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Living overseas

Whether you're considering emigrating or an expat abroad, you'll find likeminds on this forum.

Original poster

FGS, living in a foreign country is NOT the same as traveling!!!

27 replies

hellokittymania · 15/05/2014 07:45

Why don't people get it?

I get up, work, study, eat and sleep.

I live in a guesthouse, because central Vietnam has rats, snakes and floods. None are easy to deal with when you have a visually impaired...

I leave Vietnam to get visas, but get so tired and it is expensive...

It's so frustrating when people don't understand!

OP posts:
pricklyPea · 15/05/2014 09:56

Ha yes. It's when people invite themselves for a holiday and you have to remind them that you're not on holiday and won't be able to entertain them 24/7.

Can't stand it.

NigellasDealer · 15/05/2014 09:58

hellokitty do you live in Saigon?

Isthiscorrect · 15/05/2014 11:59

Hellokitty vent away. Don't live there but totally understand what you mean. I go home and everyone wants to know why I don't have a tan. How about work, family, shopping, cleaning etc? Feeling your pain, really wine

TheSarcasticFringehead · 15/05/2014 12:42

YANBU. I don't live in Vietnam (I live in California Grin ) but people seem to expect me to surf (I don't know how, and don't live by the coast anyway!), get tanned and visit Disneyland or whatever. They expect me to know the attractions and touristy stuff when actually, I don't, because I'm not that interested in it! I wake up, I work, I go home.

fatowl · 15/05/2014 16:05

I hear you
I live in Malaysia and people seem to think I live on a tropical island.

They invite themselves to stay and seem surprised that the kids go to school, we go to work and have to pay the bills and go to the supermarket so there is food in the fridge.

I go to the UK for an Asia holiday once a year

SouthernHippyChick · 15/05/2014 20:48

Yep just lie by pool all afternoon apparently (accordi g to mil) no fetching cleaning aftersch clubs hmk to do at all, oh no! SUCH a lovely life!

Bonsoir · 16/05/2014 06:12

People who visit Paris seem to think that we eat fresh croissants and warm baguette every morning, go to the market every day and eat in restaurants all the time. Oh, and drink wine every night.

stolemyusername · 16/05/2014 06:25

I get you! I still need to work, pay bills, groceries, homework, school meetings, sports.... The only thing that's really changed is my address (and that there's a real concern that spiders might actually kill me Grin).

JoandMax · 16/05/2014 06:29

Yep!!! Pretty much my weekday life is the same as it was before - shopping, cleaning, looking after the kids, school run for DS1 etc. My mum can't understand why I don't spend all my time at the beach or by the pool, she never questioned my time before!

wannabestressfree · 16/05/2014 06:36

Don't you bonsoir? (Hides disappointment)

singaporeswing · 16/05/2014 06:59

I have a friend visiting me in Singapore. She told me yesterday that she was really annoyed that it was raining.

Katiepoes · 16/05/2014 11:39

Ha. I'm in Holland - half my family will not accept that I am NOT in Amsterdam, and that the entire country is not one giant red light district full of stoned hippies.

(I drink wine every night though)

Original poster
hellokittymania · 16/05/2014 15:44

Fatowi, I was asked if Vietnam had crocodiles and snakes creeping around.... The occasional snake, yes, and a crocodile did get loose in district 1 in HCM City (I think it was headed to a zoo and fell of the transport, but it was tied). The same person asked if I wash my clothes in the river??? I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

People heard about the riots and told me to leave. I said Vietnam has a population of 90.000.000 and few are rioting and the anger is toward Chinese..... Mind you, I think Taiwan and HK as well....

People tell me I should write a blog, but really, my life isn't very different from other expats. I don't know why people get so fascinated. If I say I talk to someone from Canada, have a cheesecake, etc, people think it's amazing. If I complain, though, I get told I should go home.

A friend who had been obsessed with Asia before she visited, spent almost 2 weeks in her room drinking when she visited....

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Original poster
hellokittymania · 16/05/2014 16:13

I could write about visual impairment in Vietnam, but only the basics. I'm not Vietnamese and people also don't understand that certain things are just not done here...

Not to mention, immigration keeps an eye on us. Very few foreigners live in Hue. I am a guest in Vietnam, and even when I was interviewed by the newspaper on Monday, I am careful of what I say.

