A review of the book by Paul Allen

Paul Allen is a British expat journalist living in Spain. I was fascinated by his book, The Truth About Moving Abroad and Whether It’s Right for You: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
because it’s the first I’ve read about expatriation from a non-US-centric perspective.

Allen provides information and insight to help would-be expats make a decision about whether expatriation is right for them. He asks:

“The question is, will you be among the millions of people around the world who are uprooting their lives in search of a better one elsewhere? Are you going to be one of those who make their pool-side fantasy a reality?

“It is certainly not as hard as it might seem to the many people who feel trapped by their jobs, finances, family, or whatever other reasons you care to name. What it does take, though, is a concrete decision followed by decisive action.

“Which is where most people’s dreams fade into nothing. For whereas the various survey results suggest there are millions of Americans, Brits, Kiwis, Canadians and whoever else saying they are keen to move overseas, a relatively small percent do make the jump every year.”

For all you numbers people, Allen provides lots of data. The book is chock full of statistics and country rankings in several categories such as happiness, quality of life, healthcare, environment, climate and cost of living.

For those of us whose eyes glaze over at the sight of tables and charts, he gives us stories about individual expat experiences.

He focuses on the countries which are among the top expat destinations worldwide, and discusses their pluses and minuses.

And he poses lots of questions for us to answer. Some are predictable, others less so. Almost all require some real thought.

“So consider. Does improving your quality of life mean you absolutely must move elsewhere? Or is it more about re-prioritising your lifestyle where you are now to make room for your dreams?

“Sometimes change is a great thing. Other times it can merely turn out to be a switch of scenery.”

Allen presents information about language, culture, earning a living, schooling for the kids and asks questions about all of them. Then he arrives at families.

“The most important factor preventing [survey] respondents from emigrating overseas was that their family and friends remained in the UK — a consideration cited by 43% of the survey’s participants.

“In the final analysis, though, you must ask yourself — and I really mean search your heart — how much of a wrench will it be to put distance between yourself and your existing social network?

“Do not gloss over these questions. The answers are likely to be the biggest single factor in the success of your venture.”

Allen asks us to consider one final questions: what will we think about our lives when, at the age of 90, we look back. Will we have regrets? Wonderful memories? Will we feel unfulfilled, dull, or lifeless?

Different Perspectives on Distance

As someone who has moved across the US, some of the issues he raises seem rather ho-hum. I currently live 1,200-1,400 miles away from my mother and three of my kids, and 2,500 away from a fourth. The last one will be joining the 1,200-mile club in a couple of weeks.

Since we’re already a plane ride away, it doesn’t matter a whole lot to me whether the plane takes off from Florida or Panama. For a European, though, 1,200 miles is almost the distance from Paris to Moscow (1,500 miles, actually).

And on the flip side, members of my family are more concerned about the possibility of our moving to Mexico (about 2,000 miles from where we are now) than they would be if we moved to California (2,500-plus miles).

Worth a Read

If you’ve been considering moving abroad but you’re not sure yet, Should I Stay or Should I Go? can provide lots of helpful information and help you to make the decision that’s right for you.

Have you wrestled with the question of whether you should stay or go? What did you decide? How has it worked out for you? You can comment below.

A Review of The Samurai’s Daughter by Sujata Massey

Christmas in San Francisco – what an exciting holiday! But not for Japanese-American Rei Shimura, who grew up there.

Rei has lived in Japan for several years, the fruition of a lifelong dream. She eked out a living teaching English to business people when she first moved to Tokyo, but has since put her art history degree to work, becoming a dealer in Japanese antiques. A speaking engagement for a Washington, DC museum brought her back to the US for the first time in two years, after which she headed west to visit her parents.

Rei is doing research for an oral history project, interviewing her father some of her Japanese relatives to find out more about what everyday life was like for the Shimura family prior to her father’s emigration to the US.

On Christmas Eve, Rei is pleasantly surprised when her boyfriend arrives for an unexpected visit. Hugh Glendinning is a tall, handsome Scottish lawyer, and they’ve had a rocky relationship since meeting in Tokyo a few years previously. He’s flown in from Washington, DC, where he works for an international law firm, to interview some plaintiffs in a class action suit he’s working on with a lawyer from a San Francisco firm.



