Expat Life: Not Always A Smooth Ride! – An infographic by the team at Overs

This is another infographic about expats (see the sources at the end of the infographic). I chose to post it here on my blog, right after the post about the Sea Change Mentoring symposium I attended last Saturday, because many issues listed in this infographic have a major impact on expact children, and Sea Change Mentoring is one place to contact when facing issues like these.

Expat life is not as easy and smooth as many people think. Especially the different stages of expatriate adjustment should be taken seriously. These stages affect parents and children, and often not simultaneously. This is exactly why parents and children should reach out for help.

Another point seems very important to me: that expats or people who envisage this kind of life, should consider longer stays in a new location in order to give their children the opportunity to pass from a “gradual adjustment” to the “competence stage” and, in the best case, to the “mastery” (after 5-7 years). – In the expatriate adjustment lifecycle on this infographic I miss the stage of repatriation. Repatriation is an “important yet often overlooked component of a successful assignment experience“. During repatriation, expats face exactly the same stages as those listed in this infographic and the repatriation can be as challenging and traumatic as the first relocation. Especially for children who have spent a significant amount of their lives overseas (and many have probably never lived in their passport country!), repatriation is very difficult. Many repatriating families feel “culturally, socially and professionally out of sync with their new environment”.

This is why re-establishing a social life as soon as possible is very important in the first period of a relocation. It also helps against homesickness. – Everyone goes through the phase where the life before seems much better than the one in the new location (or “back home”). Therefore it is really important that, before entering this phase, i.e. while still in the “honeymoon phase”, expats should try to find like-minded people who can help them cope with the culture shock phase – or the reverse culture shock phase for those who repatriate.

The fact that “many brits abroad” seem to miss the sense of humour, really applies to everyone, Brit or not. Finding someone who laughs at the same jokes or at the same scenes in a movie gives us all a sense of belonging.

In this infographic, 70% “of expats say that social media contacts with friends and family helps to relieve homesickness”. I think social media are a great help nowadays. But it can also deter people from getting in touch with people in their real lives. Expats need even more to get in touch with people, with locals and like-minded people in their new location, to re-establish a new social life and create a safe haven where they can find help if needed.

If you’re facing issues like those mentioned in the infographic or know someone who might need some help, here are some sites to visit and contact (in alphabetical order):

http://www.interactionintl.org/amongworlds.asp

https://www.branchor.com/

http://www.denizenmag.com/

http://www.expatfocus.com/

http://www.expatwomen.com/

http://www.expatica.com/

http://figt.org/

http://www.interactionintl.org/

http://www.internations.org/

http://seachangementoring.com/

http://www.UtesExpatLounge.com/

http://tckid.com/

This is NOT a sponsored post and I have NOT been asked to write it.

Related articles

• Expats infographic (expatsincebirth.com)
• Moving Abroad? How to Find Other Expats To Make Your Transition Smoother (epicatravel.com)
• Networking abroad (marianvanbakel.wordpress.com)
• How to cope with repatriation (expatsincebirth.com)
• Expatriates Challenges Are Solved with Measurable Results (relonavigator.wordpress.com)
• The emotionally resilient expat [by Linda Janssen]. (3rdculturechildren.com)
• The Expatriate Adjustment Lifecycle: What you should know (rw-3.com)
• Sea Change Mentoring: Symposium on Supporting Global Youth (expatsincebirth.com)

I wouldn’t say “any other place in the world”, maybe “any other place you’ve lived”? I definitely feel more foreign in my passport country than in the places I’ve lived in. The main reason, in my case, is that I’ve never lived in my passport country and feel more like a tourist who just happens to know the language and some people who live there (family and great friends!). I’m quite familiar with the culture and some habits of my passport country, but I don’t really feel connected to the place, the country.

Since I have children I feel more responsible to know as much as I can about my passport country, the culture, the traditions, the history. But as I described in another post, being an expat German is not that easy, at least not in the countries I’ve lived in. I’m wondering if this “feeling more foreign in the passport country” depends on our nationalities. Are there nationalities, expats or TCK’s feel more comfortable with or that makes it easier for them to (re)adjust once they repatriate? Or is it easier to repatriate from a country that is culturally closer to our passport country?

Returning to the passport country for someone who grew up abroad may depend on the moment the repatriation takes place. Personally I think that the easiest time to repatriate is before one turns 5 (!) but I don’t think that it’s easier for children in general. As soon as they attend school they usually prefer staying with their peers, especially when they hit the teens.

