CampbellsRComing

I'm not sure if its a 'language' thing but when I search for 'Ping Pong Poms' on the Canadian forum I come up with 5 threads - on the Australian forum .. hundreds??

I know Pom is an Australian term but seriously on the Canadian forum there is very little in terms of 'returning poms etc. i.e. the only reference I find to Ping Ponging and Canada is on the Moving Back to the UK forum and they seem to be from people ponging back to the UK ... whereas I'm really interested (selfishly perhaps) on those who pinged, then ponged and then pinged back to their new country again ... but dids it successfully the 2nd time around???

I'm sure the same issues exist for Oz expats as for Canadian ones so as someone considering a 2nd attempt at Canada BC I'm interested in knowing what specificaly people put down the success fo their 2nd or even 3rd attempt at settling down to i.e. did they adjust their expectations, goals attitudes ...

The reason fo the focus is that I'm convinced that for the most part successful re-emigration is about changing personal pychology not changing where you go ...

Any Australian Ping Pong lessons greatly appreciated ...

bluekipper

Bumping up this thread as I too want info on ping ponging, I want to become a ping ponger early 2010!

Bluekipper

mohogony

Some Chinese guy won 5 gold medals at Ping pong at the olympics.

CampbellsRComing

BlueKipper (Everton???)

I came across you on the Aussie forum I think or maybe the Moving back to the Uk forum ??? I haven't had much joy with this thread I'm afraid ... but better luck with One Line Answers ... at http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=608697

Maybe more people inclined to help when they now they can brief and abusive if they want to ... hopefully it will still build into something useful ... be intereste din your own thoughts though - perhaps on that thread rather than this one ???

ABCDiamond

I am convinced that you are right, although coming to QLD rather than back to NSW did help a tad

spartacus

here you go!

asprilla

Well, you can put a stop to looking for "ping pong" threads, because you've found your answer. The most important thing about emigrating is the mindset of the person who makes the move. Where they move to is obviously an important factor....but it is nowhere near as important as many would have you believe.

Why is it that so many people love Perth, but so many others find it to be a boring place with no culture and no entertainment? Ask any expats guru and they will tell you the same :

the answer does not lie within Perth. Instead it lies within yourself.

comet555

I've been following these forums for a couple of year and I can honestly say that for the most part it seems to be more of an attitude or expectation issue that causes people grief when the immigrate to a new country. I've been following both the Canadian and Australian sections for a long time and I find them to be very similar regarding why people return home or are unhappy in the new place. So I'm going to give you a summary of what I've seen in the past few years on both boards.

An unsuccessful move would probably look something like this:
-starts with thinking the new country will be better and will change their life in various ways (they will be happier, make more money, spend more time with kids, etc). While some of that might in fact happen you can't base your move just on one or two of those factors.
-person constantly compares everything with previous country.
-sees the negative in most situations, things don't work out like you "expected" they would.
-spends more time feeling homesick and trying to keep up old connections in the last country rather than trying to out and forge a new life in a new country.
-constantly thinks about how things would be like in their old country, this includes keeping tabs on the job market, housing, and what's going on in general.
-sees many of the differences in the new country as being inferior to the way they're used to it (ie. schools, shopping, services, etc).
-doesn't give the new country a fair chance and returns back "home" before most people even start to settle in.

A successful move would look more like this:
-Recognizes that their life will change in many subtle ways and that things won't necessarily be better.
-Takes the time to relax and settle in and acknowledges the fact that it will take the time to truly be "settled". It won't happen overnight or even in a few months.
-Respects the fact that they are in a different country and some things may be run differently. Sometimes it's for the better, sometimes not, but the person is at least open to the experiences.
-Makes a real effort to get to know people and get involved in the community (school, sports, town, neighbourhood, etc).
-Trys some new things (food, activities, things to do, sports, etc). You didn't move to a new country to continue doing absolutely everything the same as you used to.
-Pays attention to what is happening locally or at least in Canada rather then what's happening back in the old country.
-Is open to seeing what the new country has to offer and trying to learn from it.
-Gives the new country a fair chance and accepts that it will take a while to settle in, make friends get into a routine.
-Does not compare everything to the previous country (how things are done, the cost of goods, etc).

comet555

It might also be helpful to do a bit of research into the stages and symptoms of culture shock.

http://www.lossesintranslation.com/s...mmigration.php
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds/we.../culture-shock

Someone on here posted something a year or two ago that had lots of great info on culture shock. I'll try and dig it up.

moneypenny20

Look up some threads from Glittababe and Libby. Those two come immediately to mind. They've both ping ponged.

Here's another couple.
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=580847
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=575550

CampbellsRComing

Guys thank you ... for what its worth here are my lessons learnt to date ...

1. I think my OH (going home) and I (12 month adventure) had different objectives in 2003 and we had, naively, assumed they were the same and as a result never really talked them through ... big mistake ... something we started to remedy last night over a beer ...

2. This time we won't burn our bridges i.e. 2003 was full-on emigration - I quit the job, sold the house, exchanged the money etc. ... to much 'perminence' to that approach - at least for me ...

Linking back to No.1 we need to make sure that we both understand that it is what it is ... an '12 month+ experience / adventure' for us and our kids ... yes we need to go to work and earn a crust but seeing this is an opportunity to travel, to meet new people, do new things and experience another way of life / lifestyle will go a long way to making the 'trip' less stressful and a lot more enjoyable ... ultimately therefore mybe it is more likely to convice us that Canada could provide an alternative long-term home for us ???

