Internations

Internations is a German-based website helping expats from around the world connect with each other. You need to request an invitation to be let into the site but it's very straightforward. Check it out! There are forums, and meet-ups, etc.

World's best countries to be an Expat

Article by Forbes

... Overall, it's good news for those who get the opportunity to be posted abroad. More than half of expatriates are not only able to invest and save more, they can also spend more on shopping and socializing while abroad.

The global expat population has continued to boom--according to the World Bank's Global Links Report 2007, the number of people living outside their home country has more than doubled since 1980 to 190 million--despite the weakening global economic climate, with companies continuing to bear the higher costs of foreign postings.

"As the world becomes increasingly globalized, companies want their managers to get a diversity of experience across the world, while employees want an opportunity to experience a lifestyle and culture different [from] their own," says Cornu.

"Particularly in financial hot spots, there is the potential to earn more and have a better quality of life."

No. 1: Singapore
Longevity: No. 6
Earn And Save: No. 2
Luxurious: No. 2
Accommodation: No. 1
The sweltering heat and sometimes baffling laws are more than offset by high-quality accommodations and the affordability of good private education, health care, and home help.

No. 2 (Tie): United Arab Emirates
Longevity: No. 7
Earn And Save: No. 4
Luxurious: No. 1
Accommodation: No. 4
With no income tax to pay, the largely young expat population is left with plenty to spend on the opulent lifestyle available.

No. 2 (Tie): U.S.
Longevity: No. 3
Earn And Save: No. 5
Luxurious: No. 6
Accommodation: No. 2
Expats often get posted to corporate headquarters and command high salaries. Especially for Europeans, who are used to the high cost of living within the euro zone, life can get a lot more luxurious in the U.S.

No. 4: Belgium
Longevity: No. 4
Earn And Save: No. 7
Luxurious: No. 5
Accommodation: No. 3
Capital city Brussels, home of the European Union headquarters, tends to attract expats for long periods of time, while decent accommodations just a few metro stops from the city center is available and affordable

No. 5: Hong Kong
Longevity: No. 5
Earn And Save: No. 2
Luxurious: No. 4
Accommodation: No. 12
Hong Kong attracts the best-paid expats, with just under 50% earning more than 200,000 U.S. dollars a year. This allows them to save, despite the London-like cost of accommodation.

No. 6 (Tie): Germany
Longevity: No. 2
Earn And Save: No. 13
Luxurious: No. 4
Accommodation: No. 12
Expats in Germany often spent several years in their postings to corporate headquarters, but the high cost of living within the euro zone makes it a tough place to save.

No. 6 (Tie) Netherlands
Longevity: No. 1
Earn And Save: No. 5
Luxurious: No. 13
Accommodation: No. 11
Like the rest of Europe, expats in the Netherlands typically spend longer at their postings, as they tend to go to corporate headquarters.

No. 6 (Tie): Canada
Longevity: No. 8
Earn And Save: No. 7
Luxurious: No. 10
Accommodation: No. 6
When it comes to accommodations, Canada can be very affordable, with the cost of a luxurious, two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Vancouver costing $1,796 a month on average, according to Mercer.

No. 9: India
Longevity: No. 15
Earn And Save: No. 1
Luxurious: No. 3
Accommodation: No. 15
Expats in India can command high salaries while still saving, but the standard of accommodation falls short of other popular destinations.

No. 10 (Tie) Australia
Longevity: No. 14
Earn And Save: No. 7
Luxurious: No. 9
Accommodation: No. 6
Expats tend to have short stints in Australia, though it's a good place to save.

No. 10 (Tie): China
Longevity: No. 13
Earn And Save: No. 7
Luxurious: No. 7
Accommodation: No. 10
Expats spend little time in China, though the relatively low cost of living and eating and drinking out still make it a good place to save.

No. 12 (Tie): Spain
Longevity: No. 12
Earn And Save: No. 15
Luxurious: No. 8
Accommodation: No. 8
The Spanish property market may be cooling, but the high cost of accommodation and tax rates makes the country the worst place when it comes to earning more and saving.

No. 12 (Tie): France
Longevity: No. 11
Earn And Save: No. 14
Luxurious: No. 12
Accommodation: No. 9
Having the whole of continental Europe at your doorstep is little compensation for extortionate rent and costs of living, reasons expats tend to spend a limited time in France.

