WEBVTT - Here's How to Actually Live and Work Abroad 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.280 After every US presidential election, there are those people who 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.640 threatened to pick up and move out of the country. 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:09.520 That was definitely true, But what does it really mean 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.560 to relocate your whole life and what would it take 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:27.320 to start fresh? This is game plan. Hi, I'm Francesco 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.280 Leavie and I'm right back to Greenfield and today we 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:35.040 are talking all about working abroad. Yeah, people threaten to 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.840 leave if so and so I was elected president, and 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:40.680 I don't know if people actually do it like that, 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.560 many people follow through on it, right, So, right after 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.199 the most recent presidential election, there was this all this 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.360 buzz about how much people wanted to leave the country. 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.279 On the night of the election, I think the Canadian 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.480 immigration website crashed from all this traffic it was getting. 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.600 I think there was also this huge uptick in traffic 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.320 to the New Zealand immigration website. So the narrative is 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:05.720 always all these Americans are talking about moving abroad, but 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.400 it sort of remains to be seen whether that actually 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.000 translates to this massive out migration of people. Yeah, I've 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.160 seen some people on Twitter actually do it, really, meaning, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.560 I've seen some strangers that I follow on Twitter actually 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.640 move their families so they say so, they say, would 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.959 you ever work abroad? Yeah, I mean so. I I 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.800 haven't ever made this threat, but I I kind of 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:33.920 understand the appeal. I have definitely fantasized about working in 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.840 various different countries, and my fantasies usually get really specific. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:39.920 Like I went through a phase where I was totally 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:44.000 obsessed with moving to Santiago, Chile, and then at one 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:45.840 point I thought I would go work at like an 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.280 English language newspaper in pantom Pen And by by the way, 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.520 these are places I've never been. And I have kind 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.200 of learned about myself that when I find myself getting 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.040 really deep and like going really far down the rabbit 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.960 hole of googling other countries, it's usually a sign that 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:02.920 there's like something that that great wing out of my 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.440 life that I need to running away from your problems. 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.000 It's an escapist fantasy, though, what about you, Like, have 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.600 you ever worked abroad or studied abroad? When I studied 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.919 abroad in college, I didn't. That's great. I'm jealous of 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.920 people who did. Yeah, and Argentina and yeah, it was great. 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:18.760 I loved it. I think after that a lot of 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.120 people are like, I need to live abroad and work abroad, 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.240 and I had that itch, you know, twenty year old 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.280 me had that itch. But now I just I like 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.560 it in America. I like it like I want to 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.359 fight the good fight and make it work here. And 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.880 I did go to Mexico City recently and I was like, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.600 I can definitely live here. It's that difference between fantasy 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.760 and reality. Whenever I go somewhere, I have tried to 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:42.840 picture myself living there and like, what would I do? 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.400 What would my days be like? But I've really barely 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.040 lived outside of New York. I feel like, at least 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.160 you're honest about liking the sort of stability and the 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.160 network that you have here and not needing that much 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.760 of a change. For me, it's like, do you really 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.280 want to work abroad or are you just looking for 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.080 something to think about that isn't recidily life when you 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.440 go on vacation, of course you want to live in 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:10.800 the places your vacation, right, and you don't think about 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.320 the work life there. I do remember that from living 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:15.360 in Argentina, like the people who lived and work there, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.600 it's hard. It's like a hard place to live and work. 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.440 Everything is easier for tourists, but for people who are 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.120 serious about it. It does seem like right now there 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.280 are unique opportunities for highly skilled professionals to go work abroad. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:34.399 For example, just recently, after President Trump hold America out 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.560 of the Paris Climate Accords, French President Macron made this 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.800 big statement about how US climate scientists who are frustrated 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.120 by the environment here should or would be welcome in France. 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.160 There was a similar plea Canada made a few months 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.560 ago about trying to lure tech professionals to to Canada. