I had the amazing pleasure of living with a wonderful host family in Normandie many years ago, whom I visit every year, and have become my extended family.  It’s amazing to me when we do integrate into another culture and it becomes a second home, and the people with whom we share our lives become family, even though they are so different in many ways.  It’s a rich and bonding experience.

This is what happened to me, and I feel so fortunate to be able to still share my life with this wonderful family.  That includes 8 siblings,  about 32 cousins, and a few babies joining the family!

One of my host sisters has created a wonderful home-away-from-home in Normandie.  If you are ever going to be there for a visit, I highly recommend it!  You can’t beat the hospitality of Marie-Agnes and her husband Benoit who are kind, and also very funny, and even speak English with an adorable accent! 

Click here to learn about their wonderful home that you can share!

Many times in our lives, we can get stuck in regret.  Especially when you make a choice to move to a new location and things don’t go well, it’s all too easy for that to happen.  Carrying that regret around with you can feel pretty bad – like a weight, bad energy, unhappiness.  If you’re tired of carrying that around with you, click here for an original way to try to bust through your regret!

Happy New Year!

The cow, er, cat, is out of the bag, so I thought it was time to make a big announcement for 2012!  You may have noticed a bit of a trickle in the number of posts on my blog.  2011 was a challenging year for me, personally, and I opted to transform the painful experience I endured into a new business venture, called “The BullBuster Cafe”.

You can learn more about my new business at www.thebullbustercafe.com

Note – I will still be supporting my Culture Transition products, and I am still running The Expat Coach Association and Directory.  As an Expat, you may find BullBusting to be a more creative way to look at adapting to new cultures, and I may yet integrate the two concepts into a product, so stay tuned.  Also – if you have a business that supports Expats, I am more than happy to post information about you and your services, in the spirit of helping this wonderful community!

If you want to reach me, and read my current blog, just head on over to www.thebullbustercafe.com

And, enjoy 2012!

Building on my last post about the growth in our knowledge of foreign languages, another concept that fascinates me is acronyms.  In American (yes, I am distinguishing American and English as those of you who are British out there, I’m sure agree needs to be done!) I am used to a plethora of 3 and 4 letter acronyms that pervade my life. 

There are the ones that represent organizations and places, such as “The Met” for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, but I’m referring more to the ones that have woven their way into our language and pop up, especially, in text messages, Instant Messages, emails, and so forth.

For example, LOL = Lots of Laughter, LMAO = Laughing My Ass Off.  TMI = Too Much Information….and the list goes on.

So, I don’t know why I should have been so amused, but when my French host family came for a visit, I was introduced to some of their acronyms which are used in the same vein.  It’s this bizarre experience where our languages have something very much in common, but yet, I had a bit of a giggle when they used expressions in French.  Here is one such example.

Camille, one of the 10-year old twin girls (my host niece), was holding my hand one evening as we walked to a restaurant for dinner.  She was hungry and a bit impatient, and asked me how much further we had to walk until we arrived at dinner. 

I responded, “Oh, Camille, actually, we’re not going to dinner right now.  I wanted you to see New York at night, so I’m going to walk you back and forth on every side street, till you’ve seen them all!  We should be done in a couple of days.”

Camille, who has the face of a darling angel, somehow managed to contort it into the perfect blend of synicism and devilish frustration and understanding, and popped out, in the perfect sarcastic tone, “Je meurs de rire.”  (I’m dying laughing.) 

After this phrase had been uttered the first time, I learned that it is referred to as “MDR”, and the remainder of our week contained the acronym “MDR” several times a day. 

Somehow, I feel like I got a little glimpse into a deeper understanding and knowledge of French language and culture, just with a new acronym.  A new phrase and acronym that I can pop out when someone in France tries to get the best of me.

A recent email exchange with my host sister went like this:

Me: “I have some very important news for you!  Remember that beer you introduced me to, Tripel Karmeliet?  I found it at a supermarket near my apartment for $3 less than we paid!”

My Host Sister: “Super!  Have a glass for us!”

Me: “I finished the whole bottle!”

My host sister: “MDR!”

So much can be said with so few words – bridging culture, experience, and friendship.

One of the tough things about moving to another country is learning a new language, as many of us know well!  You may be a grown man or woman, and being unable to ask basic questions, and ask for basic needs, can make you feel like a child all over again, which is doubly frustrating when you know you are able to communicate well in your own language.

