weasel central

yes 100% irish. oh i am just a typical irish guy tall dark handsome, with a certain elan and dash but i can offer women nothing except an empty life of danger and excitement. especially in sana'a

weasel central

ah bitterness my favourite emotion (in others ) my posts are small triumphs of poetic colourful and lyrical english in a barren monotone forum.

Millhouse

You are in the 'potential drinking partner' section of my book.

weasel central

well if you ever make it to Sana'a, you are welcome to the grand tour ...bring your drinking boots

weasel central

no i still am, just with occasional moments of clarity or lucidity when something penetrates into my cocooned world

ctfc

I would have to disagree with that. The Irish are much better, and we're pretty much all hot. Especially the ones with red hair.

Think about it, St Patrick's Day is celebrated all over the world but even most English couldn't tell you when St Georges Day is? For one day a year at least, a huge proportion of the global population want to be Irish really. (OK, OK, maybe it's just for the Guinness).

kittycat1

Lionheart- Is it being racist to say you love a race? The irish ARE hot- had a beau there who was always fun to be around! hmm come to think of it I need a job in Dublin for a while! The French are hot too, and the Scottish, and the Austrian, oh bugger- Ok all men are hot! (even the welsh!)

Norsk-also

Sorry for joining so late, but to share 1 of the pinnacles of my expat living. I am way too happy not having to be surrounded by ignorance of my 'own' people, I can tolerate others being ignorant alot better. Though not sure how long you guys have been 'expats', as I have pretty much been one my entire life..I find my own people highly arrogant when I tell them I live where they come on holiday. I've also learnt that alot of people do become racist..well...I call them culturalists..cause thats where the problem lies, not the race, thats just an assumption.

**** moving 'home', got nothing there..making my way elsewhere.

hnd

This has made me really think ...

Being an armed forces brat who moved around at least every two years, three postings being overseas before I was 17 yrs old, and having spent my secondary education years in boarding school in the UK while parents continued their semi-nomadic life, I didn't really feel like I came from anywhere in particular. Although I knew I was British but never had an affinity with anyplace in particular in the UK.

Then started work in London, got married, settled in the South East and lived in the same village for about 26 years and thought that was it, I'd be there for the rest of my life. We've no children and when circumstances meant that we'd be able to move to Dubai we thought, why not? So we did and have loved it (for the most part). Was worried that I'd find it hard to leave my UK home of so many years but, once the packers had cleared the place out I realised that it was a lovely building where we'd had many, many happy years but our home was in the container which contained the precious things we brought to Dubai with us. We've only been back once in five years (family/friends have been more than happy to stay with us here funnily enough) and we both agreed that we felt a kind of disconnection - as though we didn't belong in the UK any more. Can't explain it any better than that.

Now we're getting ready to move on again, this time to Muscat sometime next year. We'll see how it suits us as to how long we'll stay there. Maybe until we pop our clogs, who knows? If we find that Muscat doesn't suit us we'll think about moving somewhere else (no idea where) but neither of us thinks that we'll ever live in the UK again.

Yes, we're lucky that we don't have children and can afford to be selfish with our decisions. We see it as the silver lining to what may once have been a dark cloud.

Kim67

I really didn't learn anything about myself. I think I became someone different in certain situations when I lived in the UAE, sometimes turning a blind eye to things that just wouldn't be tolerated in my home country. We were never in it for the long haul, two years was our time we set and we stuck to it. The UAE is not the type of place that we'd like to settle long term. We plan to do more stints of a year or two at a time in other countries. I enjoy soaking up the culture and hanging out with local people when I go to another country, but the UAE is not the kind of place that you really do that. Most of my friends were fellow Aussie and South African expats. My life was not that different from being at home. I didn't have a maid, not even part time, was still mum's taxi and didn't do the party scene. My kids were fortunate enough to have some great memories with locals, going indoor shooting and a sheikh's palace and to local farms and that kind of thing with friends and that's the main reason we went. We had an opportunity to go live somewhere else for a while and we took it, but Australia is a great place and it's always where we'll end up no matter where we go.

