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In the past two years, I've lived in Turkey, the United States, and now Britain. It's been a fascinating experience. Evan has done the same, except he swapped Azerbaijan for Britain.

The Economist has a superb piece on the experience of being an expat over the ages. Both because it is a bit long and because it touched a nerve for me, I'll do a recap interspersed with my experiences.

First we must make a necessary distinction: there are some places where nobody is really a foreigner. After passing through customs, I certainly didn't feel like a foreigner in London. Admittedly, I am a fair-colored Anglophone, but that doesn't really matter. In the world's international city-states, nobody will stare at you because you look different. You can easily find compatriots and your local cuisine. You might not feel at home (does anybody feel truly at home in such an international city?), but you won't feel like a foreigner in the classic sense of the word.

Then there are places like Turkey, where outside of the tourist traps of Istanbul and the Aegean, it is impossible not to be a foreigner. You'll get that piercing stare. People will talk about you. When you enter a room, you can quickly become the center of attention, especially if you can speak passable Turkish. It's a veritable hamam for the ego. The writer of the article puts this phenomenon into a Freudian perspective, which I find interesting: 

...living in a foreign country can evoke many of the emotions of childhood: novelty, surprise, anxiety, relief, powerlessness, frustration, irresponsibility.

This leads to the most notable difference I felt while living in Turkey: the incredible level of stimulation. Being a foreigner genuinely offered “an escape from the boredom and banality of the everyday.” Potential adventures lurked behind even the most mundane activities. This opportunity for excitement was paired with a sense of complete freedom. Nobody knew who I was, and nobody would remember. If I made a fool of myself, it wasn't my fault- I was a foreigner.

Moreover, I could (arrogantly) blame any issues that I encountered on the locals. Such irresponsibility is incredibly liberating.

But being so untethered to society has its downsides. There is a melancholic loneliness that comes with being "the other." In case you feel like you are finally breaking into the local society, there are always reminders that you haven't, and that you never will. In one instance, a friend invited my to visit his extended family in Usak, a conservative town in western Anatolia. He had to rescind the invitation after his family decided that they were uncomfortable hosting a non-Muslim. 

And then there is the "dangerous undertow" of living abroad, which, before you know it, makes a return to "ordinary" life nearly impossible. You have changed, and so has the world that you left behind. Therein lies the tragedy. Again, the Economist puts it best:

Life is full of choices, and to choose one thing is to forgo another. The dilemma of foreignness comes down to one of liberty versus fraternity—the pleasures of freedom versus the pleasures of belonging. The homebody chooses the pleasures of belonging. The foreigner chooses the pleasures of freedom, and the pains that go with them.

- Jon
 


Comments

Gary

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:01:34

Well said.

 

cjl

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:17:41

awesome article... seriously.

 

Roberta

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:15:18

You forgot to mention the passage into and out of being a foreigner--culture shock. I've experienced it, and that was actually more disconcerting than being a foreigner. But then, I have not been in a non-European country (Israel counts as European) so I am sure it is a stronger experience to be a foreigner in a non-European country, for an American.

 

Julius Hugelshofer

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:46:37

Great summary, Jon. Very easy to identify with your words as a fellow expat!
I too enjoyed reading the original "Economist" article, and I think there is one more thing to be mentioned here that was only partly touched upon in your summary:

Being foreign is also a lot about constantly being torn between happiness about the newly gained freedom/the "hamam for the ego" effect, and a strong feeling of homesickness, coupled with complaining about the country you live in. Thus, it sometimes seems to me as if voluntary foreigners (i.e. not the "true" exiles") have something of a masochistic tendency when they appear to loathe their fate of being a foreigner, not being able to spiritually let go of their homeland, and yet for nothing in the world they would be willing to return home again and give up their life in "splendid isolation" abroad.

 

Laura

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:38:41

You're dead right about being able to blame whatever problem you have on the locals or the host country...I've come to realize that most of my issues are the same that I would have back home, except now I castigate the country where I live and not myself.

Despite our complaints, all of us must realize that wherever we are it has to be better than home, otherwise we would go back. But you're right about another aspect of being a foreigner: you can never go back.

 



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