The Life of the Expat

Recently, a former student of mine wrote from his first overseas position with an international company. He told me that though he appreciated my class, he felt that there was one area that I didn't address -- how tough it was to be the expatriate. He was excited by the position but felt lonely and isolated. Here's how I answered him: "I agree that taking the overseas assignments will help your advancement, particularly in a global company. The assignments will also broaden your perspective and give you a lot of valuable skills. "You're right I didn't talk about the difficulties of the expat. I tried to figure out how to convey the complex emotional issues involved for people without the direct experience. I will give you the insights that I got at the State Department in my first training course. "Everyone goes through a series of ups and downs when moving to a new country -- it's called culture shock. The first months are great -- everything is new and in some ways magical. You see life through a different set of lenses. Then the culture shock part sets in -- usually somewhere in the three to five month span after arriving in the new location. You start being aware of all of the cultural cues that you are either missing or don't understand. Ordinary tasks, like figuring out where to find a doctor or a barber get on your nerves. Traffic and local driving customs seem mad to you. Somewhere about six to eight months you achieve the long-run equilibrium. If you're in a location that suits you, your mood will be positive. If you are in a place that is not suited to you, your mood will be less than your "normal" state. I had culture shock to some degree in all six of my overseas postings -- so take it as normal. Life can feel very isolated and lonely at the beginning. The key is to go out and make the new friends -- and get everything you can out of your posting. "By the way, there is also reverse culture shock. When you come back to the US, you see it with different lenses. A lot of the customs we have seem odd -- even barbaric. Our solution to health care seems inhumane for those suffering economic losses from major illnesses. I remember the time that I took a German trade delegation to San Francisco in 2000 while I was still Consul General in Hamburg. We came off the freeway from the airport onto Sixth Street, right into the Tenderloin with homeless and drug dealers wandering the streets. They were shocked and I was embarrassed as an American. Most who live here in San Francisco just drive right by ignoring the human plight. "A word of advice as a returning expat: The Expat comes back to headquarters with ambivalence having seen different solutions work just as well in other parts of the world and citicism of practices here in the US. This is sometimes taken by headquarters as less than enthusiastic support for the mission of the company. Some corporations deal with this by keeping their expats overseas; others banish the former expat to marginal parts of the company; the wise companies learn how to integrate these people into their hierarchy. So when you come back to the US, ask your other expats how the company rewards them. That will be a major career decision point for you. "The Foreign Service Officer who ran that first training course gave me some advice, that I made my objective everyplace I was stationed: "Make each post a better place for your having been there. Strive to leave each post a better person physically, morally and spiritually." I'd be interested in any of your experiences in overseas living. Please post your comments.