shiva

norsk makes a good point. what gets labeled as racism here is probably culturalism about 90% of the time.
to clarify, the abhorrent treatment of staff by many here is a culturally embedded trait, its not a racial trait like skin colour but a set of behaviours that are culturally acceptable to some groups and not to others. the same is true for littering, maintaining caste separation, class separation etc.
to clarify further i'd say its 90% on the whole but probably nearer 50% in the white/western community.

regarding expats i'd say that we all have one defining common trait, that is that we all got on a plane and came here and took a chance.
i'd say thats the biggest single difference between us and those from home who constantly bemoan "i wish i could live in dubai...."
expats didnt wish they got off their backsides and did it. As a group we tend to be more proactive and tenacious about life and pursuing what we want also i'd say a good deal more flexible about lifes little hiccups and road bumps

as for myself i've learnt that i have more patience than i thought possible, i dont think i'm any better or worse for being an expat, maybe more and less tolerant of some things both here and at home, plans havent changed really but i will go home at some point, expat was never going to be permanent but then i do come from gods own country so the draw is stronger than for some

HilariousHead

I moved out of my parents home in January of this year, for a new job in Riyadh. I think i've calmed down and matured somewhat in the last 10 months and become a much more open-minded person already.

I think it's experiences like this that define you as a person. If you embrace the change and accept the cultural differences, then your time overseas away from family/friends, essentially all you know, will be a lot easier to deal with.

I've also learnt i'm much better with a football than with a golf ball.

All in all, I have no regrets about making the decision to leave the UK. I will end up back there one day, but that's a few years away yet and not worth thinking, or worrying about, until the decision to go back has to be made.

csdf

Amen. I grew up in Italy, moved to the UK as a teenager and lived there for two decades. And increasingly I began to wonder whether life was slipping away from me and I'd be yet another London worker commuting to the City from the suburbs. The thought began to fill me with malaise and a little sadness. Life was just too straightforward and I could see my friends start to settle down into lives that were mirror images of their parents and their parents' parents before them. So the opportunity to move abroad, make things "difficult" for myself again, though it filled me with a little anxiety, has definitely been the right choice.

Someone once told me that if you find things easy, then you're not trying hard enough. He was talking about work, but I think it applies to life too. Now obviously "easy" and "difficult" are relative: I'm fortunate enough that things that I classify as "difficult" would be seen as unbelievably minor issues compared to some of the circumstances that make life difficult for lots of people around the world (unemployment, illness, wrong caste etc). And for that I'm extremely grateful.

co durham boy

The one thing that made me leave is the one thing that keeps me here now and that's tax free money .

I left the North East of England in 1985 and have never lived there permanently since. I came overseas in 1991 and have been an "Ex-Pat" ever since.

For all my travels i stick by a few golden rules that have seen me ok over the years. People are now looking for lifestyle choices and coming for the Sun and not the money , which for here in the Gulf is stupid.

The longer you are away the harder it seems that you will ever want to go back. I look at life here as a means to an end as you can't put roots down in countries that ultimately do not want you and we will all leave when our paymasters have had enough.

Bahtatboy

I understand what you're saying, but I'm torn between thinking "bollocks, for so many here life is cushier and far more lucrative that it would be at home, where's the risk in jumping on a plane and making a change?" and "70% of all Brits still live and work within 6 miles of where they grew up, so I guess it does show some degree of adventure". But on balance I have to go with the first thought--its not like we're bloody pioneers or anything, or that the UAE is a hardship post: for many its surely a far easier than being at home.

As to the patience aspect: Yes, patience with dealing with those myriad irritants of daily life, but compared to the shite we have to put up with back in UK this place can be a doddle. I left UK partly because of my impatience with those in charge to actually make a difference (for the better), and with those in charge as well as those deciding who is in charge allowing the lunatics to take over the asylum. Its the slide from mediocracy to something far worse that's disillusioning, and the impatience with the failure of anybody to stop the slide (or should that be plummet?).

The difference its made to me? From when I first became one (****, 25 years ago), the realisation that the Great should be struck from GB, that we had something strong and sustainable but have pissed it all away, and that those either starting afresh (as here) or building on something already part-good and part-bad are, generally, screwing things up (a few places excepted). I haven't changed, its merely my perspective that has.