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.800 So there's there are other allied US countries who are 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.320 trying to take advantage of what they would perceive as 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.800 people being frustrated with living in the US and get 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.560 some of that talent over to their country. Yeah, I've 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:10.160 seen articles about people from abroad applications being down at 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.920 universities here, and that usually like leads to people staying 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:15.680 here and wanting to work here. But I think because 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.760 of immigration worries and visa worries, it's a lot less 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.560 likely that they can come work here. So other countries 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.520 are a kind of saying, oh, look look at us, 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.240 Look at our great universities. Are are a great companies, right, 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.200 They're also trying to lure legal immigrants in the US 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.320 who may not want to stay here because of the 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.320 politics of the US. So those are like the headlines 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.320 that suggest, you know, something might be changing, But of 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.600 course everybody has their own practical reality, and when you 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.000 actually think about what it would take to move somewhere 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.840 else and establish a new life there, it's really daunting. 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.440 Like for starters, you have to find work that you 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.360 could do, then you have to get the legal permission 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.080 to work there. You need a good deal of money 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.880 in most cases to to move. And then after all 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.560 that there's re established sing yourself somewhere else in all 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.960 of the kind of culture shock that wouldn'to. Yeah, there's 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.200 definitely a culture shock to working in a country that's 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.880 not your own. And here at Bloomberg, we have a 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.360 lot of colleagues from other countries working in our New 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.560 York offices, so we asked some of them what it's 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:29.320 like to work in a foreign country. I grew up 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:33.400 in Pakistan and the most surprising thing about the work 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.520 culture in the US is how much time we spent 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.120 working over here. So I'm from Brazil and one of 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.160 the most shocking things for a Brazilian working in the 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:46.120 United States is the fact that people eat at their desks, 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.520 if they eat it at all. I'm from England and 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.280 to me, the most surprising thing about working in the 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.280 US is how willing people are to work on their weekends. 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.640 Um from Australia and the biggest thing I think I 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.039 know with working culture in the US is that working 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.360 outs are a lot longer here. I'm from Denmark and 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.800 the most surprising thing about working in the US to 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:14.520 me is the lack of consecutive weeks of vacation. Another 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.640 very interesting thing is just like the concept of personal 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.520 space in the United States, especially in the office, where 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.000 it's it's very different in a place like in Brazil 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.200 where sometimes instead of like you messaging someone, which would 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.640 be seen almost as impolite, especially if you're sitting nearby 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.160 that person. I mean, people would go out there and 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.000 just lightly touch that person on the shoulder and say, Hi, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.120 here's the facts that it's supposed to deliver to you, 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:38.520 and then here. I remember that. Right when I moved. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:40.719 You know, there was an editor who worked with me 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.200 very closely, so I would do that right and any 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:44.839 one day he said, in the United States, you should 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.040 stop touching people and I said, okay, I'll never touch 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:55.440 any There was a theme to a lot of the 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.320 things that our colleagues that which is that Americans have 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.520 terrible work life balance and we don't appreciate vacation for 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.119 lunch bakes. Yeah they they phrased it in very nice ways, 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:10.239 but it does sound from a foreign perspective that working 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.480 and living in America is kind of miserable. And and 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.000 my question was always like, wait, but so why are 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.920 you here? And it was kind of for the same reason, 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.960 like the things that are drawing our colleagues from foreign 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.120 countries are the same things that are kind of hard 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.920 to adjust to, which is just that people are very 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.800 into work here. I mean, some of the reasons for 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.680 that maybe a little unhealthy, but it also is kind 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.800 of nice to be around a bunch of ambitious people 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.280 who are all working on the same project and you know, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.800 all feel really strongly about getting it done right. Yeah, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.960 So they're willing to sacrifice some of the things the 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.480 comforts of being in their own country to do something 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.320 that they want to do, which is what you would 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.840 have to do if you want to move to Canada 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.200 because of the president. Okay, so say you want to 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.800 work abroad, and you're ready for all the challenges, including 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:57.880 the culture shock, but you don't really know where to start. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.120 Our guest today wrote an op ed for The New 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:07.320 York Times urging more Americans to work abroad. So Katu 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.560 Meta is the author of Maximum City, Bombay, Lost and 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.200 Found Any Teachers Journalism at New York University. He grew 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.120 up in India, moved to the US in the nineteen seventies, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.040 and has lived in cities all over the world. So Kati, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.480 thanks for joining us, Thank you, thanks for having me on. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.280 In a recent article you wrote for The New York Times, 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:30.400 you encourage more Americans to work overseas. Why is that, Well, 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.360 because of the world bigger than just America, and often 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.560 people like my students who have spent all the lives 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.560 in the United States don't quite realize that. Um until 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.680 recently eight Americans didn't even have a puff bote until 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.959 it became obligatory to to having to go to Canada Mexico. 