3. We now have a reason bigger than ourselves ... is it better for the kids???

4. As Butch Cassidy put it ... there needs to be a 'pull' not just a 'push' - hense the research on our other thread and the time and money were putting into our reccie in August ... its an investment

5. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly personally is that I have a tendancy to take life (and my responsibilities) very seriously (sometimes to the detriment of those living around me) i.e.are we paying off the mortage, are we saving for a pension, are we saving for the kids education etc. ... maybe I just need to 'just 12 months off the treadmill' and do something different which just pays the rent and bills for a year ... ???

For some reason I think I could do that more easily on Vancouver Island than I could in the UK ... and if we relax and enjoy it maybe we wil se it in bette rlight and find making 'longer' term plans and committmenst easier >>>

Maybe getting away from the UK and experiencing the lifestyle on the Island for just 12 months might perhaps be the graetest thing that could come from the experience ... a new outlook on life no matter where we end up living.

Maybe it might put life in perpsective ????

Maybe I'm Full of Sh*t???

bluekipper

No, your speaking a lot of sense actually !!!, nothing wrong with giving emmigrating another go, sometimes its the best way as you can go with a new outlook, and different expectations.

Good Luck

Bluekipper

kizbut1

Oh Lordy, I never thought I'd ever say this, but we've been talking about returning to Oz. Just be warned, its an epic....

The friends on here that we met before going to Oz will know how much bad luck we had, it reads like a soap opera. It started 6 months before we left with my Mum unexpectedly dying. When we got to Oz our assurer then turned out to be a stalker for want of a better word (and still hasn't paid us our money back - 6 weeks and counting - no surprise there then). So we moved from Brissy to Coolangatta. Within weeks my eldest girl was being bullied by the girl next door, who basically 'ran' the other kids in the street and who's parents either didn't give a stuff or just didn't believe us. My Grandad was very ill and died 2 days before we left Oz, one of our dogs died, Xmas was written off - dont ask its an even longer story, the car was caught in flash flood, you name it, I think we probably experienced it.... This was all in 14 months.

However, we did have a few very good times, my youngest took to it like a duck to water (very nearly losing the plot after returning to the UK) and its only since we've been back that I've realised that my OH enjoyed it more than he'd admitted - he and my youngest looked awful for months after. I just plain hated life in Oz. Probably because I was at home all day and all the sh*t that happened in the family circle came to me to try and deal with while OH was either at work or out. One upside was that I'd just started to make the only good friend I had there about 2 months before we left and we've kept in constant touch. Even so I would have torn my visa up in Heathrow and cheerfully thrown it in the bin.

Thing is this: 10 months on, the kids are settled in school (ages 13 & 10), but miss their Aussie friends. I dont know if its a good idea to go through all this upheaval again...we never managed to sell our house in Oz, its being rented out, so we have somewhere to return to I guess. My OH has said that he would be more likely to set up on his own out there (he hates the politics of where he's working here). His face lit up when I tentatively suggested we could try again so I know he's been struggling, he's constantly tracking the exchange rates and the footie - this is a man who hates sport of any kind . He refuses to try living somewhere else because he has his base there. By that he means his friends. I swing from, well, yes ok it could work this time if we sell up and move to a different part of town to OMG what am I thinking??? I have felt at peace since being in the UK, starting to get bored admittedly, I've loved listening to the birds and watching the seasons change, but I have such guilt when I look at the rest of the family. Plus the MIL has made a veiled threat that they wont be coming out to visit again because of the health of my FIL (he really liked OZ, but she hates the heat).

I suppose after all this meandering I just need someone to tell me what to do because I sure as hell dont know. I do know I dont want to sell our house out there and I dont want to lose the visa (2012). But I suppose my main concern is that I dont know if the kids education is going to suffer by pulling them out of school again. Has anyone moved with their kids at this age? Did they do ok at school? We wouldn't be able to move again until after 2010. If you have pinged and then ponged back to Oz, what finally tipped your decision for you? I do wonder if my assurer had been there to help us settle that things would have been different, but I can still remember things that used to wind me up, also things that I used to like....oh stuff it! Does anyone know a good clairvoyant? Or where I can get my head looked at?

Sorry its so long winded , I've read the other posts and threads with great interest which gave me the confidence to spill the beans about our bloody saga, in the hope someone will be able to help me make sense of it all.

Thanks for listening/reading. Oh I forgot to add that we're planning a visit in 2010 - just to complicate matters even more.....
Jo

bluekipper

Oh my God, I thought we had it tough,, Im surprised you lasted in OZ as long as you did, but can you see now, that it was long enough for the other members of the family to make roots and feel settled? I have some of the same concerns as you, my kids are older by the way, will be 14 & 19, they were 10 & 15 when we went to OZ, so big big difference now! but you know you can create so many negatives of why not to give it a 2nd go, that you can stop yourself seeing if it may work out better next time round, I am not letting my negatives stop me, il regret it for the rest of my life, and that will be harder to live with, I know that for sure. You have a lot more than we have - a house etc- so focus on things like that! your kids are young enough to slip right back into the lifestyle over there, you know now you can make good mates, takes effort but well worth it, I cant see what your worries are, and I dont mean that to be flippant, I just think a lot of our fears are created in our head, theyre unjustified, I would say go for it, it is scary but whats the alternative,let the visa`s run out,? regret your choice?

Good Luck

Bluekipper

Nick11

I knew you guys would be back ... just had a feeling.
Why not try somewhere else in oz?
It's a bloody big place.
I hear Adelaide is very nice and full of lovely people!