On the flip side – once you learn a new language, it amazes me at how much learning there is, and how, years later, there is still more to learn past basic grammatical skills!  This was outlined for me this week during a wonderful visit from one of my French host families.  I’ve spoken French for over 25 years, and consider myself fluent in the language.  Not only can I hold my own, but I can make puns and understand movies without subtitles.  One of the interesting discussions I had with my host family is the “ne pas” in French.  For those who don’t know, French people often say things like “il ne fait pas chaud”, literally, “it’s not very hot out”.  There is an emphasis on the negative.  So, instead of saying “the food is good”, they would say, “the food is not bad”.

For years, I had presumed this was simply a cultural emphasis on the negative.  What I learned, all these years later, is that it is really about being in the middle!  In other words, the “it’s not” comes into play when it is neither hot, nor cold, for example.  If it’s freezing cold out, they would say “it’s freezing out!”  If the food is fantastic, you’ll hear “it’s delicious!”.  If it’s just ok, then “it’s not bad”. 

My point here is that language is of intimate importance when crossing cultures, and I guess I never realized how many levels of learning there are, and that the learning never ends!  There is the infant stage, where you learn “I am”, “I have”, “where’s the bathroom”, etc.  There is the middle ground where you don’t need to rely on your dictionary for every phrase, and you even dream in another language!  There’s the fluent stage, where you speak without thought, and can understand every situation.  And then, there is the wonderful part where you get to develop insight into a language, and a culture, by understanding how, and why, they communicate as they do.

So, if you’re in that infant stage, may you look forward to much learning!

Building on my last post, there was another amazing epiphany I had in my Reiki training that I hope might be useful to other people out there.

We discussed the link between the emotions and the body.  I am a big believer that the body gets “sick” when we aren’t expressing or dealing with our emotions.  Sometimes we have ailments and don’t know where they come from.  Sometimes we continue to create ailments to avoid confrontation.  These can become diseases.  You may be familiar with the concept that a disease is a “dis-ease”.

The epiphany I had is that sometimes disease could be considered a gift from the universe.  Many of us are familiar with the concept of  ”a sign” – perhaps a literal road sign, perhaps an animal who becomes a messenger, it can be different for each of us.  Suffice to say, many of us are familiar with the concept of an external “message” from the universe that makes us feel guided toward a decision or a direction.  Sometimes, however, the direction we’re being led is one we don’t want to take.  So, we choose to ignore those signs, until, eventually, they seem to disappear.

When that happens, have you ever noticed dis-ease greeting you?  I began to wonder if, perhaps, dis-eases we create are, in fact, a reminder from the universe that we have been ignoring signs important to our growth and development, and thus, they manifest in our bodies.  As I began thinking about this, I realized that if you rearrange the letters in disease, you end up with “see said” – as if disease could be about seeing or saying something you’ve been hiding or avoiding.

I don’t know if confronting or speaking something you have been avoiding always leads to a cure, but I have to believe that there is some connectin here, and I am sharing it in the hopes that someone else out there finds this inspirational.

I recently re-did my Reiki Advanced Practitioner degree (loved it!) and learned a couple of great lessons.  In one of our meditations, it suddenly dawned on me that many of us worry about being on “the right path” and we “fear the unknown” and taking that leap of faith into it at various times in our life.

I myself am struggling with some issues in my own life (more in a future post), and fear of the unknown has kept me stuck in those areas.  What occured to me, however, is that there is a very valuable gift when we do jump into that unknown space – the gift of creation.  You see, it is from that empty space that we can begin to create what we want from ourselves – be it goals, dreams, relationships, etc.  In fact, it can be scary to realize how much creative power you have!  Though facing certain problems in your life may appear to you as leading to loneliness, a gap, a void, and any of the other words you use to describe the feeling you will have giving up something comfortable in exchange for a question mark, try to remember just how much wonderful joy and power live in the spaces we create to welcome them in.

As an American woman living in New York, without, um, enhancing myself, I have spent much of my life surrounded by women who have made the choice to get breast implants.  So, I have adjusted to being naturally smaller, and, recently had to return a dress to Ann Taylor.  Why?  It was my size, and fit perfectly, except that the top was made for a woman several cup sizes larger than me.  The reality is, clothing in the US is more and more being made for women with enlarged breasts, much to my dismay. 

