to my friends who want to live abroad

I have wonderful friends who have expressed their desire to live abroad for a spell with their kids, immerse in other cultures, try new foods, learn new languages, make new friends. 

First, I think this plan of yours is awesome. And so much more welcome to hear than “you are so brave to be doing that with your kids,” which really means, “I would never subject my kids to the stress and trauma of having to adapt to a new culture.”

Second, I thought I’d tell you about how I don’t think any of us fully realized how many of our social values we’d have to shelve or re-work in order to function day-to-day in a different country or culture. I don’t mean “reconsider your decision.” I mean keep this in mind and think about the limits of how much you are willing to change your own behavior and how much conflict between you and your host culture you are willing to live with.  Of course all this varies from country to country, culture to culture.

Depending on where you go, you may have to deal with being part of a class system that will feel uncomfortable at times, possibly all the time. Friends who are concerned with issues of equity and privilege may find them much less subtle than they did in the US.  It can be hard acknowledging that you will have privileges that you wouldn’t in your home country. Here, and in many places I have lived, the color of your skin, gender, national origin, and size/make of your car make a huge difference in how you are treated. This is certainly the case in the US as well, but can be much more obvious and socially acceptable in some other countries, with less opportunity to speak out about inequality due to dominant culture or your desire to keep your visa and stay out of jail.  More about this here and here and most recently, here.

There’s also unfamiliar and unwelcome etiquette: The other day I walked up to a door in the kids’ school, opened it, and attempted to wave the man behind me through. I have no idea where he is from but it obviously would have been a mortal wound to his ego to have walked through that door that I was holding. So I went first. Then there is “ma’am.” I know some people are quite offended by ma’am, but in some countries (and much of the Southern USA, thank you, ma’am) you would have to get used to it.  Ma’am is the mildest version.  The manager of our compound here inserts “madam” into every sentence he says to me.  Our driver in Dhaka also used madam, and paired it with a slight bow.  There’s no one way to deal with it- you can live with it and go ahead and call them by their first names like most everyone else does, you can try to insist they use your first name also, you can call them sir and madam as well.

I have found that one of the most challenging parts of being in a new place is adjusting my sense of my own freedom of expression and freedom of movement, with both of those seeming more limited by social influences than anything else. Of course there are so many other things to take into account –so much that you need to learn as you go along, because no one person’s advice or even a whole shelf of travel books can replace just stepping out, paying attention, and starting conversations with the people around you.