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.719 And the percentage of Americans that have a puffpote is 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:58.880 still quite low compared to Canadians or Brits or Australians. 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.880 For what I've trying to say in my article if 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:07.240 that for younger Americans, particularly in these days where you know, 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.640 the last election was all about jobs, that you shouldn't 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.040 just look for jobs in the United States, and just 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.960 if my family had to leave rural India in the 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.360 nineteen twenties and then, you know, look for jobs all 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.559 over the world. It's now something that more and more 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:30.120 Americans are realizing. And there's actually nine million non military 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:35.880 Americans living abroad, up from four million in So say 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.600 Americans take your advice and they start looking for jobs 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:41.760 and work abroad, what do you think some of the 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.400 biggest obstacles that they might face are, Well, I think 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.280 a lot of it is just this idea of leaving home. 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.439 So if you're grown up in France or Germany or Australia, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.720 you kind of used to the idea of leaving home 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:58.800 all the time. That if it's not that you love 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:03.360 your homeless but because of the geography of these countries, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.640 you grow up traveling abroad much more so when Americans 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:10.440 go abroad for the first time, and certainly when they 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.559 go looking for jobs. The first thing he realized that 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.320 I've written about this in my book Maximum City. When 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.600 I moved back to Bombay, after twenty one years to 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.000 write a book. I was incredibly frustrated that everything, like, 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.120 you know, the way that the government works or doesn't work, 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:31.120 the corruption in everyday life, the filth in the streets, 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.440 and sometimes just the attitude of people. So I called 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.599 it country of the No, referring to India, and it 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.200 took me some time to get used to living again 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.200 in the country where I was born. So when Americans 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.440 go abroad, don't expect the rest of the world to 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.839 be America. Enjoy the parts of it that are not, 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.240 and realized that America now is a much more portable notion. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:58.480 That is, when Americans travel, America comes with them in 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.040 their fast food and their culture here in the clothes. 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.120 In some sense, much of the planet now looks like America. 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.040 You mentioned in your article that working abroad isn't something 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.280 we only have to associate with a certain elite. But 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.240 how can ordinary people get the things that they would 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.840 need to work abroad. Well, it's funny if if here, 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.800 if you are from the elite, if you've been well educated, uh, 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.920 you know, if your parents have taken you for spring 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.480 break to other countries. You grew up with a great 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:33.480 offensive confidence intervald But what I've submitted in my article 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:38.160 if um, if you go looking for a job in 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.000 a car factory in Mexico, I mean the car jobs 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.200 are moving abroad to Mexico. You're not going to live 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.960 as well as a unionized auto worker in Michigan, but 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.120 you might live much better than if you had an 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.479 eight dollar and our job flipping burgers in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.880 For the idea is that even though the absolute felleries 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.880 might be lower in these countries, you actually have a 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.199 shot at leading a middle class life in a country 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.560 like Mexico or Canada or any of these other factories 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.160 which if they opened up their labor market to Americans, 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.840 you know, you can have a car and apartment. You 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.480 can basically live a middle class life even if you 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:21.880 aren't highly skilled. And I see lots of for example, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:26.360 American security personnel and firefighters in the countries that I 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.400 go to around the world, So it's it still is 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.040 mostly for the elite, but there's more and more of 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.280 the non elite jobs that are opening up for Americans, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.680 and Americans are going abroad to take them because they're 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.719 drying up in America itself. You talked about how there 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:45.600 might be some downsides to living abroad, like a lower salary. 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:47.839 Is there any upside to going to a country where 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:52.280 you make class money, Well, I mean it helps to 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.000 realize that, you know, you can actually be happy in 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:00.719 a country which doesn't have the same level of like reconsumption. 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.880 What most Americans are really shocked by when they go 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.959 abroad if that they can get thick and not go bankrupt. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.760 This is something that came up over and over again 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.880 in the Instagram response to my op ed. All these 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:19.320 young Americans who go to Europe or Australia, and you know, 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:21.720 there are all these stories about getting thick, going to 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.520 the emergency room, getting surgery and coming out and realizing 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.000 there's no detectible, there's no copay, the government does what 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.920 it should and health care is treated as a human right. 