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I’ll often look at expat websites (like Expats.com, AlloExpat, and ExpatExchange) to get a sense of what the day-to-day life is like in a particular country. They come in handy not only if one intends to move to a country indefinitely, but also for helping to plan short trips. In addition to having job and apartment listings, they often feature a calendar of upcoming events, and forums for members to ask and answer questions. The forums are frequently a valuable source of practical information, usually concerning one of three important areas: where to find peanut butter, where to get a decent haircut, or how to open a bank account. On topics other than these, however, I find the forums to be mostly a waste of time. The standard formula for most of the posts is this:
JapanStan: Boy I really hate ________ here.
TaiwanJohn: If you don’t like it, leave.
While I’m sympathetic to TaiwanJohn’s sentiments, it’s important to remember a few things before piling on JapanStan. Adjusting to a new country is very difficult, and can wreak havoc on the emotions. Also, I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to hate things about the place you live. Sure, complaining may not be constructive, but sometimes it helps to keep you sane.
So let’s cut the expats some slack– they’ll come in handy next time you’re craving a jar of Skippy.
For more reasons to be nice to expats, scroll down, like, an inch.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Living in Mexico for the past decade, I’ve noticed a common theme among expat online communities:
1. Where’s the crunchy peanut butter?
2. Where’s the cheddar cheese?
3. Where can I find work as an English teacher, property manager, tour guide?
4. What do I do about immigration?
5. What are the limitations on importing x, y, z?
5. Can I sell my car here?
And it’s the same in the Argentine fora. Well, except for the car.
October 21st, 2007 at 7:32 am
Thank you for this interesting place.
The International Professors Project
http://www.internationalprofs.org)is slowly finding expatriate professors and graduate students. We seek any suggestions,in addition to search engines, expat blogs,and expat cafes to locate “all” the expat profs and lecturers in the world; a percentage of whom would be invited into our Project as International Professors & Instructors, and many as Project Fellows.Fellows may be professionals as well as academics. But we would seek to serve all academics who needed us as a clearing house and such, depending on our abilty to serve: e.g.how many volunteers we have and how well we are funded to recruit a committed paid staff.
Once again, thanks very much for this valuable blog source.
Ron Krate
Founding Head
rkrate@internationalprofs.org
October 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Here here. My husband moved to Australia from the United States two years ago. He misses a lot of things, from cheesesteaks to unlimited internet plans. But at the end of the day, he loves it here. And if he were to move back to the States tomorrow, there’d be lots of things he’d miss about Australia.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:14 am
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November 10th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
HOPE TO HEAR FROM ASIAN AND AFRICAN EXPAT PROFESSORS AND GRADUATE STUDENTS….
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aka NPO or Nonprofit ORG
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November 24th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
we have a lot of expats living in thailand we really are living the good life over here and i and my friends would never go back well not untill the money runs out
November 24th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Things I wanted to give up least – Good food and real ale. (Coming from the UK, the real ale was the hardest decision for me!) Things I wanted to give up most – Expensive housing costs crazy fuel prices, travel costs in general, high taxation.
We often imagine that “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence”. But -if you don’t go and at least have a look, you’ll never know!
So for you to have somewhere in mind that you would like to emigrate to, you’ll need to have visited enough times to capture your interest and also to inspire you live a better. Life udon thani issan thailand is my choice its a great city