Your life in their hands?
I feel that a discussion on merits and demerits of living abroad deserves a special page. Also, I feel that living abroad is far more eventful than living in one's own country. I could also be biased in that direction, because I am also now living in a foreign country.
I am not, by any means discriminating here against people living in their own countries. Perhaps, if there is a demand, I might open a special page for that topic too.
To open the discussion, we must look at the reason for leaving one' country to live abroad.
If I were to list a few possible reasons:
- For greener pastures - I mean for economic reasons - employment, business
- On exile
- To join relatives: to join the spouse after marriage, for instance
- On retirement
- For health reasons
- Absconding legal, political obligations,…
- On assignments - contractual, educational, military services, volunteer services
So, it is a long list. Where do you fit in it?
All those who migrated for whatever reason, can relate stories of loneliness, deprivations, hardships at initial stages of settling down. Many I know, including me, arrived in UK with a suitcase full of personal items. From there we had to work our way up.
Many were single. So, issues that would have discouraged us at later stages in our lives did not even figure in our thinking. We had close social contact among ourselves.
As the saying: "even the char ladies must come to dust" goes, this closeness began to dissolve as one by one began raising of families.
A new set of problems began cropping up - schools for children. In UK, it is considered it extremely important to get your child enrolled in a "proper" school. A "proper school" could be a fee-paying public school, or a reputable grammar school or even a reputable comprehensive school.
This obsession with "proper schools" seems to be an inheritance from the British legacies of colonial rule. I base this conclusion on two experiences: what I had in Sri Lanka, and what I recently (January 2009) heard from a nephew in New Zealand. He has already rented a house within the catchment area of a "reputed school", while retaining his own house in a different neighbourhood.
I Holland, the situation is different. At least I haven't seen such obsessions, nor have I heard from any one to that effect. In fact, there are no so-called public schools in Holland. The only "public schools" are international schools, catering for the children of foreigners employed here on temporary assignments.
This is what I would call cultural adjustment, when one has to live in a foreign country.
Assimilation of the culture and language of the host country is essential for successful establishment in a foreign country.
I can say this by experience. When I came to Holland to work, I came as a computer consultant. This is a profession practiced practically exclusively in English. Also, I had no intention at the beginning of staying put for good in this country. Everybody speaks English here. So, why bother learning Dutch? SO the argument went.
What I am saying is, I made a mistake.
I listened to the advice given about the education of children. That was: let them study in Dutch. But we maintained English as the working language at home. Another mistake from the parent's point of view!
We are now well and truly residents of Holland. Under an integration policy of the Government, I received an excellent free Dutch language course, to which I volunteered, after retirement!
Still I am the odd one out in the family, even though I can manage the language satisfactorily - the other three are excellent in Dutch.
So my point is to highlight the importance of blending with the host population in various ways - building close social circles, cultivating friends, offering close voluntary services and so on.
We hear many negative comments about some foreign nationalities living here on their refusal to assimilate local culture. The immigrants, on their part, claim discrimination. This is a very hot issue. It need not have been so, in my opinion.