anyway near you. Or they may just disparage your choice (What’s wrong with your hometown?) and feel your choice is a put down on them. It’s not, but try to be sympathetic.
They Visit (Excitement)
Best of all, your family is happy for you and will turn up at your door sooner or later. There is nothing like a local tour guide for enjoying a place, so just prepare yourself to host family and friends at some point in your stay.
Grandma had the time of her life.
A few notes. Your visitors have come from halfway around the world and will stay possibly several weeks. You probably won’t be able to take two weeks off work to show them around. Plan accordingly.
Also take weather and season into account. You won’t be touring Dubai in the summer, as the temperature is over 110, for instance. Christmas and the high tourist season in Venice may be way too crowded.
Remember how much hand-holding you needed in the early days and be careful about sending them out the door on their own. Visitors will be rookies just like you once were and will need their hands held.
Advance Planning For Visitors
1. Walk them through the process details (tourist visa, money, customs.)
2. If possible, have them bring an extra duffel full of items you can’t otherwise obtain.
3. Their time will be brief (certainly not two years) so settle on a doable itinerary and prioritize.
4. You will need to do the planning and executing, so start making arrangements. Think about arranging tours and a driver.
5. Think through exactly how long you want this visit to be. Do you need to take some time off work? Can you??
6. Be sure the school is aware you’ll have guests in school housing.
Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days, according to Benjamin Franklin. Obviously three days won’t work, but the visits can be a strain as well as a pleasure, but a priceless experience for both parties.
Can You Raise Children Overseas?
“So where are you from? Umm...”
Intercultural contact.
Can you take your children overseas? Can you become pregnant, give birth, and raise a small child overseas? Of course. And these children will be different than if they’d been raised solely in their home countries. They will even have a special name and an acronym to match: Third Culture Kids (TCK).
TCK (Third Culture Kids)
First culture means the passport culture of the child. Second culture refers to the host country where the child and parents have moved. This leaves a third culture unlike either but something entirely new. Several characteristics define this third culture. These children:
1. Actually live in another culture for a fair amount of their developmental years.
2. Experience a mobile upbringing.
3. Expect to return to their passport country someday, meaning they are not immigrants.
They might be military brats or MKids (missionary kids) or EdKids (teachers’ kids) or foreign service families.
Temporary Or Long term?
Let’s first distinguish between those TCK whose parents do not stay long nor expect to (tourist teachers) and those who are making a career of overseas work (career IS teachers, foreign service, NGO.) The positive and negative effects will therefore be greater the longer the stay.
Entire books have been written on TCK and their special upbringing. This post revisits the psychological effects of this childhood from the perspective of a grown-up TCK.
Positives?
· Tolerant and with a broad worldview
· Bilingual or even multilingual
· Culturally adept
· Open to new experience
Negatives?
· Ignorant of home culture
· Rootless and lack a sense of belonging
· Hesitant to make close friends or develop intimacy
· Unclear loyalties
Special Needs Children
There is no 94-142 Education for All Handicapped Children law overseas. For-profit schools are private and can legally refuse to admit whomever they choose. Even for embassy schools, the State Department advises finding another career path if the family does not pass the suitability review panel; even schools supported by the State Department may not support the necessary education.
That being said, children with special needs can be sometimes be accommodated. This assumes no severe handicapping conditions or behavioral issues, plus you might be doing a disservice to your child. DoDEA schools can be somewhat more supportive.Be sure to verify in advance and please be upfront with the school.
Pregnancy and Nannies
Yes, plenty of overseas teachers have gotten pregnant and successfully raised small children. A few things to consider in advance, as always:
1. What is your present/future school’s maternity policy? You don’t want to find out too late that pregnancy is grounds for dismissal or insurance does not cover maternity.
2. What is the level of medical care in the country and the options for childcare? In many countries, healthcare is considerably cheaper and better than in the USA, but certainly not all.
3. Do plenty of research and ask around before you decide that you need to go back home to give birth.
4. Since you won’t have family support close at hand, what kind of support system can you assemble? Better get started early.
Questions to Ask the School
1. For how many children will the school provide tuition? (usually one per contract.)
2. Any constraints on single parents? How much does daycare cost? Can kids play outdoors?
Hint: don’t count on it.
3. What about children with special needs? Will the school accept them? If yes, how much support is available?
4. Is it a true international school, meaning plenty of other TCK’s? Or is it an international school in name only where 90% or more of the student body speaks the local language and the only foreign faces are teachers’ kids?