No. 14: U.K.
Longevity: No. 10
Earn And Save: No. 6
Luxurious: No. 15
Accommodation: No. 13
High labor and accommodation costs make having home help--or luxuries such as a swimming pool--unaffordable. All in all, it's the worst place to go if you're looking for a more luxurious life.

The transient nature of the expat life

In Beijing expat Alan's blog he talks about this topic and he brings up a lot of points I agree with such as:

My expat experience has largely liberated me from an attachment to specific places and things. I thought it would be difficult to leave our house in New Jersey, but I've rarely thought about it. I have no idea what's in the container of belongings we have in storage, and probably wouldn't miss much if it all vanished. Walking into Nathan and Kristi's empty house was a reminder of why stuff doesn't really matter: We make the inanimate objects come to life, and not vice versa. Similarly, it reminded me that the fond feelings I have for this place are all wrapped up in the people. There was certainly no charm to those bare walls, studded with hooks where pictures once hung.

As I've noted before, expat friendships tend to form quickly and develop intensely. I haven't made this many close friends since college. All of us are in the same boat, thousands of miles away from home and generally without our extended families and old friends. Cutting loose from your past can be liberating but also a bit freaky, and the combination fuels the close friendships. We are one another's families, marking holidays, birthdays, graduations and other milestones together. And that's why it's easy to lapse into melodrama when talking about the annual departures of friends; it feels like a family's splitting up, albeit on amicable terms.

I'm sure every expat has experienced this at one time or another. It's sad but unfortunately a part of life...

An American expat in Shanghai

Interesting blog here I just found.

It's only since I've lived in Shanghai that I realize it's a popular place for university students to do their internships during the 'summer'. It seems like a really good idea for one's career, I think. Internships aren't really big at all in Australia, except in a few select fields. I kind of regret not studying overseas while I was erm.. studying.. but life's too short to have regrets! Besides, I don't want to work in banking or finance so doing an internship in Shanghai wouldn't have helped me much but still I think if you're still studying and wanting to work in those kinds of areas it's an excellent idea :)

I don't agree with the author's comments about Shanghai being the "London of the East" though, personally I think it's more like New York city.

---

Today was hot hot hot. It must have been at least 30 degrees, I'm sure. I felt rather headachey and dizzy all day from the heat. Then, because of the heat there was a sudden downpour around 4-5pm and I was in that too. Fun fun fun. It was so heavy that even walking the 2 metres from the taxi to the entrance of my building I was totally drenched. I still can't believe that one day I was wearing a cashmere coat, then I was wearing a trenchcoat, and now I'm wearing no coats! Then inside the house I was wearing thick socks and bootie slippers and now I'm walking around barefeet, just in the space of a few short weeks! Crazy! Where did the beautiful spring weather go? It seemed to have jumped straight from winter to summer (almost)!

Life of an expat wife

My blog used to be called "Life of an expat wife". I've been thinking a lot about my life in Shanghai over the past year. I think people think that my life is either "really good" ("Wow, you must spend all day getting manicures and going to the hair salon - erm, no. I've been to the hairdresser twice and gotten a manicure only 3 times in the past year) or "really bad" ("Oh, I could never live in China, it's dirty, polluted, crowded, people spit..." - just deal with it, people!) but in fact it's neither. Like most people's lives it's both good and bad, and has ups and downs. I know I complain about random things in my blog (mostly my health problems or the weather, I think?) but if I really wanted to I could complain even more about random stuff, but who the heck wants to read that?

I just did a google search for "Life of an expat wife" and this (my) blog is the first link that pops up which is quite surprising! As well as that I found some other interesting links.

Hardship of an expat wife in Suzhou

Even though I don't live in Suzhou I could relate to almost everything single thing that the author (Linda Ho) wrote about. The English teaching thing is a good point. I don't know how many people have suggested to me that I teach English at an English school. Well, I want to just plonk them over the head! I look Chinese. I look like a local. They don't care that I was born in an English-speaking country and was educated for my entire life in an English-speaking country from pre-school till university. Or that I can spell better than most Caucasian English-speaking people. Everyone has the same story. They've either experienced it themselves or they know of someone who has experienced the outright blatant discrimination and reverse-racism when it comes to hiring overseas Chinese people for English-teaching jobs. It's hard to get a job and even if you get one, they'll treat you like scum and pay you less than a Caucasian person, even someone from Eastern Europe who barely speaks any English let alone can read/write and teach it! Ugh. Plus I didn't move to Shanghai so I could earn 1/6 or 1/8 of what I could earn back home! And doing something that would add nothing to my career at all since I hate teaching and have no aspirations to be an educator or anything like that. Really!