During the visit Hugh proposes (for the fifth time) and Rei accepts. His big case will take him to Japan, and she’s looking forward to being with him in Tokyo.

However, the case is messy and controversial. The plaintiffs are a group of elderly people who were used as slave labor by Japanese companies during WWII, and Hugh’s firm is suing the large companies that abused them. It causes discord within Rei’s own family, and in Japan.

Clashes of every imaginable sort ensue – past and present, culture and society, ideology and politics.

Following the suspicious death of one plaintiff and serious injury of another, Rei tries to find the responsible party. And, after a series of serious miscalculations and missteps on her part, Japan throws her out.

Rei unhappily returns to San Francisco where she wrestles with a few more demons – both internal and external – before finally solving the mysteries and acknowledging that the people you’re with are more important than where you’re located.

Thos of you who’ve been following this blog for a while know I’m a mystery fan, and that I like my books in series. Normally I would review the first book in a series, but The Samurai’s Daughter is the sixth Rei Shimura novel. I chose it because of its expatriation/repatriation theme.

I also chose it because it’s a surprisingly readable story – surprising, that is, given its subject matter of forced prostitution and slavery, war, atrocities, toxic political ideology, family and cultural history, guilt, innocence and warring personal beliefs.

In an early scene, Rei is examining an heirloom from her father’s family, a samurai sword from the 1500’s. She knows that the old Japanese religion Shinto taught that a sword contained the samurai’s soul, and therefore sword worship was practiced as part of the tradition of ancestor worship.

“I had an antipathy to weapons. In my opinion, a rice pot that had served the family through lean and lavish times was the kind of object worthy of family worship. I’d even revere a quilt patched together from old blue-and-white robes called yukata; my father had told me about such a quilt that he and his brother had slept under for many years, until it finally wore out. That was the problem, exactly: Crockery broke and fabric frayed. The delicate things that I cared about perished, while the hard things like swords survived.”

Ultimately Rei must accept her heritage – even the uncomfortable hard things passed down through her samurai grandfather.

This is a wonderful series, jam-packed with details about life in modern-day Japan. As a protagonist, Rei is unique: feisty and nosy, by Japanese standards, she has a passion for fairness and justice and a willingness to fight for the underdog that lead her into scrape after scrape. The first book in the series is The Salaryman’s Wife; the most recent and tenth in the series is Shimura Trouble. I highly recommend them.

Do you have a favorite expat-themed book or movie you’d like to share? Click the comment link below, or send an email.

Death in the Andamans by MM Kaye takes place over Christmas in the late 1930s. Copper Randal’s school chum Valerie has invited Copper (christened Caroline Olivia Phoebe Elizabeth) to stay with her in the tropics. Valerie’s stepfather, Sir Lionel Masson, is the Chief Commissioner of the Andaman Islands, a group of islands governed by the British in the Bay of Bengal.

Copper has spent the previous two years working in drab London:

“… at about the time that Valerie was setting sail for the Andamans, Copper had been reluctantly embarking upon the infinitely more prosaic venture of earning her living as a shorthand typist in the city of London.

“For two drab years she had drawn a weekly pay cheque from Messrs Hudnut and Addison Limited, Glass and China Merchants, whose gaunt and grimy premises were situated in that unlovely section of London known as the elephant and Castle. The weekly pay cheque had been incredibly meager, and at times it had needed all Copper’s ingenuity, couple with incorrigible optimism, to make both ends meet and life seem at all worth supporting. ‘But someday,’ said Copper, reassuring herself, ‘something exciting is bound to happen!’ “

Something, in the form of a “small and totally unexpected legacy” from a forgotten uncle, did occur and Copper promptly resigned her job and traveled to the Andamans on the S. S. Maharaja.

“That had been nearly three weeks ago. Three weeks of glitteringly blue days and incredibly lovely star-splashed nights. … It was all so different from that other world of fog and rain, strap-hanging, shorthand and crowded rush-hour buses, that she sometimes felt that she must have dreamed it all. Or that this was the dream, and presently she would awake to find herself back once more in the cheerless, gas-lit lodgings off the Fulham Road. But no: this was real. This wonderful, colourful world.”