So, when I recently went to France on vacation and ventured into several boutiques to buy clothes, I was pleasantly enthralled.  First off, French clothing just seems generally more tailored to a woman’s body, and more feminine than the clothing in the US.  However, I found myself having to buy larger shirt sizes than usual.  In two separate stores in Paris, a sales woman helping me remarked that I needed the larger size, not because of my body, but because of my chest!  I thanked the second one, and informed her that no saleswomen in the US even notice my chest, and I thanked her for noticing!

So, for all the ladies out there who don’t plan on breast implants – try a trip to France to feel more endowed!

I recently had a fascinating discussion with several people from several different countries.  It was about “the truth”.  The essence of our conversation revolved around what the truth is because each of us will define a single moment, event, thing, etc a different way.  We considered a napkin on our table – it could be described as folded, white, beige, dirty, crinkled, a tissue, and more.  Each of us was describing the same napkin in a different way, but all ways could be considered truthful.  So, we came to an agreement that the definition of the truth would be the convergence of where we all see the same thing – whether that might be the color of the napkin, in this case, and that it was folded.

That got me thinking about crossing cultures.  Often times, one of the core challenges we face as an expat is how different our truth is from our new neighbors.  This can happen with things like hand gestures or greetings – in the place you come from, a handshake is perhaps normal and expected, but in another place, it could be hugely insulting if their truth is that touching is reserved for intimate relationships, or that only the right hand can be used, and you offer your left.  It can happen with conversation – where your language and culture are more casual, and your new culture demands more formality.

The place I get bent out of shape over “the truth” is where we DON’T accept one another’s truths.  Consider religion, as one big example. It seems to me that each of us has our own personal truth – whether that be religious practice, how we eat, political affiliation, etc.  Each of us is convinced that our way is the right way – our truth is THE truth.  Is it just the human condition that “forces” us to move from accepting different truths, to changing them?  What I mean is, again, in the example of religion – if one person is Jewish, another Catholic, and another Muslim – why is it that we cannot agree to follow a different belief system, and let one another do so, instead of forcing one another to convert? (I know, religion is a BIG can of worms…)

I realize that this discussion may be a bit “deep”, but the repercussions of how we each behave, based on our own truths, when transitioning cultures, or dealing with different cultures, seems hugely important.  What are your thoughts?

I am a very strong advocate that if you’re moving overseas, you absolutely have to make the effort to learn a new language. In a recent moment at my gym, I was reminded of how language plays a key role in standing your ground. I was warming up for my spinning class, and another woman who takes the class was just outside the door, which is made of glass. A man in the class, left the room to get water, and opened the glass door…slamming it right into this woman…and kept walking! She confronted him and suggested he could apologize for hitting her with the door! Seems like a small thing, but if you’re in another country and cannot speak the language, something this “small” becomes an act of DISempowerment.

This is why one element of learning a foreign language is EMPOWERMENT. Let me give you a couple of personal examples.

I studied in Italy one summer, and on my return home, my flight, from Rome to New York, was delayed.  This was due to another flight, also going from Rome to New York, being canceled.  All those passengers were fighting to get seats on my flight.  There was a desk, and 2 women at computers, working on the passengers.  I soon noticed that not only were they NOT bothering to check those of us with valid seats in, but there was also no real order to anything.  I stood on the “line” as best I could, but after some time, a man walked up from behind me, looked at me with a “stupid foreigner” gaze, and stepped literally, right in front of me.  It made me feel completely disrespected, not to mention, afraid I would lose my seat to him.  Happily, I studied Italian in Italy.  So I walked up to him and said, “YO SONO PRIMA DI TE” – roughly “I am in front of you!”  He looked at me, completely shocked, and stepped out of my way!  Observing the lack of order, I then literally threw my passport onto the desk, and demanded my ticket, and got it! 

In another incident, I went to a bar in Paris with some friends.  We were minding our own businesses, when I suddenly felt the pressure of someone pushing against me from behind.  After a few moments, it still hadn’t stopped, and there was not much space for me to move.  So, I turned around and found myself face-to-face with an angry French woman.  She had the nerve to say to me, in French, “You could at least move a little!”  To that, I replied, “You could at least say ‘Excuse me’.”  Her mouth shut, she stepped back, and left me alone.

So, to anyone out there who doubts the power and important of learning a new language, I hope these examples show you otherwise!

* For more tips on learning a new language and adapting to a new culture, click here! *