Today, my friend emailed me a link from the Wall Street Journal, an article called "The Expat Life" by Alan Paul. It exactly sums up our feelings about living abroad.
Hey, I just read that he moved for his wife's job as well - way to go Alan!!
THE EXPAT LIFE
By ALAN PAUL
ABOUT THE EXPAT LIFE
Follow the expat experiences of columnist Alan Paul and his family, who joined the growing ranks of Americans overseas when they moved from New Jersey to China for his wife's job. Alan writes about the challenges and rewards of moving across the globe and taking care of their three children in a different culture. As a senior editor at Guitar World for nearly 15 years, Alan has profiled musicians ranging from B.B. King to Metallica. The Pittsburgh native is also a senior writer at basketball magazine Slam.
Putting Privilege
Into Perspective
January 4, 2008
"THIS. IS. BORING!"
To make sure I got her point, four-year-old Anna flung herself upwards and landed hard back on my lap. We were crammed into the back seat of a cab, with her brothers Jacob and Eli next to us. Her mom -- my wife -- was seated in the front. She heard the outburst and looked back at me.
We exchanged a meaningful glance conveying concern, consternation and confusion about what to do next. It was hard for either of us to grasp how cruising through the French Concession, one of Shanghai's most fabled and beautiful, tree-lined neighborhoods, in search of a park wasn't exciting enough for our pint-sized adrenaline junkie.
How do you make children understand that the expat life -- and the oft-grandiose lifestyle that goes with it -- is not the norm? Share your thoughts.2
Each of the previous three nights had featured stimulating mega events: the Special Olympics opening ceremony, an acrobatics circus and the women's World Cup soccer finals. These thrilling experiences3 made the jaunt through the French Concession seem lame, and Anna wanted something more.
The moment encapsulated a concern I've had since moving to China -- that we are training our kids to expect too much of life with our new, internationally fabulous lifestyle, which includes both frequent travel and a day-to-day existence that is far more grandiose than our lives back in the U.S. or anything Rebecca or I experienced growing up (and it's not like either of us were deprived).
The fake rich lifestyle that we now enjoy includes daily household help, a large house in a gated community, not thinking twice before hiring a driver for the day and a general sense that access to anything is just a phone call away. I am particularly sensitive to this because one of the things I dislike most in a person is a sense of entitlement and I fear watching that grow in my children.
It's a fear I first had when we boarded the plane to move to Beijing from New Jersey. The sight of my three children sitting in oversized first-class seats both amused and horrified me. It was my first and last front-of-the-plane trip -- a fluke resulting from an airline promotion -- and it struck me that they were having this experience awfully early. I had to wait until I was almost 40 to fly first class, but Anna did it at two, her eldest brother at seven. And they haven't forgotten the experience; despite many subsequent coach trips, Jacob often asks, "Are we flying first class?" upon arriving at the airport. It's the type of comment that makes me wonder if their expectations are too high.
Many other expats wrestle with the same issues. "I'm constantly telling my kids, 'This is not normal, it's really special,'" says one Beijing neighbor, an Australian mother of three of my kids' schoolmates. "The problem is, I'm never quite sure how to really convey that, rather than just saying it."
An American friend stood by her side nodding in agreement. "This is something we all deal with," she said.
It is hard to convey the specialness, because this is normal for all of our fortunate kids. I still have that fall Shanghai trip on my mind, even as I am in the midst of another whirlwind journey through America. I don't think my kids will get too spoiled sleeping on relatives' couches and pullout beds, but trips like these are part of their nonstop exciting lives, filled with travel and possibilities. Beijing is where they live, Shanghai is just another place to visit.
We've vacationed throughout Asia, visiting Malaysia and Thailand, and places all over China, from Hong Kong with its shimmering skyline to the soaring mountains of Sichuan. These places continue to astound me every time I step off the plane or train. We've gone out of our way to make sure our kids feel the same sense of wonder by reading up, explaining places we visit and emphasizing what makes each location special. Sometimes it seems to take hold -- they grasped the amazement of feeding sea eagles in a Malaysian mangrove river and riding elephants through a Thai jungle. Other times they whined or begged to play Game Boys on the bus rather than visiting a Tibetan temple or taking in a stunning mountain vista.
When we were discussing whether to move to China a few years ago, I told Rebecca that we had reached a stage in life where we were unlikely to undertake a lot of ambitious travel in the near future without such a bold move. "We can go see China and these places now or wait until we're retired in 25 years," I said.
That desire to get out and see the world factored heavily into our decision to come here, and I think my instincts were spot-on. Hopefully, the travel has opened my kids' minds as much as it has mine, helping them understand that it's a huge, interconnected world, with an endless choice of places to go and people to meet.
I'm thrilled that my kids have a more international outlook and broader understanding of their place in the world than I had as a child. I just don't want them to think it's normal to bang around from one five-star Asian resort to another. These places tend to be much more affordable than they would be in North America, but they are still bastions of luxury.
The easy solution would be to slow down our traveling, but we have a limited window in Asia and fully intend to make the most of it. We try to balance cushier trips with rougher ones into the beautiful and often still-primitive Chinese interior, where we have visited villages and toured homes to see how millions of people live4.
Trips like that are a helpful reminder to all of us just how lucky we are and how unusual this lifestyle actually is. And that, whatever its flaws, IT'S. NEVER. BORING!
