Episode 21: Embracing the Expat Experience: From American Comforts to Australian Adventures

Have you ever wondered what it's like to trade your familiar hometown sights for kangaroos at sunrise? Join me, Shawn, as I recount the rollercoaster of emotions that comes with expatriate life through my own journey from the US to Australia. We'll uncover the rich tapestry of cultural immersion, diverse friendships, and the personal evolution found in the myriad of experiences that shape an expat's life. Alongside guests who've traversed landscapes from Germany's traditions to Albania's humanity lessons, we'll explore the delicate dance of integrating into new cultures—debating the respectfulness of translation tools and the impact of military protocols on travel.

Don't miss out on our deep-dive into the diverse paths to success in the global workforce, contrasting America's degree-focused career model with Australia's hands-on approach to work experience. As we wrap up, we'll tease the next episode's foray into the ethical maze of technology, from AI to data privacy. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or an armchair explorer, this episode of Full Circle with Shawn offers a heartwarming and thought-provoking journey that promises to broaden your horizon.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Full Circle with Sean. I'm your host, sean, and today we'll be talking about expat life. So let's start with what's an expat? Or expatriate is what it's short for, and it basically refers to a person who lives outside their native country. And people choose to live outside their native country for career opportunities Maybe they're advancing in a global company, or just rather job prospects overall.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Some people move because they're looking for adventure or exploration or they desire to experience new cultures or new environments or even new lifestyles. Some people are seeking personal growth and you get that through travel and new experiences, educational pursuits there's a lot of people that actually come to Australia to go to school which is where I am and we'll get through that in a minute and some people are participating in international research opportunities like academic, and others are love and relationships, so they've met their spouse, and they might have met their spouse in their native country and followed them back to a host country. Others come for quality of life, so they seek a better quality of life, and it might be climate, it might be better climate, it might be better health care, or even it might be better cost of living. And then some move because it's more politically stable or safe, and others move for retirement. So there's plenty of reasons and I'm sure that's not an exhaustive list, but there are plenty of reasons why people move to other countries and become expatriates. So I'm an expatriate, so I'm a US citizen and I live in Australia. And, yes, there's kangaroos. I see kangaroos all the time. In fact, if you go down to the lake, which is really close to me, you can see them in the morning, little family units, and it's really cute. But you don't want to approach them because they'll kick your butt. But we don't need to talk about that right now. Yeah, so why did I come to Australia? Well, if you've listened to some of the earlier podcasts, I came for love and we've stayed because it is a good place here to raise your children. Yeah, but I have naturalized my children. They are US citizens. They have naturalized birth, so they have a US passport as well as an Australian passport. So they are dual citizens. They have naturalized birth, so they have a US passport as well as an Australian passport. So they are dual citizens.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Now let's talk about some of the highs, right? Some of the highs of being an expatriate and the expatriate life. You get the whole cultural immersion, so you get to engage and learn local traditions, local customs and festivals. And you know customs and festivals and you know the way of life in these host countries and a lot of times it is experiencing a completely different way of life, which can really broaden your cultural understanding. It can lead to diverse social circles and meeting people from various backgrounds and making international friends.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Moving to a host country, even for a shorter amount of time, will expand your network globally, which can enhance both your personal and your professional life. You might be for new culinary experiences, right so, discovering local cuisine, unique dishes, flavors and even cooking styles, and by living in a host country you get the opportunity to learn cooking methods and recipes directly from the source. You might be interested in new languages, the challenge and reward of learning new languages and using that new language in everyday life, which does enhance your communication skills and deepens your connection with the local community. And then another high is personal growth. You develop a more adaptable and open mindset through diverse experiences, right, so you gain insights into different societal values and lifestyles, and it does enrich your perspective. I mean technically, it gives you more of a global perspective.

