Generic questions!
 

Hi everyone, I'm lucky enough to be dating a Safa at the moment and it's becoming more and more apparent that it could be a long term thing. :wub: He is currently in the UK and I have lived here all my life and very much a middle England sort of girl! I've yet to visit SA so I only have the opinions of a native which naturally are all positive!
So I'm hoping to have some more opinions from those who have some experience comparing things to the UK. I really don't know diddly about living in any country to be honest as I've just graduated and all this mortage stuff is still far off and daunting.
I'm certainly not convinved I want to be in the UK for long, not to have chav children anyway, but I hadn't imagined SA being the ideal place to live, Aus/NZ maybe, but if someone could perhaps explain the major pros and cons (preferable in simple terms as all the visas/considerably low wages/hijacking is totally alien) I would be thankful and I can start to figure out my options a bit more clearly!:thumbsup:

Re: Generic questions!
 

Welcome to BE.

Maybe if you listed some of the questions, we will try to help you.

I'd start by reading through some of the threads on here. :)

Re: Generic questions!
 

I would start by googling "crime in South Africa".

Try and remember that only a small percentage of crime is actually reported.

If you still think you might like to go, then I wish you the best of luck. :thumbsup:

Re: Generic questions!
 

Most South Africans don't take to the UK. They miss the sun, and barbeques ("braais") and stuff like that, and don't much care for what the UK can offer (culture, wonderful art, proximity to Europe, etc). They tend to miss the place where they grew up, and quite a few of them don't like to admit that that place no longer exists.

If you go to South Africa, the chances are you'll be struck by the nice things first of all -- the relative space, the sun, of course, the apparently high standard of living (larger houses etc), the scenery. The bad things - the things that put people off, and the things that are driving people away - take longer to sink in. Things like the constant (and justified) fear of violent crime, the progressive collapse of honest government, the breakdown of civilization, the inability for anyone white to make a long-term future, the collapse of the health system, the corruption and bureaucratic incompetence. You just don't get to deal with these things on a short visit, so you don't tend to notice them.

It's very fashionable among Brits at the moment to denigrate everything about the UK, but you'll find that, everything that is supposedly bad about the UK is a hundred times worse in SA.

Anyway, your question was 'generic' and so is my answer. If you have any specfic questions, people here will be happy to give their opinions and advice.

Re: Generic questions!
 

Thanks Pablo, that was a dissapointingly helpful response!
Redlippe I can't really ask questions because I don't know what hits British people in SA.
May I ask why you say 'apparently high standard of living', because that is the big arguement he's making! It begs to question why anyone would live there at all? What's keeping Brits there?

Re: Generic questions!
 

I say 'apparently' because, compared with the UK, land is more plentiful in SA, houses tend to be bigger, and cheaper. So Brits arriving in SA think Christmas has come when they see that for, say, 150,000 pounds, they can get a big house with a nice garden and a pool. If you take a look at any of the SA property websites, you'll see what I mean.

Also, though they crow about it less (for PC reasons), they like the idea of having a maid and perhaps a gardener. Both come cheap in SA.

But what these eager Brits often fail to take into consideration are other costs, and salaries too. First of all, salaries are generally far lower. And tax is higher, especially when you take into consideration that your SA tax does not provide you with things such as health cover, pension benefits, etc. which you have to pay for in addition to your tax burden.

You asked me 2 additional questions. You asked why, if standard of living is not higher overall, do people want to live there at all. Well, of course, not everything in life can be distilled into a profit & loss account, and there is more to life than material plenty.

You also ask what is keeping Brits there. First of all, many don't stay, they just don't make a lot of noise about it when they leave with their tails between their legs. If you look on this site at the section for people wanting to return to the UK (many from Oz) you'll see that they miss many things they just didn't factor in when they made their decision to emigrate. I find their naivety appallling, but I suspect many were gulled by nonsense like "A place in the Sun" on television. But even on this SA list, various Brits have posted that they are upping sticks again and leaving. And I found out recently that a SA acquaintance of mine was lured into returning to SA lock, stock and barrel, taking her ageing mom with her, only to find that the lies told to her by HomeComingRevolution (a pro SA propaganda site) were, well, just that -- lies. Her mother, now quite old, is too scared ever to venture out of her house. The friend is trying to leave again, but the older you get, the harder it becomes. And, as many emigrants from the UK find, once they've spent all their pounds and bought themselves nice big cheap houses in Oz or NZ or SA, then coming back is almost impossible (because of the high price of UK property). So they're stuck.

Re: Generic questions!
 

So surely it balances out then? That's sort of my big worry, if I'm there for a year or so and earning an SA wage my money will mean nothing if I want to come home.

Re: Generic questions!
 

Yes, by and large it does balance out. But then again, if wonderful sunny weather is a major factor in your life, then what price do you put on that? But in purely material terms, then yes.

I think it's also important to bear in mind the rather uncomfortable truth about "affirmative action" too. There is a lot (and an increasing amount) of what I can only describe as black supremacy thinking going on in SA now. If you're white, your chances of employment, promotion, etc; and the chances of employment for your children if you ever have any, are going to be significantly circumscribed. Much depends on what you do. At the moment, with the infrastructure collapsing in SA (power cuts, sewage-polluted water, etc) there is a desperate need for engineers to repair these things. All the old (white) engineers were pretty much driven out, and no one has replaced them. The government has realised that they need to do something, and now can't find anyone to do it. This is true in other sectors too where hard skills are needed.

In areas where skills are less obviously needed (e.g., H.R. Managers) then blacks are given the jobs. It's harder to screw up when you're a HR Manager than when you're a brain surgeon or airline pilot.

Re: Generic questions!
 

So you no longer live there?

Re: Generic questions!
 

Correct.

Re: Generic questions!
 

ahhh crap!

Re: Generic questions!
 

A sign your mind is made up? An indication of disagreement? A cry of general frustration?

Re: Generic questions!
 

Well I'm struggling to find a single thread about living a happy life in SA! Which would be very hard to convey to a South African it seems.
I'm certainly not going to make up my mind over a forum but it's not great to hear people from the same culture struggling so much. Doesn't make the intimidating chavs any more appealling though!

Re: Generic questions!
 

What I've said before to people thinking of emigrating to SA is subscribe to some of the email newsthreads and read some of the SA newspapers on line.

You could look at:

The Mail & Guardian (a 'left-liberal' weekly publication with close affiliation to the UK's Guardian newspaper)
The Star (Johannesburg daily)
The Cape Times (Cape Town daily)
IOL ('Independent On Line') which does an email newsfeed to your inbox, as does the Mail & Guardian)

These would give you a day-to-day impression on the kind of things being reported in the SA media. You can also watch the SABC on line (South African Broadcasting Corp).

If violent crime concerns you, look at the crime sections of these publications. If jobs concern you, look at the online recruitment companies, and the jobs sections in the papers. And so on.

Re: Generic questions!
 

Compared to what you might meet in S.A., chavs are the least of your worries.

Chavs, in general, are harmless ..... what you will find over there most definitely is not harmless.

I get the feeling that you are going there, whatever you hear about the place. If you do, you will find that it is, in many ways, Gods chosen country. In terms of natural beauty, there is little to compare it to.

Only you will be able to decide what level of risk you are prepared to take. If you think the situation here is bad, all I can say is, it's much worse in SA, as Pablo has so succinctly pointed out.