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.079 And then many of these same stories, you know, talk 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.840 about their horror at the idea of returning to a 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.720 country where, even if you are insured, when you get thick, 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.840 you know, your greatest wory going into the operating room 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.280 is how am I going to pay for this? There 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.080 are some people talking about leaving the country for political reasons. 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.680 This happens almost every election. Are they wrong about how 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.880 easy it might be to re establish their career or 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.959 their lives somewhere else. For people who want to leave 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.600 the country because they don't like the political situation, you know, 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.840 they could be accused of devotion. Why don't you stay 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.640 here and fight the good fight if you really are 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.880 so concerned. But then you know, there are people who 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:18.439 are genuinely disgusted with what's happened with American politics, and 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:23.560 they see the entire democratic and indeed constitutional structure of 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.680 the country have rigged. She Ha's another big shock that 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.520 people find out when they go abroad. And even if 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.400 all the money that you earn if in the foreign 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.920 country in foreign currency, you will still get taxed on 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.320 it by the United States government. America is one of 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.480 the few countries that taxes its citizens even when they 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.320 go abroad and aren't actually, you know, enjoying anything other 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.320 than the consular protections of the United States. Um. There 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.520 is an exclusion which i've I believe a little over 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.840 a hundred thousand dollars the first hundred tho dollars of 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.840 your income. Everything after that is texted federal rates, and 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.200 the the U. S. Treasury is also very particular about 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:09.080 bank accounts that you open oversees. It requires documentation and recording, 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.840 so you know, you might leave America, but America won't 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.720 leave you. And citizens of other countries like the EO 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.720 countries find it much easier to live and work abroad. 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.640 Just in terms of the logistics of it. You mentioned 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:27.720 that it is easier for younger people to reinstate themselves abroad. 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.400 I wanted to ask if you had any advice for 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.760 people who are older or have more established careers or 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.920 families and who want to do this. Well. There are 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.520 all kinds of websites and services that recruit Americans because 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.120 you know, in spite of all the problems with the country, 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.880 in almost every country that I've traveled to, and I've 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:53.520 traveld to quite a few, Americans are universally respected for 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.760 their world ethic, their efficiency, and their own ft and 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.680 it's almost unparalleled. So people who go abroad, for example, 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:08.720 executives who posted abroad by multinationals tend to do quite well. 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.640 And if you're going abroad on an expact package, you 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.480 will live like a king. So there's also this reverse shock, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:19.480 and Americans short on expact packages come back and they 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.040 don't have all the perks that go with the expat life. 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:24.520 But for people who are just you know, picking up 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.080 and going for the first time, it's going to be difficult. Cutily, 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.920 if you have a family, housing isn't cheap in much 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.400 of the rest of the world, and getting into a 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.400 foreign culture, of course, depending on the culture, can be 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.920 quite difficult. But in most of these countries, you know, 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.600 there's an American focal that will welcome you in. Even 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.960 when I took my family back to India, would regularly 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.480 go for things like Fourth of July parties at the 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:57.080 American Consulate in Bombay. You did an Instagram call out 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.080 with your article for stories from expats. What were some 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:05.720 of the responses? Like, Yeah, so the Instagram responses generally 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:10.080 by people in the twenties or thirties who had moved 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.600 all over the world A lot in Europe, a lot 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.120 in South and Central America, and lots of really gorgeous 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:21.840 pictures of these Americans frolicking and water faults and as 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:26.359 your oceans and hanging out with a cute, cuddly animals, 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:32.159 sipping cappuccino in Parisian sidewalks and so forth. So they 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.359 I was impressed by how good they looked, the people 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.240 as well as the surroundings they were in. And as 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.919 I mentioned, health care is something that was constant in 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.760 these responses, the fact that there's a just dramatically better 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.560 quality of health care, and also the work life balance 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.480 that was very important. In most of the rest of 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:55.040 the world except maybe Japan, people don't work as hard 0:17:55.080 --> 0:18:01.280 as Americans and there is this big focus on eating. So, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.840 for example, if you go to Spain, even if you 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.680 work for a corporation, you'll have a tour lunch break, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.720 the same thing in Italy. In many countries ne world, 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.959 you'll have a siesta, and in the evenings you'll go 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.879 out with people that you work with and you know, 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.640 