Another thing. we don't have a driver or a car, and the apartment we live in although deemed outrageously expensive by the locals is only 1/3 or 1/2 of what most expats are paying. Some expats would also be paying 6-10 times (or more!) than what we are paying.

I was coming home from somewhere the other day in a taxi and had a conversation with the driver the whole way home. He started asking me where I was from (and I really really hate that question because I don't know how to answer it, people always seem to have pre-conceived ideas about what they want to hear anyway) and I told him I'm from Taiwan (I'm not really of course, but my parents are). He said he thought I was Korean or Japanese. When I told him I'm 'Taiwanese' he said, "But they're Chinese too! They're the same!" Alas, I was too tired to get into some big political debate with him (LOL).

Then he just started talking and talking non-stop and seemed really bitter. I ended up telling him I was actually from Australia (usually get the 'huh?' look and the "But you don't look Australian!") and he said he had some friends who moved there. He said, "You must have a pretty good life here if you're bringing your Australian dollars with you." Erm yes, well, kind of. He said, "If you have money you can have a very nice life in Shanghai".. I said, "If you have money, you can have a nice life anywhere!" to which he agreed.

Then he told me he earns 3000 RMB/month (the average for Shanghai so I've heard) and has lots of health problems from sitting down for 12 hours a day, and stress from having to know all the roads/streets in Shanghai and dealing with traffic. I started to feel sorry for him and all the other taxi drivers because I (stupidly) thought that being a taxi driver would be an OK job to have, if I was a local.

When we were almost at my apartment, he said, "Do you live in... (apartment compound name)?" and I said, "Yes" and he said, "Oh I knew it. Because a local would never be able to afford to live there..."

Every single local we've spoken to says that our apartment is so expensive but hubby and I don't feel like it is! For one thing, it's only about half of what we were paying in Sydney for an apartment (similar size, 2 bedrooms) that was 45mins out from the city! And like I said, other people are paying 2-3 times the price and I don't think their apartment is any better, only the location is probably more central and maybe their building is slightly newer but their space certainly wouldn't be bigger and I doubt their view is as nice as ours. I'm very very happy with our apartment and love it. I also like that there aren't billions of buildings like some compounds that have 10 or 20 buildings. Like what the-? It's like a mini-city!

So anyway he pulls up outside my building and then said to me, "See that man over there?" (pointing to the security guard) "Well, he only earns 1000 RMB/month."I'm thinking, "OMG you're kidding!" I felt so bad. They work 12/hours a day too :(

Understandably, this taxi driver was quite bitter about the difference between the haves and have nots. I can understand because I've been there. Growing up we weren't poor poor but we certainly weren't rich. We had second hand furniture from garage sales in our house, my mother made our clothes, my parents DIY'd everything, our shoes were always bought way too big so we'd 'grow into them' (I'm sure that somehow contributed to my sister and I both having flat feet and having to wear orthotics later) yadda yadda.. we were never left without necessities though and overall I think we had a pretty nice life as kids but getting older these days it's hard not to feel something about the difference between the rich and the poor. Luckily most of my friends are middle-class like myself, I don't actually know that many rich or poor people, but in Shanghai it's everywhere. It seems everyone is either filthy rich, or dirt poor, you just can't escape it. It's so sad really.


Getting back to the topic, I also found two books about expat wives, which both look like good reads.



Emails from the Edge: The Life of an Expatriate Wife

This book sounds like a great idea for a movie!



Me a tai tai?

This book sounds hilarious. Even the cover pic looks funny (hey she kind of looks like my mother). I need to track it down somehow... :)


So in conclusion being an expat wife in a foreign non-English-speaking country has it's pros and cons, it's what you make of it, really. I'm glad I've had this experience which I wouldn't give up for anything. And it's really nothing like what you imagine it to be... unless you've been there and done it.

