Thoughts I shared in an expatriate group:
About a decade ago I lived in South East Asia
for five years. I know some of you are longtime, veteran expats and
hope you'll indulge me when I share my developing philosophy
about being an expatriate.
My two life-abroad experiences have been like night and day, and I'd
like to think the main reason is that in Malaysia I identified my
boundaries after the fact (by having them badly over-run by
circumstance and culture, among other things) and that in Turkey, I
have protected them much more from the outset....my sense of self
being my most valuable expatriate possession.
I have found the more that I honor what is meaningful to me, the
more my expatriate life takes care of itself.
For instance, when I
moved to Istanbul from New York City, I was committed to writing a
memoir. Soon it was supplanted by another literary project which
helped me not only create a solid foundation for my life here, but
incidentally, for the travel memoir I have now returned to.
Along
with a fellow American expat, I edited a collection of true tales of
cultural conflict and discovery written by foreign women from seven
nations about their lives in modern Turkey.
Compiling the anthology has helped me as an expatriate in many ways.
It's put my Turkish experience into perspective, brought me
quickly up to speed on the region's culture, connected me with my
foreign and local peers and other personal and professional
communities of interest, and has fueled my writing career.
This is a
result miles away from the disenfranchisement I felt in Malaysia,
languishing in the jungle, attending social events with people
marginally related to me and my interests, never quite being myself,
never sure how I was going to fit in or if I even wanted to.
I am grateful for the hard lessons I learned in the tropics, they
have proven that devoting oneself to being personally fulfilled –
rather than aiming to somehow contort to fit in-- in foreign
surroundings can lead to feeling comfortable where we are and being
accepted by those around us.