Being foreign - Pay your taxes, speak some English and be nice about the country where you live

[MmeLindt]

Article in The Economist

Interesting article, made a lot of sense to me.

This is something that has worried me for a while:

The funny thing is, with the passage of time, something does happen to long-term foreigners which makes them more like real exiles, and they do not like it at all. The homeland which they left behind changes. The culture, the politics and their old friends all change, die, forget them. They come to feel that they are foreigners even when visiting ?home?.

Beware, then: however well you carry it off, however much you enjoy it, there is a dangerous undertow to being a foreigner, even a genteel foreigner. Somewhere at the back of it all lurks homesickness, which metastasises over time into its incurable variant, nostalgia.

Anyone else feel like this?

[emkana]

Agree v. interesting, and yes I feel like this, but try not to dwell on it too much, too sad

[frakkinaround]

I read that. I think it depends how much you integrate into where you live and whether you come to have 2 homes or whether you're always an 'expat' and really belong in your home country.

But I am a bad, bad example because I think I'm what's technically known as a third culture kid! So I don't really identify with anywhere as home, or consider myself to have a home 'land' even though I see myself as definitely British. Home used to be where my family were living, then it was where I lived and now where DH and I live together. And that distinction isn't as strange as it sounds given our temporary extended separations due to work!

Ask me when I haven't spent any time living in the UK for 10 years though, because I've been back very frequently so far for fairly extended periods each time so far.

[BlauerEngel]

Excellent article. Soon I will have lived as long out of the UK as I will have done in my 'home country'. I feel more and more foreign when I go to Britain - there are just so many things I don't know about everyday life there, and when I go back I am not much more than a tourist.

It's one of the reasons I joined Mumsnet - to keep up with the way people think. I've also recently joined Facebook for a similar reason - staying in touch with the people I knew in the first 20 years of my life.

It worries me most that my children will be growing up without a 'Heimat', without a home country, as they were born in Germany and have lived all their lives here, but are clearly not German, do not have German parents, and we speak largely English at home. Yet they're not British (or Irish) either. At the moment they don't notice the weirdness of it all because they attend an international school where most of their friends are in similar situations.

[MmeLindt]

Yes, that is a problem for us too, BlauerEngel.

I am Scottish and DH German. When the DC were born we lived in Germany and now live in Switzerland, in the French speaking part. We recently had to teach the DC that they are half-German and half-Scottish as they just did not understand.

Their new friends were saying that they are English and DD asked why she was German but could speak English.

They don't really have a Heimat. I guess they will grow up feeling that home is where the family is, like Frakkin wrote.

I do worry about how they will get on when we leave Geneva.

[MrFibble]

Very interesting article - it's managed to express how I have been feeling over the past few years. I truly am a foreigner wherever I am - I suppose this is one reason why I am desperate for my children to have a sense of belonging and am sending them to local schools to learn the local language and why I am deliberating avoiding the "international" schools.

Can you ever re-integrate into your home if you return? I've lived "abroad" for more than half of my life. I don't know where home is.

[henryhuggins]

agree as well. i feel all the time that I don't fit in here (uk) or when i visit home (canada) no one gets it cause i don't have any friends in the same situation. big sigh. i try not to think about it too much, gets me down

on the upside - am loving the peacefulness of the snow today.

[MmeLindt]

I moved to Germany when I was 19 and have lived abroad for 18 years so am coming up to that moment, MrFibble.

There are things that I would love about living in UK again, but some things would drive me nuts.

Living in CH is different, because it is a temporary thing.

[jessia]

I've lived in Poland most of my adult life (barring university, which I did after a gap year that turned into 2) and I seriously believe I was "born wrong" in the UK. I felt I never fitted in there, never had many friends, was always considered an "oddball", but when I came here at 18 I just clicked, even though I knew absolutely nothing about the place, couldn't speak the language, and had no family ties here. It was a very weird experience, coming to somewhere I had never been before, yet suddenly feeling as if I had come home.
BUT I certainly don't consider myself Polish (have only British citizenship and don't plan on getting Polish). I speak English to the kids (though Polish to DH) but we have hardly any contact with the local expat community, which is quite sizeable. My kids go to local schools and I am pretty sure, though they are still to small to express this, that they feel themselves to be Polish, even though they can speak English.
WRT the UK, I feel like Blauer Engel, that I am increasingly a tourist on the rare occasions that I do go back, though I love going back as a tourist . I wouldn't go back there to live, but like a few of you, love the window on normal UK life that Mumsnet gives me. It's sooo completely different to life here!