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Original poster
hellokittymania · 16/05/2014 16:14

If I write a blog, I mean.

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mercibucket · 16/05/2014 16:29

you lot need to start living it up a bit more!

i had a ball. definitely lots of eating out, sunbathing, visiting touristy places. it was like a permanent holiday with a bit of office work in the middle, but even that was glam

you are doing it wrong!!

HerRoyalNotness · 16/05/2014 16:39

Yeah, we ARE doing it wrong. We're expats, but hired locally for this assignment. It sucks balls. We have enough to pay our bills, save for yearly bills, and fun 'lite'. It's not all champagne and caviar I can tell you. Leaving for work at 5.50am to beat the traffic and so I can leave early to get the DC. DH not home until 7.30pm. It's a RIOT!! Should be grateful I have a job though, there is that.

Original poster
hellokittymania · 16/05/2014 17:13

Royal, are you in Asia?

Merci, where were you?? People already get excited if I talk to a Canadian, better not live it up too much! Grin

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drinkingtea · 16/05/2014 18:04

I like where I live, and it is very different to my life in the UK although its only Germany - I got very sick of my mother referring to me being on a "year abroad" for the first 5 years Hmm (its a permanent move, my husband is from here, I've given birth to 2 of my kids here... she finally stopped with the "year abroad" stuff by about year 6) and saying it was just like when she spent 10 months in California when my dad did a sabbatical there - and she knows all about living your life in a different language (I arrived in a tiny Bavarian hamlet with only the most basic German, a small toddler and pregnant) because in California she was most confused when somebody referred to an anorak as a rain slicker... Hmm

The thing that I am sick of really is everyone assuming Germany is exactly like the UK except full of Germans Hmm and the fact I am not allowed to prefer the way things are here over the UK (not that I prefer everything by a long shot, but some things are better here). People also don't get that "popping home" (by which they mean to the UK) is not cheap and quick when you start your journey in a rural location, and parents also live in a rural location, and are a family of 5 - its not "just" an hour and a half and €150, its all the time each end, flights for 5, airport parking for the duration and a hire car for the duration the other end - even with no accommodation costs or spending money its over €1000 for a week... I know it doesn't compare to flights from Oz or any other non European location, but it still doesn't mean I can "pop" back multiple times a year for random social occasions... oh and oddly enough school holiday dates are different and there has been the no holiday in term time rule in force here for years and years, its not something new and unique to the UK...

Bonsoir · 17/05/2014 09:23

"People assuming Germany is just like the UK just full of Germans" so true Grin

And if you don't like something in your adoptive country you can somehow opt to avoid that cultural difference by just blindly forging ahead with your own cultural preference.

marcopront · 18/05/2014 07:55

Don't forget you're so lucky to live in X. No, I applied for a job in X and got it, you applied for a job in Y and got it. Where is the luck in that?

doziedoozie · 18/05/2014 08:03

Have lived in Asia, ME and US and always had staff - nannies or gardeners or maids or even just an ironer so everyday life is def not the same as in the UK but yes, living there is not the same as holidaying (makes you appreciate the UK).

Original poster
hellokittymania · 18/05/2014 11:28

Marco, I know! I started my own organisation as I knew the likelyhood of a very young blind girl finding a job in Asia would be very slim. I get offers now, but certainly not in 2007. Many of my classmates get jealous and make remarks, others think I'm rich... I've tried to find blind volunteers to come here and nobody wants to for one reason or the other. Living expenses are less than their DLA allowance and my org can cover the flight....

I looked for networking, free events, new restaurants in Florida, where many of them live and there are so many things to do, yet people don't want to.

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Rosa · 18/05/2014 11:32

I so understand you... I travel in a gondola , know all the paintings in every church and friends wonder why i escape the city on busy days as i can't cope with the crowds!!!,
I now have a small flat so can't put friends up except very close family.......

Original poster
hellokittymania · 18/05/2014 11:36

Doozie, I live in a guesthouse and people assume it's the Ritz Carlton... I pay $200, per month, and while I STILL get thieves, I don't get snakes, rats or floods in the room. I don't have to worry about paying a year's deposit and not getting it back after the police find out that the landlord doesn't have permission to rent to foreigners, etc, etc....

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