Going home - Keep Your Life, Family and Career Intact While Living Abroad - page 110

For example, Stanley is very eager to point out that “I've just returned from five years
overseas.” By doing so he knows he can draw others' attention and reassures himself that
he is unique, interesting and different. It's easy to overdo it, though. Even cashiers and
waiters are not exempt from his frequent asides that, “Ha ha. I forgot that's how they do
things here.”
Family and friends will demonstrate interest in the returnee's adventures, anecdotes and
little comparative comments, though their attention spans seem surprisingly short. At a
family dinner, Stanley finds that the relatives are not nearly as fascinated at hearing about
the night bazaars and morning prayer calls in Jakarta, as they are in hearing Auntie Beatrice
from Inverness describe Uncle Ralph's prostate operation.
To many returnees, this apparent disinterest is a great surprise. It is also a disappointment
that leads to feeling disoriented and isolated.
In some cases returned expatriates carry their feeling of being special too far. They may
tend to pick on friends and people in general for being unsophisticated or narrow-minded
about the world. They will repeatedly draw comparisons between home and the foreign
country. For example, saying at restaurants, “This isn't real Chinese food,” or constantly
remarking, “You know how cheap that would be back in Indonesia?”
Such commentary will eventually annoy and bore others, who will take it as showing
off. These actions will keep people at a distance and make it difficult to readjust to the old
circle. Most people are oblivious to whatever changes may have gone on inside a person
from living abroad. For the most part, friends and family believe that you still think and act
exactly the way they do, as if you'd never left. The returnee may therefore feel inhibited
from saying or doing anything that could appear “show-offy”. He or she may be reluctant
to discuss any feelings of disappointment or disorientation at being back, for fear nobody
will understand.
METAMORPHOSIS : The former expatriate literally has to shed one skin for another.
They are in the transitional process of losing their expatriate identity, yet without having
totally re-established a new sense of identity for themselves.
Faced with the day-to-day routine, they often begin to long for the favorable lifestyle
once enjoyed in the foreign land. The travel, climate, servants, cultural experiences, ming-
ling with an international group of expatriates, as well as the social status and the special
treatment they were accustomed to are sorely missed. A returnee may begin to think back
to the good old days. He or she may even refuse or resent readjustment to the lifestyle of
the home country.
Such a phenomenon is often reinforced by having lost touch with the trends, fashions,
popular music and television, and local politics back home. Such disorientation can easily