[belgo]

I am trying to read the article linked but my children are distracting me! Darn those kids!

The general feeling of nostalgia and not fitting in anywhere in particular certainly strike a nerve - I'll have to read it later when I can concentrate on it.

[slim22]

Read that and same feeling here.

DH and I are not british born. DS (6) is and DD (2) born halfway around the globe, her only "britishness" is her passport and her first language.

DS identifies very strongly (thanks to the very british school) but has just told me mummy am not peach like an englishman, I'm brown (no wonder we are under the tropics after all).

We are so removed from our birthplace, so no sense of belonging there either.
It is becoming very very hard because DS is asking so many questions, obviously trying to understand where his roots lie.
Am quite sad (ashamed maybe) that I can only offer a smorgasbord of options and no real sense of identity to my children.
Fortunately we live in a very cosmopolitan multicultural/multi-faith environment where they celebrate diversity on a daily basis.
He's now learning mandarin rather than our mother tongue FGS!
But hey, it's an opportunity in this day and age isn't it?

[SerenityNowAKABleh]

It did strike a chord with me as well (South African, moved to UK, lived all over it) - I went back recently to SA for the first time in nearly a decade and it was odd; I am not English or Scottish (lived in Scotland for a few years as well), but not really South African either. I honestly do not know what nationality I would describe myself as, though I suppose technically South African - British, going by passports alone. My poor DF has it even worse - born in UK, grew up in Rhodesia, adult life in South Africa, now back in UK. I asked him once, and he had no clue what he would be classed as.

It is an advantage in many ways being foreign born in the UK, as it is very different for people to "class" you (I don't really sound posh or common, just, erm, odd) so you can move seamlessly throughout all levels of society in a way I doubt I'd be able to if I was British born. Also, for both nationalities I feel I can ignore all the rubbish bits (the mysoginism in SA - sorry, can't spell, and some of the barking habits of the Brits) and take on the best bits.

There is, however, another country which I visit frequently which is more home than either the UK or SA; will hopefully move there one day.

[slim22]

serenity, absolutely! your second paragraph is spot on. I experienced exactly the same.

[MmeLindt]

Yes, agree with that too. We live well here as expats, it is a classless existence really.

[frakkinaround]

I was talking to DH about this as we've had quite similar upbringings and as far as we can see we're fine except 2 things which may be the 'expat kid' version of what the article is getting at.

1. When you move 'back' to your home country even if you're that nationality on paper you don't feel at home there but you can't legitimately be a foreigner because you're not. DH is struggling with this at the moment actually. He's French, except he isn't, but everyone expects him to be and there's only so much explaining you can do to say that yes, his parents are both French, he was raised in that culture at home, it's technically his mother tongue, but he isn't socially French.

1. You can never answer where you're from. You can say where you live now, or where you were born, but you're never 'from' anywhere which I'm personally fine with but other people don't seem to understand, although they are getting better!

It's great though and I wouldn't change it.

[MmeLindt]

I think a lot of feeling at home in the county is the popular culture. For my DD it is easier as we have British and German TV and they have other British friends here for the first time. When we lived in Germany we were totally integrated so they had no British friends their own age.

When my DH and his friends talk about their childhood, I do not understand all the references to popular culture, despite living in the country for 17years and being fluent in the language.

Just as I had no idea who Biene Maya was, he did not know the Wombles.

[SuiGeneris]

The classlessness of being a foreigner is a great atout, as is the general difficulty with being pigeon-holed. In a way, being foreign is the "excuse" for doing your own thing, differing from the stereotype one would be expected to fit into otherwise. Of course it works the other way round, and people can and feel empowered to "correct" you a lot more than if you were a native. Somebody said jocularly that it might be easier to marry a foreigner than somebody outside one's social circle, because it is easier to mould the former into what one wishes them to be (in terms of words used, mannerisms, etc).