---

In other news, my husband told me he donated 2000 RMB to the earthquake appeal through his work. Woohoo! I was proud of him for his generosity (But I admit I also thought to myself that 2000 RMB would be the perfect amount for me to buy that flash I really wanted.. oh well, guess I'll have to wait a while, and those poor people need that money much more than I do). And, he's gone to Beijing today, for a week. I did get my photo fix though. I looked online for the thing I wanted and the prices were about US$60-120, and I got it for a whopping 90 RMB ($12.50). Yay for bargains!

Top 20 expat cities

Link page 1 page 2

This article from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a bit old (Aug 06) and I found it some time ago but found it again and thought I'd post some of it.

I noticed there were a lot of cities starting with "S". I seem to have an affinity with cities starting with "S" I think.


fDi picks out the 20 best places for an expatriate posting.

BARCELONA, Spain

BUDAPEST, Hungary

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina

CAPE TOWN, South Africa

CHICAGO, USA

DUBAI, UAE

DUBLIN, Ireland

HONG KONG, China

LONDON, UK

MANAMA, Bahrain

MUMBAI, India

NEW YORK, USA

SAN DIEGO, USA

SANTIAGO, Chile

SHANGHAI, China

If New York is the city that never sleeps, Shanghai is the city that never stands still. The frenetic pace has become its very hallmark – from the never-ending development, to the stylishly dressed inhabitants power-walking down the streets, to the rushing influx of foreign companies establishing operations here. At the same time, traditional Chinese culture is alive and well in the city; like most Asian cities, it has a vibrant market scene where just about any goods – legally manufactured or not – are available alongside stalls preparing traditional cuisine and steam carts selling ready-to-eat food.

The pace is reflected not only in the city’s streets, but also in the business community. Conducting commerce in China has never been for the faint-hearted, and that is doubly true for Shanghai, which has a reputation as being especially Darwinistic. But like inhabitants of other rough-and-tumble capital cities, the Shanghainese would not have it any other way.

SINGAPORE, Singapore

STOCKHOLM, Sweden

SYDNEY, Australia

TORONTO, Canada

ZURICH, Switzerland



If I could live anywhere in the world I would have to rule out a lot of places due to:
1. Legalities of being able to live and work there long-term
2. Cold weather. I just cannot deal with it, esp. if it's below 5 degrees C for more than 2 months of the year. I also hate constant hot, humid weather (notably the insects that it brings).
3. Language issues. I'm up for learning a new language but it depends on how difficult the language is. I think Russian, Arabic, Polish or Finnish could be a bit of a challenge!

I could go on but of the list above the ones I could live in and would like to live in (above issues aside) are:

Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, New York, San Diego, Stockholm, Toronto or Zurich (Sydney and Shanghai obviously don't count since I've already lived there). I'm not interested in the others for reasons I won't go into here.

So... where would you live if you could live anywhere?

The Expat Wives Club and pesky mosquitos

If I say that too quickly it almost sounds like 'ex-wives club' - of which I certainly don't want to be a part of! Haha.

Yesterday I met another expat wife for the first time. She showed me around her house, made us lunch, and walked her dogs. Then her driver drove us around town. It was a lot of fun :D

We have a lot in common. We are around the same age (her 29, me 30) and she was recently married (2 years ago) too. She likes scrapbooking, which she does in their amazing 'office'. We both hate smokers and are petrified of heights, hate mosquitos and love to swat them with our mosquito racquets. Ah - the sadist in me comes out. I love to see sparks fly when I 'zap' those suckers who make my life hell! We live on such a high floor (31st) but they still come in so now I have to keep the windows closed for most of the day.



I've discovered a few things about mosquitos recently.
* Yes they can fly up high floor levels. Don't know why or how, they probably come up in the lift or get blown up here by the wind.
* If you have the air-conditioning on cold they fly much slower. So slow the other night I caught one with my bare hand. It was so slow it looked like it was drunk or something, flying around in slow circles.
* If it is really hot, they fly really fast, so fast that I can't even catch them with my racquet.
* Apparently Avon Skin so soft is a good lotion which is a moisturizer, sunscreen and insect repellant in one. But I have to find some!
* The ones that are outside near trees, plants, bushes are far more deadlier than those little ones that fly around your house. The latter only gave me a small bite but the former gave me a huge red thing!
* The standard Chinese house does not have flyscreens. These are a good way of preventing the pesky buggers from coming into your home.
* Do you try to catch a mosquito (even with a racquet) when you are tired and falling asleep. You'll exhaust yourself and won't succeed.