Speaker 1: 4:01

And what are some of the lows of expat life. Well, cultural shock, right, and adjustment challenges. You're encountering unfamiliar customs, unfamiliar norms, social expectations, and that can be a bit overwhelming. You can struggle to adjust to the new social rules or the workplace etiquettes and basic community behaviors. And if you're here alone, or, you know, in your host country alone, you can feel isolated or even homesick, missing, you know, your familiar social networks, missing your families, missing your friends, feeling detached. You can even feel alienated in your new environment because of the significant cultural differences. And then you have the language barriers, right. So the challenges in everyday communications, and that could be at work, that could be in your social interactions and that could just be trying to get your basic necessities, which could lead to experiencing frustration or even misunderstandings due to the language gaps. And, yeah, in Australia they.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So I'll give you a quick little story, try to stay on tangent a little bit. But I was, I was doing, I was out with a bunch of people and they're like. They said to me it's in your boot. And I was like what's in my boot? I'm wearing shoes, what's in my boot? And they meant in your trunk, in the trunk of your car, and I didn't understand it because they have their own slang, their own language, and even though it's English, it's different, right, so there can be misunderstandings, which can be a real pain when you're navigating bureaucracy. So there can be really complex procedures in visas, work permits or even residency and politics. Obviously, the hurdles can be very time-consuming and extremely stressful.

Speaker 1: 5:57

So what can you do to make your life a little bit easier? Well, you need to understand that there will be cultural adjustments, right, so you need to adapt to local customs, the local etiquette. Start by understanding and always respect the local practices, such as greetings, dress code and dining. Observe local norms to build rapport and integrate more smoothly into the community. Try to learn the language and its importance to daily life. The necessity of learning the language or the local language will give you a deeper engagement for the community and it'll give you a better access to the services and it'll help to enhance personal and professional relationships because you'll have effective communication.

Speaker 1: 6:40

A good story is a friend of mine. He was an expat. He was living in Japan and on his first day he was meeting a family and he brought a really large dish of dessert it was just a big tray of dessert to a dinner party and that's what you do in the States, right? So? And he intended to share it with the host and the other guests. But when he got there, he realized that nobody brought anything. Nobody brought any food, but they did bring little tiny presents. So what he found out was that obviously you bring little wrapped presents to a dinner party in Japan. You don't bring food. And obviously that was a learning experience and they were okay with it. But man, was he embarrassed because he didn't ask or he didn't look into it? And today we have Google and everything else, so you can figure this out.

Speaker 1: 7:34

It's not as hard as it used to be. You know, when you live in a host country, you can expect a lot of personal growth. Living abroad really changes the perspective and enhances your personal development. It gives you exposure to really diverse viewpoints and a way of life that challenges your pre-existing beliefs and can broaden your view. When I first went to Africa and can broaden your view, you know, when I first went to Africa, I watched all the movies, right? So everything's lions and elephants, and you know, be careful of this and that. And they have full cities there. They have absolutely full cities.

Speaker 1: 8:11

And when I talk to people in the States or friends that aren't in Australia, they say, oh, yeah, there's, you know, kangaroos and snakes and everything all around you all the time. And yes, okay, there are kangaroos, but I live in the suburbs, so not so much in the city you won't find kangaroos. But it's not all bush right. That's what they call. The country is bush, it's not all bush right. Australia has plenty of cities and it's very modern and obviously there's running water and there's sanitation and everything else here. So we can all have our preconceptions. I mean, if you've watched Crocodile Dundee, everybody thinks that's what Australia is and it's not. It's a good movie and there are places out there toward the center that might be, but it's not the majority of where people live. But they do have their own customs and they do have their own language. In a way they have all their slang or changes in language that you have to get used to, but it's not that much different from the States. So I guess Australia is one of those places where, if you're going to move out of the States, it's probably the easier to adapt to.

Speaker 1: 9:29

But I have been all over the world. I spent a bit of time in Africa. I went to Djibouti. I worked with the Navy SEALs in Kenya. Now there's a Navy SEALs in Kenya, not as a Navy SEAL, as a contractor.