National School
What about enrolling your child in a true national school? i.e. the public school just down the street. You might be setting your child up for:
Bullying. True TCK are largely very welcoming. After all, they’ve all been the new kid many times before and know how painful it can be. Not necessarily so in a local school.
Lost academic progress while your child learns the language.
Young enough children, however, might very well thrive.
You’d need a translator to work with the school.
So…should you teach overseas with children? Heck, yes. The experience is a great gift to your child.
Reverse Culture Shock
As much as you love and miss your friends and families, if you stay overseas for any length of time, ties will inevitably wither. You are simply not there for the day-to-day events that constitute life, and honestly, FaceTime is not an adequate replacement.
You will feel a sense of dislocation back home referred to as reverse culture shock. Holy cats! The toothpaste aisle is overwhelming, and why is everybody in such a hurry?
It may seem you’ve landed in an alternate universe.
You will probably also discover that after a brief flurry, nobody much cares to hear your adventures. They may even feel a bit of implied superiority in your Instagram happy life compared to their mundane lives. At some point you’ll realize the only people who really understand are fellow expats. Unsettling, but there it is.
Going Home
“Home is the place where, when you have
to go there, they have to take you in.
Robert Frost”
The word home has a complicated meaning for an expat, meaning you. It also has a time element it does not have for the citizen who never worked overseas. Let’s examine four of these situations.
(1) During Your Contract
Meaning summers and holidays. Most typically, schools pay for a round trip ticket at the beginning and end of a two-year contract. So if you want to return to your passport country to see family in between, these flights are on your dime.
Plus you might well be couch-surfing unless you are lucky enough to own a home you can afford to keep vacant or can arrange a house sitting gig or house exchange.
I am a member of HomeExchange.com and last summer, a family of teachers from Mumbai worked a deal to stay in my house for two weeks to visit their family in Portland and also manage rentals. I wasn’t going to be home anyway; I’d already been to Mumbai and did not want to go during the rainy season. But still, it worked out slick for them and for me as well.
Summer Options?
§ Go back home for the entire period, which can be intense, exhausting, and expensive.
§ Travel overseas the entire period. This depends on your location, meaning it’s more fun to travel in Europe than someplace really hot. Also, occasionally a school will require teachers to vacate during the summer; avoid a school like that.
§ Mixture of both, perhaps with visitors.
2) Between Contracts
This means you will be rewinding the whole moving process. In addition, here is some advice on breaking the news to your school; remember that recruiting starts very early in the school year.
§ Close out your classroom and school checkout list.
§ Arrange shipping, sell or give away what you’re not taking in the teacher garage sale, arrange airfare reimbursement.
§ Pay off all financial obligations like landlord and utility charges.
§ Document all final payments to be able to leave the country legally.
§ Say sad goodbyes to the other nomads in your herd (IS teachers) and achieve closure, particularly if you have children.
3) Breaking Contract
Sometimes the school or personal situation is so awful that you just cannot tolerate the situation and you break contract.
§ What circumstances would you say justify bailing early or even sneaking out? Safety? Harassment or threats of violence not dealt with by the school? Repeated failure to pay salary on time or egregious violations of the contract? Personal or medical emergency? What justifications would you support? Each person will have a different threshold, so think about it.
§ Will you ever get another job and will you be blackballed? The answer is yes, no, and maybe to both. Reading through these comments reminds me again of the prospective teacher’s overarching responsibility to practice due diligence in advance. Plus the bitter whining in the comments. Whew!
1) Do your homework as well as possible in advance, particularly for-profit schools.
2) Do not rely solely on ISS or Search. You own this one.
3) Watch out for red flags, like when a good director leaves.
4) Keep financially liquid in case you have to pay your way out.
4) Permanently
“You can’t go home again. - Thomas Wolfe”
Actually you can go home again and eventually, international school teachers will need to choose where to nest for good, constrained by whether they can retire or must keep working.
§ Return to your passport country – if you still need to work, you can return to the public school system or try the private school route. Look at Carney Sandoe, private school recruiters or religious schools as well.
Just be sure you haven’t let your certification lapse, although sometimes private schools will give you a pass. There is dispute on whether overseas teaching is a plus or minus in the job market.
§ Remain in-country and go native to one degree or another, bearing in mind that some countries have visa and income minimum requirements. They may not want you and regulations may change suddenly. Ask yourself where can you afford to live and also feel comfortable.
The Same But Different
Family is family anywhere, but the expat’s relationship to parents, relatives, and children has unique twists. At the very least the aspiring overseas teacher should give some thought to the issues in this post and, as always, do the research.