Expats
Expat Theory
I was born into expat life; consequently, I often forget that most in the international expat community made a choice, at some point, to uproot and replant themselves in foreign soil. Why? What motivates some people not just to travel but to move to places unknown for months, years, or even a lifetime?
It’s certainly not for everybody. Most people I encounter here on an everyday basis seem perfectly content living out their lives in a cul-de-sac. Whence, then, does this peripatetic inclination come?
There are reasons, and there are stereotypes; and as with most things, the lines bleed and blur. Or perhaps the stereotypes are just that: stylized versions of the truth. Only you can say for yourself why you left and why you stay away. Is it in fact the women? The men? Is it really, as we hear so often, that you were a miserable failure at home?
And as much as people complain about the “foreigner tax” and being stared and pointed at, isn’t there a flip-side of privilege that’s part of the allure? Does the prospect of maids and drivers reel us in? (Or back in, in my case.)
Let’s talk for a second about chronemics and proxemics. How often do you hear that it’s better over here or there because the pace of life is slower, people are more friendly, and life is less isolated and compartmentalized? An American’s body they say, may end at his skin, but his space extends for another two or three feet (sometimes the opposite is true; especially on airplanes). So is it the fluidity of time and the collapse of distance that beckons us?
Could it be a venture into that dangerous territory of exoticism, of, as I discussed in a previous post, wanting to preserve the world as both spa and museum, for our own pleasure?
Or are people enticed not so much by the odyssey itself but by the siren-song of globalization? Economies, after all, are expanding with gluttonous intensity.
And have the reasons changed over time? I think of the modernist writers who expatriated to Europe during the 20s and 30s whom Gertrude Stein called “The Lost Generation.” They left because they were disillusioned, fed up of war and what they regarded, essentially, as a cipheric cultural wasteland.
Is that still true today? Does some part of us long to disassociate from the roused giant? Have we taken to heart that admonishing bumper sticker: Love it or Leave It!
For me, since I never made the decision, it’s a complicated web of denotations and connotations: If I’m an expat there, then what am I here, a place that calls me a citizen but in which I was neither born nor raised? The result is painful fragmentation into the too many boxes in which I supposedly belong: there are my feet who refuse to capitulate and still cling to the Indian citizenship they lost when I turned 18 and had to choose; nose and lungs in mutinous alliance if I dare rescind their precious fresh air; an eyelash dropped in some Paris alley, wishing the rest of me would come back to join it; and there is a heart unable, quite, to believe a brain telling it that it is simply not, cannot, will never be Vietnamese (and a tongue that confirms this with, “And I don’t even speak the language!”)
To many, America is the center of the world, an illusory facade transmitted through the media and pop culture; it asserts itself in everything from teen fashion to the fast-changing diets of even spirits. But I feel (and have always felt) “off center” here, as if the world were at play and I sent to the benches. And it’s not about “happening” places versus dull places; my experience here is strangely peripheral, so the sensation I get when I board a plane and land in my first non-American airport is always of having stepped into the world, and all the unruly parts seem to soften their stances and agree at least to ally if not unify.
Perhaps, as the doctor in Heart of Darkness believes, the truth lies in phrenology: should we measure expat skulls to find some peculiarity that activates the urgency to expatriate? ( and will I ever succeed in writing a single expat-related post without referencing this novella?):
“‘Ever any madness in your family?’” asks the doctor as he takes calipers to the cranium of Marlow, our fictional counterpart. “‘I have a little theory which you messieurs who go out there must help me to prove.’”
What’s your theory?
Discussion
19 comments for “Expat Theory”
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Hey Preya,
Nice thoughts there. I’m not as segmented as you are - most of me is in the States, a large chunk is in China and a small part lies in Korea - but can understand at least part of your experiences, of course.
We’re not alone, of course - it’s just that when you go back to the States only part of you is alive in a sense. Not very many can really identify with your other experiences, so you either hide them or try to convey them to others the best way you know how.
If you feel that much a part of Vietnam, you owe it to yourself to learn the language, even if to most people there this will never make you a “true” Vietnamese person.
Home is what you make it to be. But beyond the point - for people like you and me and the hundreds of millions floating outside of the places they grew up - we can never go home.
Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for the comment. I agree that when you go “home” only a part of you is alive because it’s hard to explain your experiences to others; it’s always been so much easier for me to gloss over it. And I was exaggerating in my post; my Vietnamese isn’t that bad. I’ve forgotten a lot, but it comes back pretty fast when I visit. I do want to become fluent though, so if/when I move back, that’s definitely on the agenda. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to reading more of your blog:)
An off-topic question:
Is your email address Preyanka@gmail.com?
Preya,
“Off center” and “peripheral” describe precisely the “state” of my being as an immigrant in the US for the past twenty years. The ease of moving between two cultures has relegated me to the fate of a perpetual outsider. Hence, I constantly carry within myself the burden of an exile’s desire to find a piece of land to take roots. I knew that this desire would be nothing but a chimera during my first trip back to Vietnam last year. I couldn’t find the city of my childhood; I could see my foreignness reflected in the eyes of the local Vietnamese. When I was an exchanged student in France, I was often called “americain” although I hardly missed the States.
I think to a certain extent immigrants share with expats “the unbearable lightness of being.” Maybe,many expats, imbibed in this lightness,find the comforts of home stale and tepid.
Preya, I always enjoy reading your blog because your expat’s angst (please forgive me if you don’t accept this word) seems to give back the world its three dimensions.
Hi Juventin–yes, that’s my email address:)
Tuan–Thanks for your comment; I think the lines do often blur between expat (especially long-term), TCK, and immigrant. Thanks for reading my blog:)
Then… did you, in the last uhm… 18 days, receive any email from someone you dont know?
Ok, thats it. I wont spoil your blog anymore. :)
I don’t know. I get a lot of emails. Were you trying to send someone else an email and accidentally sent it to me? What was the email about?
I love this post Preya. I am not a Third Culture Kid, but I definitely no longer feel “at home” in the US. Like you, I feel more comfortable when I’m in a foreign country. Which makes it very awkward to come “home” and talk to friends and family that haven’t lived abroad.
Along these lines, a while back Alex found a great quote for me, (which I will now post on my blog as I have been inspired by you):
“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” - Gilbert K. Chesterton
To me, this is what being an expat is all about. Learning how to live everywhere and nowhere. Being at home in the world…
[...] 22nd, 2007 by superkimbo Inspired by Preya’s recent post on Dreaming of [...]
Kim–I love that quote! I think I definitely accomplished that (or it was accomplished for me) because my own country is certainly a foreign land!
I always thought that I would be an ideal expat. Although I knew, logically, that I carried around my culture’s expectations and cultural norms, it wasn’t until I lived in Bosnia that I realized how American I actually was. I always thought I would be the girl to “go native,” but I didn’t. Funny enough, I left the States because I felt that I lived a little “outside the box,” perhaps, was an outsider in my culture. Turns out, I was wrong. I’ve been very American all along and it took living in a culture different to mine to figure it out.
Anyway, don’t know if this adds anything to the discussion. Love talking about “what it means to be an expat.”
Jacki, I’m glad you added your thoughts. My sister and I talk about this phenomenon all the time! I feel much more American when I’m not in America, probably because I was identified as such growing up and attending a very international school.
hello mate.. I can definately relate to your thoughts.
I often ask myself, am I chasing new adventure? Or running away from responsibility?
I havent yet been able to find the answer to that question. But one thing is for sure….. the only time I ever suffer culture shock.. is when I go back to my home town.
Ben–I missed your comment somehow! Thanks for your thoughts. I know exactly what you mean about never feeling the shock until you’re back “home”–strange, isn’t it?
Same here. I was an expat kid, now an expat adult. I only feel ‘normal’ living where I’m not from.
These days there are studies on expat kids feeling the need to go and keep on going.
There are even groups for kids raised overseas.
Back then it was just the way it was. A line.
Them (those who stayed in the same place all their lives).
And us (those who drifted).
I couldn’t imagine being a them.
Cat–Yeah, I really only feel at home with other TCKs. We rock!
[...] The original post can be found at http://preyanka.com/2007/07/expat-theory.html [...]
Loved your post so much that I had to mention it in my own blog. http://backpackingteacher.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/are-expats-a-different-breed-why-do-we-expatriate/
Who knew you could get 3ck’s, Marlow and Phrenology all into one little post :-)
Thanks Backpackingteacher! I’m glad you liked this post because I thought it was pretty damn funny when I wrote it:)