Speaker 1: 9:42

And yes, in Kenya we were in the middle of the jungle and there was one day, so the airplane that landed us, so it was a runway, cut into the jungle right. So if the plane didn't hit right at the beginning of the runway, it would have to just take right back off because it wouldn't be able to stop in time. So you'd have, and they were reservists that flew us in and it was just, yeah, it was a nightmare to land. I think it was five or six times every time before you finally landed. But then I'm not that good on planes. Right At this point in my life I've had been on some bad planes and I'm not that good on planes. So we first take off and I'm not that good on planes, so we first take off. So I'll go back to where we first took off.

Speaker 1: 10:18

We took off from Djibouti and we're going to Kenya and all of a sudden the plane is like diving and turning and diving and I look at the other guy and I said what the heck's going on? Is it that close, I thought it was further away and he said no, no, they're chasing animals with an airplane. Yeah, think about that, chasing animals with an airplane. Go reserves, right, nothing against reserves, I'm just saying that that freaked me out a little bit. So we land and then, maybe a couple of weeks later, a bunch of the guys ran in. They just come in off a forklift and there was a guy like on the top of the forklift and the Navy SEALs said what's going on? And they just looked scared to heck right and they said well, we were driving back from the airfield bringing back some stuff because a plane came in and all of a sudden a whole bunch of bamboons ran out in front of the forklift and then back into the jungle and then a tigress jumped right out in front of the forklift and just looked up at him and they were all like that's it. But it just looked back down and jumped back in and kept chasing the baboons and the Navy SEALs were like awesome and went looking for it, because that's what Navy SEALs do. And they went looking for it and so they're out and they tell us this story when they come back. And they're out and they found what they thought was the tail. They go over and one of them grabs the tail and the other slices it with a machete. But as they pulled it out, it was a snake. It was a really, really big snake. They chopped its head off, brought it back, skinned it and whatever. I don't know if they ate it or not. These guys ate just about anything.

Speaker 1: 12:06

But, yeah, it gives you a different perspective, right? What people deal with. Your life is obviously a lot different if you're dealing with lions and lionesses, baboons and the baboons were not that nice and they did steal stuff and the whole story is about that nice and they, they did steal stuff and whole stories about that. But your life is a lot different if you're dealing with that in your everyday life instead of dealing with you know when's the next iphone game coming out? Because there there was no wi-fi in the middle of the jungle. We did have a satellite so we did get to send emails every so often, but there was no Wi-Fi.

Speaker 1: 12:41

And then, when I was in Kosovo, we were coming back from Kosovo. I've got lots of Kosovo stories. We can talk about that another time, but when I was in Kosovo we were coming back, and Italy has a rule of no weapons. So we're in full military gear, we got our, we got our weapons, we got, you know, everything, and and everything had to be crated up and flown out. And then we, we took a boat over and we, with our vehicles, as long as they didn't have munitions that we took our, our vehicles over and drove it out because we were stationed in Germany. So, but that's their rules, that's their. And in when I was in Germany, but that's their rules when I was in Germany. So I was in Germany for three years with the army.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Great, great culture, so deep of a culture. It's really amazing. But one of the rules that you have to follow at Oktoberfest is you have to be seating to get a beer, right. You don't have to be seating to drink the beer, but you have to be seating to get a beer right. You don't have to be seating to drink the beer, but you have to be seating to get the beer. So what the locals do, or what everybody does, is they sit, they get a beer, they stand, they let somebody else sit and that's what you should be doing. That's the etiquette. And I did see a lot of tourists would come in, take a seat, lots of people standing up, get their beer and sit there and talk and that's not nice etiquette. But they were unaware. They were completely unaware and in some cases you know and things like that, they're corrected.

Speaker 1: 14:08

But it could have been as simple as looking around and seeing how everybody else was doing it and being aware of your surroundings and aware of the cultural differences that are all around you because you're in a host country. I know when I first got to Germany, I carried around a little pocket translating book. Right Now, nowadays you can do it on an app, so you just download a translating app and they can talk and you can talk and you can actually communicate. But back in the day you had this little pocket dictionary and you would thumb your way through it to solve the issue that you were trying to solve at the time. So there are plenty of ways and as technology has improved, there are even easier ways to move around a society. But if you're there for a long period of time and you're still using a pocket translator, then have you really had the respect for the culture to start learning the language? And we will talk a little bit about Albania now.