drink with them until it's dinner timement, sometimes beyond. So 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.200 there seemed to be this idea that the people who 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.280 left did earn as much, didn't accumulate as much as 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.200 they might have if that stayed home, although that wasn't 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:33.200 truin every case, but most of them lived much better 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.480 while they were working. Were there any challenges that people 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.280 told you about. There wasn't much mention of the challenges 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.320 in the Instagram responses. You know, a couple of posts 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:48.119 which talked about being lonely, missing family, you know, missing people, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.679 None of them as far as I could see, you know, 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.159 of all the few hundreds that I saw, and the 0:18:54.200 --> 0:19:00.840 Facebook responses talked about missing things like nature or you know, 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.919 New York. The vitality of it because for the people 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.800 who went abroad, obviously it was a felt selected group, 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.879 the people who felt that they could leave all this 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.040 and then go. And I think that's because which the 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.639 air fares being what they are, you can come to 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.040 America come back to it all the time. I mean, 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.000 what is exile when around trip home is five hundred bucks. 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.560 So this wasn't possible with earlier waves of migrations for 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:30.800 people who left their countries like mine. You know, when 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.040 we came in the nineteen seventies, we might go back 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.359 to India once for every two or three years because 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.880 air fare then we're much more expensive than they are now. 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.960 It was a much bigger production, you know. Now I 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.560 traveled back and forth between India and the US sometimes 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.280 four or five times a year. So it's easier for 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.680 Americans who who go abroad to to keep their links 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.600 for the home country. Well, do you have me completely 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:59.520 sold on working abroad. So like an Instagram post, I've 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.159 just to figure out how to talk my family into it. 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.199 And so thank you so much for coming in and 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:11.040 talking to us, Thank you for having it. Seems to 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:12.880 me that maybe the mistake a lot of people make 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:14.840 when they think about having a career in a different 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:20.840 country is expecting to basically completely transfer their existing life 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.520 from here to there, so working a similar kind of environment, 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:26.640 have a similar kind of job, and maybe even speak 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.640 your native language. That's why Americans were looking to emigrate 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.359 to New Zealand and Canada and not Brazil. Yeah, because 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:37.119 that's hard to adapt to different culture, different language. I 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.600 found this article in the New York Times with this 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.760 reporter who moved her entire family to Japan for her job, 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.600 and they were working very hard to integrate into a 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:51.359 culture that's notoriously difficult to integrate into it. Her husband 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.720 quit his job to move with her. She has kids. Um, 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:59.520 they're both learning language which is very different than English. Um. 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.480 She talks about all these different work customs which are interesting, 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.960 like having to remember to bow right when you get 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.600 in and you have to ask for a business card 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.159 right away when meeting someone, or else that's rude. She 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.239 talked about like having to fax interview requests, just all 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:18.000 those little things, and um, it sounds like she mostly 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.240 likes it. But she talked about how her daughter hurt 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.960 herself and they couldn't find hospital that spoke English and 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:28.000 they were using their like bilingual dictionary and reading about it. 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:29.760 It's just a paragraph in the story, but I mean, 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.720 can you imagine how insane that was in the moment? Yeah? No, 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.840 And it just goes to show how much more complicated 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:38.720 it gets when you're trying to do this with a family, 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:43.119 when everyone involved has stakes in other things, when your 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:45.160 your spouse has a career that they have to figure 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.199 out what they're going to do about, and when you 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:48.720 have a kid that you're trying to raise and take 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.840 care of and protect and expecting that you won't face 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:55.159 those challenges, and even expecting that you won't have to 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.000 integrate into a new culture. I think is white remains 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.240 a fantasy for most people who think about it, like 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:02.480 if they just don't end up doing anything about it, 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.040 because that fantasy of working abroad it doesn't really exist. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.159 I think you should do it if you value the 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.560 experience of being kind of out of your comfort zone 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:15.080 and thrown into a new environment, and you should expect 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.280 to face all these difficulties. Yeah, and that's what made 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:20.000 all the difficulties of moving to Japan worth a firm. 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.480 A Toko Rich that New York Times reporter and the 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:24.919 piece she talks about how her daughter came home from 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.280 school one day and told her that she thought it 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:29.760 would be cool to move around a lot. That's when 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.000 Rich said she knew that she made the right decision 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:34.800