When you move to another culture, there is always a fine line between conforming, and being yourself, which can easily lead to identity confusion!
Click here for my take on conforming!
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!
Fresh back from my vacation in France, I had a good laugh at a few cultural differences that highlight some of the key differences between our cultures.
In America, when it comes to service, we tend to be very helpful and forthcoming with information. There is a “Yes I can” attitude (though economic woes are changing that a bit).
In France, however, one should always brace for “non” as in “no, it’s not possible”, and often, information is only obtained, if it is asked for. As an example, I traveled back from France via London and was unsure whether I needed to do my detaxe/VAT refund in Paris or in London. So, I waited on line for the refund in Paris. The gentleman with customs who helped me, informed me that since England was to be the last country I was in prior to trraveling to the US, I should do the refund there. “Are you sure?” I inquired. (Yes, I really did dispute the customs agent’s information!)
“Yes,” he replied, “even though they don’t use the Euro, you have to do it there.”
“I just don’t want them to tell me I should have done it in France,” I implored.
“No problem,” he replied.
At this point, I could have walked away, thinking I had the right information, gotten on my flight, and seen what happened. Instead, I thought to ask, “One last question – as the customs agent will need to see the items I bought, and they are in my luggage with me now, which will be checked, and unavailable, when I get to London, do I still do the refund there?”
“Ah, non,” came the reply, “in this case,m as an exception, you must do it in Paris.”
The other fun part of customer service is, well, the lack of it. I upgraded to Buisness Class, and was sent to a special check-in area – “the speedy check-in” counter, available only for firstt class passengers. Ironically, it was packed – as packed as economy check-in. And, there were only 2 check-in agents available, one of whom was being trained. With only one hour till my flight, I realized I’d miss it. So, I approached another agent, inquiring whether I should worry. She replied, “No, madame, everyone on line with you has their flight in one hour as well.”
“So, then, my flight won’t leave wihtout me?” And this was my favorite part. She replied, “A priori, non” which basically means, “probably not.” She then told me to be patient.
Ironically, within 5 minutes, 6 more check-in agents appeared from thin air, getting us through check-in within moments.
I find the best thing you can do when traveling abroad or living abroad is to try an understand the mentality around service, and learn to leverage it. If I had screamed at the agent to get more check-in representatives, I’m quite sure she would have turned away and ignored me. By understanding that in France, for example, you will often encounter “non” as an answer to many requests for service, especially at an airport or government office, you can then learn how to get to “yes” by keeping calm.
At last – finally The New York Times has realized that expat spouses are important enough to write about, as is the loss of revenue to companies who do not take care of their happiness on an expat assignment.
Click here to read the full article – you need to read this!
When the opportunity to live and work abroad presents itself, individuals tend to focus their attention on the expatriation process as well as the benefits of residing outside the home country. They discuss the impact of an overseas assignment on their career and relationships, identify personal and professional challenges, speculate about the types of skills and knowledge that will be gained overseas, anticipate career development and personal growth. Once a decision is made to relocate overseas, practical arrangements follow with concerns mingled with excited anticipation.
Living in a foreign country brings both advantages and challenges. Individuals typically will go through different stages defined as the honeymoon, culture shock, recovery, and adjustment phase (Oberg model) prior to successfully adapting to their new life. Individuals may experience the duration of each phase differently but eventually will accustom to the new environment and become fully integrated into their host country. Some people plan to remain overseas for only a few years (i.e. transferees, students; others entertain the idea of living in a foreign country for an extended period of time(would-be emigrants).
After embracing the expatriate life, it is quite common to defer planning the return home or not giving much thought to what will happen after the completion of the international assignment or stay abroad. In fact, a majority of expatriates, whether they plan to return to their country of origin in the near or distant future, assume their repatriation to be an easy affair, a simple move that can be summarized as relocating “home”, an environment that is not only familiar but also well-known and understood. However, empirical evidence and anecdotal observations that depict the realities of repatriation reveal quite a number of challenges and difficulties individuals should acknowledge and plan for. Repatriation is not as simple as it seems. As expats, we learn about our host country’s culture and practices, and as we accept and practice new customs and behaviors, we begin to see the world from different angles. These new perspectives not only change our beliefs but also our behavior. As we go through these phases and evolve, our country of origin, family and friends back home also undergo many changes in our absence. Internet, Skype, social media are indeed great tools to stay connected to people and organizations we care about but we shouldn’t forget that “being connected “ does not necessarily mean “being involved” .
Repatriating is not an easy process because the environment we considered as our home is no longer familiar and understood. This is called reverse culture shock. It is felt more intensely because contrary to an expatriation, these emotions and thoughts are unexpected. This may create a lot of frustration. Numerous surveys indicate that about a quarter of expatriate employees resign from their job within a year of the return to the country of origin. A sizable number of returning expatriates report considering new assignments or opportunities abroad. So if you are planning to return “home” after residing abroad for a number of years, here are some tips to facilitate the transition:
Written by Anouchka Eichman, X-Expats
Great news! One of my esteemed Expat Coach colleagues, Doris Fuellgrabe, will be giving a fantastic presentation on expat support, and the importance of ROI (Return on Investment) when considering an expat experience.
When: Thursday, June 2nd, 12pm Eastern
Cost: Free!
To learn more, and to attend this FREE teleseminar, please click here! And re-tweet to anyone that might be interested!
Last night, I was at my local Japanese bar/restaurant and some of the employees from the Mexican restaurant next door dropped by. We spoke some Spanish together, and I was amused by the recollection that one word, or even one tiny letter, can change your intended conversation to an insult, or earn you unexpected hysterical laughter!
In Japanese, one letter wrong in “sushi” can lead to a highly uncomfortable conversation.
In English, forgetting the “l” in please might land you some green vegetables on your plate.
The same is true of expressions, where the wrong word, or misunderstanding its use, can lead to big mishaps, or people falling out of their seats:
A former French boss of mine, in a rather important meeting with some big VIPs, meant to use the American phrase, “The belly of the beast”. But, instead, uttered, “from the bowels of the beast…” and could not comprehend why the whole room was full of side-splitting laughter.
I once learned the French expression “tarre”, in Eastern France, where it means “silly, amusing”. So, when I was invited to stand up on a chair and give a speech at my host sister’s wedding, in Western France, and told everyone “you are all very tarre, and I love you!” I was quite surprised to learn that my host-brother-in-law refused to speak to me because I had inadvertantly insinuated that his mother was in a mental institution. oops!
The point is, when you are easing your way into a new language, it’s so easy, even when you speak it well, to get a word, a letter, or a phrase incorrect. This is why, as you transition cultures, you need to have a bit of a sense of humor and a sense of compassion with yourself, and with others, in any dialogue! 
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.
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