Speaker 1: 15:02

So when I first went to Albania, we were told not to give MREs to any of the kids right and on the Konstantinovaya, which is the barbed wire around the base, whatever there would always be kids and soldiers would send. They would actually just throw over their MREs and the kids would take them. Now what happened was, when you get three or four kids and you throw over a bunch of MREs, tomorrow you have dozens of kids and you throw over some MREs and you have hundreds of kids. So that was the problem, not so much giving the kids MREs, but I was a private at the time and I remember looking at the kids and how far into poverty they were and it broke my heart and, yeah, I was one of the ones that threw over MREs, even though we weren't supposed to.

Speaker 1: 16:02

But it's. Yeah, those situations can be really tough and it can change your perspective. I mean, I was sure I was a poor kid in New York, but I wasn't poor like that. Right, it definitely gives you a different perspective and it shows you that, no matter how bad of a day you're having and again, talking about bad days, right, everybody has bad days but no matter how bad of a day you're having. There is always somebody having it worse and okay, you can say well, what if my bad day is? You know I die. Well then you have nothing to worry about. Ever again, ever, ever in the history of the universe. You have nothing to ever worry about. So, yes, it's a bad day for a lot of people, but not for you, once it's happened.

Speaker 1: 16:54

So let's jump out of the morbid range a little bit and look at the differences of, say, work. So in America you have to have a degree, right, and that was relevant in the military. You have to have a degree to become an officer. It's relevant in businesses. You know you need a master's degree or a bachelor's degree or a master's degree or a PhD or something if you want to move up high enough.

Speaker 1: 17:22

America takes a lot of emphasis on the degree in education, where in Australia it's work experience. So the more you've done in work and the more aptitude you have and how well you do, you can move up. In fact, you don't have to have a degree to run a big company here. You don't have to. Now there are people that do, obviously, and the schools here are really good, but you don't have to. I know plenty of people that have worked their way up with very little schooling. Some haven't even finished high school here and went to work and are running full companies that even aren't their companies. Some are running their own companies, but I know some that are running other people's companies or big organizations that don't have the schooling. Okay so, and yeah, okay, through their career they've probably taken classes and stuff like that for the mentoring that they need for the growth that they needed to learn certain aspects of, say, people management or time skills or whatever, but they don't actually have that bachelor's degree.

Speaker 1: 18:30

If you look at our work, we have an engineer who started as a technician, who doesn't have a degree, but he's an engineer, and I think that would be pretty unheard of in the state, which is a big cultural difference. And you'll find these differences, big or small, through every single country that you go to and as a tourist, you might not notice them as much, you might not feel them as much. Obviously, touristy places like to emphasize certain cultural things but not others, because it's all about getting you to spend more money, right, but when you actually live in the host country as an expat, then you become part of that host country and all of that touristy stuff is gone, right? You're embedded in that culture and that's where you really pick it up and grow and learn right. So there's so much benefits to being an expat.

Speaker 1: 19:26

But it does depend on the host country and where you decide to go and the reasons you decide to go there. If you're going to, you know South Korea because you're working for a company and you know you're going to have a one-year stint at a certain level and then you're going to move again. You might not embed yourself as much as if you get married and you move to South Korea. Then obviously you'll be way more embedded in the community and you'll be able to pick all this stuff up. So it depends on what's happening in your life and the reasons that you chose to be there and then how much you really want to dive into the community. But either way, it's still going to change your perspective.

Speaker 1: 20:09

It's really going to foster a stronger sense of self-reliance and problem-solving skills, even if you're more protected from the culture because you took a job and they. You took a job and they've got a house and they've got, you know, all the stuff that you already need within your surroundings, your immediate surroundings, rather than, like I said, you get married and you're in society and that's it. You're there for better or for worse, right yeah? So that's it for today. The next episode will be on technological ethics, and I know we've touched on ethics before. This won't be that kind of ethics discussion. We'll be talking about AI, facial recognition, data privacy, stuff like that. So I look forward to seeing you in the next one and thank you for joining me on Full Circle with Sean.