But it is true that after a time one is a foreigner at home too, so that perhaps there is a third Heimat, a virtual one, made up of those who have lived similar experiences (expats from country A into country B) as well as the wider circle of those with whom one shares a culture, regardless of age, nationality, place of birth or life story. I have found, for example, that some of the people I have found most congenial were those with whom, on paper, I had very little in common (30 years older, different gender, different nationality, but who have been expats for a long time and/or have read the same books...). For me, in this sense "high" culture, that is more international and often more "settled" has worked better than popular culture: just like Mme Lindt's DH I have no idea who the Wombles are and am now unable to pick up references to TV series from my homeland but have found common ground with many others based on our common love of La Traviata, etc.

So maybe being a foreigner these days is about the liberty of being an outsider and choosing/finding fraternity with those with whom one shares experience/culture rather than "just" a homeland.

What an interesting subject- particularly so for me at the moment as I am about to give birth to my first child, who will be born outside my home country but, I do not think, will not fully/only be British either; I have often wondered over the last few months how he/she will feel and where home will be. Thank you for the link to the article, which I had completely missed in the print edition.

[ninedragons]

A bugger! There's another problem with being an expat - sites are always down for maintenance when it's prime internet time for you.

I agree that "expats" become your tribe, and almost your nation.

My best friends live in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. One has just moved to Bangkok. We live in Sydney.

I see a a fair bit of them because they tend to come through Sydney on business, and we are all good at maintaining contact online. It's probably expat expectations - I don't expect to see my closest friends face-to-face more than once a year (possibly longer) and neither do they. We're very good at picking up exactly where we left off when we do see each other, because we do the inconsequential chatting you might do in the local pub online.

Our kids are all in the same boat (off the top of my head, only two of my friends have children that were born in the same country they were, and I know a lot of families where each of the two or three children was born in a different country).

[DecorHate]

Thanks for linking to that article - very timely for me as I have now been in the UK slightly longer than my home country.

So interesting that being a foreigner can have so many similarities no matter where you are - I can concur with the classless thing, not feeling truly at home in either country, having lots of friends who are also ex-pats, feeling disapproved of by people in my home country for leaving....

One thing I have found is that I do feel more at home in the UK now that my dcs are at school and I have got to know more people locally, feel more part of the community. It has been harder for dh in some ways because he hasn't had the same opportunities to get to know people.

The article seems mostly to have been written about people who have travelled as individuals though, would have been interesting to compare their experiences with those who moved abroad with a larger family group (eg families who moved enmass from Kenya or Uganda to the UK)

I am interested in emigration generally because a lot of my grandparents generation emigrated. I always think it is interesting how it has been handled in the US versus the UK. In broad terms it seems that when you moved to the US you were expected to " become an American" as my great-aunt put it. Whereas there was more tolerance for maintaining the culture from the original country.

[DecorHate]

My last sentence should have added "in the UK" !

[slim22]

But don't you have your moments of weakness?

The last couple of days have been excruciating. I so miss my family and childhood friends.
We have a great life here and it's the one we have chosen to live. Every move was new adventure and fortunately always turned out for the better.

Children are growing up, am back at work, it's all set. BUT it just seems that none of it makes sense because there is no meaningful sharing.
Deaths, engagements, weddings, graduations, I watch it all on facebook like a movie. It's getting harder and harder talking on the phone because am crushed when I hang up, so I don't call, just slowly drifting appart.

Have friends here of course but not of the spontaneous kind where you can show up at 9am on a sunday morning to have coffee because your kids are already driving you insane.

Rant over!

[slim22]

Ninedragons, Sydney! Niiiiiiiiice!

Do you like it there?

[brimfull]

Vert interesting article.
I started off in scotland , from 7yrs brought up in canada and have now lived in england for nearly 27yrs , longer than anywhere.

I definitely feel a foreigner in canada and scoltand when i visit

Interestingly my parents who have lived in canada for 40 yrs now are very nostalgic about scotland and anything british.In their dotage they yearn for their homeland ..probably because it is impossible.

[ninedragons]

Love it! But then I am now home. I've been away for so long that I only have two friends left here from before I left, so I feel like an expat in my own country. References to people on telly, bands, etc used to flummox me, but I've been home a year now so I do at least have a vague idea who some of these people are now.

[slim22]

Glad to hear you are happy!
So back for good?

[peacocks]

I long to go home, ache for it. If you are allowed to settle in your new country I can imagine it must be strange to return "home". But on two and three year turn arounds it is very hard not to put your life on hold until you can return.

I am waiting, always waiting: I find it hard, however much I enjoy my various lives. I've started five lives for myself and my children and it wearies me.