Everyone expects repatriates (i.e. those who come back to their passport country after some time abroad) to fit in almost immediately. They usually do know the language and have many rights that foreigners don’t have. People expect them to know everything about the culture, the life there: from finding a house, school to buying the right toothpaste…

But doesn’t all this put too much pressure on them and make repatriation even more difficult? Repatriates can easily feel misplaced: they feel like a foreigner in what is supposed to be their own country. They experience reverse culture shock, described as follows by Robin Pascoe, author of Homeward Bound:

“Re-entry shock is when you feel like you are wearing contact lenses in the wrong eyes. Everything looks almost right.”

When you’ve lived abroad and had a deep international experience, you change. Of course, your whole life changes you wherever you live, you don’t have to be living abroad for this, but the experience living abroad may change you more. “Old norms and values are viewed from a fresh perspective, and the expat and family see things in a new light; something like (…) going from black and white to Technicolor.” (cit. from Audrey Sykes article Reverse culture shock: What, when, and how to cope on Expatica.com)

Dean Foster, Founder and President of DFA Intercultural Global Solutions:

“By the time most traditional international assignments come to an end, several years may have passed, providing the international assignee a significant amount of time to learn new patterns of behavior and thought, necessary to fit into their host country.  While not aware of these changes, expats are shocked into the realization that they have in fact changed substantially usually only when they encounter their home culture upon repatriating.  Both they and the home culture have changed, and this is often the first time that expats have had the opportunity to experience any of these changes.”

Every time you go back home for visits, you can feel frustrated or confused when your close friends and family are not curious or intrigued about your experiences. – Will this change once you’re back for good?

According to Dr. Bruce La Brack from the School of International Studies at University of the Pacific, this is what expats may expect while returning home:

– Boredom
– No one wants to listen
– You can’t explain
– Reverse homesickness
– Relationships have changed
– People see “wrong” changes
– People misunderstand you
– Feelings of alienation
– Inability to apply new knowledge and skills
– Loss/compartmentalisation of experience

Audrey Sykes gives some clues how to cope with repatriation. She recommends to “share your experience with others” – but what if there is nobody to share the experience with because you did repatriate to a very monocultural and monolingual place? –  “maintain your style and stay international” – what if this style is too exotic for the people in the place you live? –  “ask for training” – but what if you can’t find any help in loco?

Dean Foster recommends a repatriation training for the entire family. He considers that “it needs to involve the HR department at least 6 months prior to the return, so that the company can insure a position for the repats that values their new skills.  Repatriation training that helps not just the repat, but the entire family, adjust to the fact that they have all changed significantly while on international assignment, to assess and value those changes, and to see the ways that their home country has changed while they were abroad. This takes training.” – But are companies giving repatriates all this time to get prepared to the repatriation? And do they provide this service for the families? Every repatriate should know that there are programs that “address the entire family’s issues, and that are combined with HR advising to insure a position that values the repat’s new global skills.  The family issues that need to be addressed include helping children adjust to a home they may not remember, returning to unfamiliar “kid” culture (children may have in fact been born abroad, may come home with accents), partners who need support to re-enter a workforce they have been out of for several years, the loss and disinterest of expected family and friends, all of this requires training to anticipate and to manage successfully.” (Dean Foster)

I would like to end with two quotes from Global mum: A Memoir by Melissa Dalton-Bradford, where she describes the reverse culture shock she and her family experienced when they had to repatriate after the events of 9/11:

“Misreading cultural cues, not knowing language signals, not knowing TV lingo or TV personages or TV jokes, feeling alien, foreign, and making up for it each in our individual way” (p.161)

“…we felt strangely alien, unable to share a great past of ourselves with others. One can expect to feel alien in a new or foreign country. But this? Feeling alien in what’s supposed to be your home country? I knew less about being a soccer mom than I did about buying fresh produce from loud vendors in an open market, less about American sports teams than about Norwegian arctic explorers, less about my native country than I did about ones that, in the end, no one seemed to want to hear much about” (p.162).

I never made the experience to live in my passport country and I’m wondering if there is a moment in our lives, where repatriation is “easy” and what would be recommended in order to make it as smooth as possible.

If you are a TCK (or ATCK), a global nomad or an expat: have you ever lived in your passport country? If yes, when and for how long? Did you go back to live there only once or more often? How old were you when you did repatriate? What was your experience with repatriation? Do you think that your nationality or the historical, political or social situation of your passport country makes it easier – or more difficult – for you to (re-)adjust? Please share your experience in the comments.

Some excerpts in this article were taken from Dean Foster’s Repatriation 101: Demystifying Reverse Culture Shock .

Related articles

• The magic three for TCK’s?
• They Will Call You…
• An Article about TCKs
• Neither Here nor There…The video
• Managing the shock of re-entry
• Reverse Culture Shock #3
• The emotionally resilient expat [by Linda Janssen].
• How to deal with reverse culture shock