Copper’s “wonderful, colourful world” quickly meets stormy weather, and with a vengeance. On Christmas Eve, Copper, Valerie, and a group of friends picnic on one of the nearby islands. Returning, by car and ferry, to “the mainland,” as the largest island is known, the weather becomes a character in its own right.

“ ‘Why is everything such a queer yellow colour?’ persisted Copper restlessly. … Copper … leant out to look back at the sky between the double wall of trees behind them. They heard her catch her breath in a harsh gasp, and Dan Harcourt … leant out in turn and whistled expressively. ‘Great Caesar’s Ghost –! Here, step on it, Charles, or inside another five minutes we’re going to be overhauled by the father and mother of a storm!’ “

Several of the party travel back in sailboats. All three boats are overturned within seconds of the the storm hitting. Fortunately all but one of the sailors is later rescued, however, Ferrers Shilto is not found, and he is given up for lost, presumed drowned. The group on the ferry arrives safely on the mainland, but nerves are understandably frayed.

Because of the storm, the Christmas Eve dinner at Government House is sparsely attended and extremely trying. The evening ends after the household cat brushes against one of the guests, who begins screaming hysterically and has to be taken to the little local hospital.
Then misfortune becomes mystery. On Christmas afternoon, Copper, Valerie, Valerie’s fiancé Charles, visiting naval officer Nick, Dr. Dan Harcourt and some of the others walk to the beach to get some fresh air after the storm subsides. Imagine their surprise when the body of Ferrers Shilto is tossed by an incoming wave practically at their feet!

Later that evening, young Dr. Dutt informs Sir Lionel that he has signed the death certificate stating that Shilto drowned. Dan Harcourt, a Navy doctor temporarily in port questions Dutt, who becomes very defensive. Arrangements are made for a funeral the next day – this is the tropics, after all, and funerals must be held quickly.

However, the next morning another body is found in place of Shilto’s. Instead of Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men, Christmas becomes a game of “was it you?” as the inmates of Government Hosue and the other islanders watch each other with suspicion. Add a ghost, a mysterious fortune, a disappearing letter, an affaire or two, and some romance, and you’ll thoroughly enjoy Christmas in the Andamans with the English expats.

About the Author

MM Kaye was an English girl who spent many of her growing-up years in India. Later she traveled extensively with her husband, a British military officer. She has written two enormous, powerful novels about India, The Far Pavilions (which was made into a disappointing movie) and Shadow of the Moon. She set a third novel, Trade Winds, in Zanzibar. Besides these novels, Kaye wrote several stunning children’s books, the best of which is Ordinary Princess, which she also illustrated. As she moved from country to country with her husband, she would write a mystery set in the country. Besides being well written, interesting whodunits, Kaye’s mysteries provide fascinating glimpses into the society and history of their settings, and give us a look at expat British life in numerous settings.

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute is multi-layered expat novel, which was made into a TV mini-series in 1981. It has been one of my favorites for a long time, not only because of the expat themes, but because it also features a strong female protagonist who overcomes some truly daunting obstacles. Author Nevil Shute is interesting in his own right. A prolific author, with over 20 novels to his credit, Nevil Shute Norway was by profession an aeronautic engineer and pilot. Shute became an expat himself. He was born in 1916 in London, and emigrated with his wife and daughters to Australia in 1950 following World War II. His books strongly reflect his love of airplanes and flying, and his adopted country. He died in Melbourne, Australia in 1960.

London, After World War II

The book is divided into three distinct sections: London just after World War II, Malaya during the War, and subsequently in Malaya and Australia. When we first meet her, Jean Padgett is a young woman, living by herself in London after the end of World War II. She receives a letter from solicitor Noel Strachan who informs her that her uncle Douglas Macfadden has died, and that if she can prove she is his niece she may be entitled to part of his estate. Jean meets with Mr. Strachan and discovers that Mr. Macfadden, whom she barely remembers, was reasonably well off and has left her his entire fortune. However, being a confirmed bachelor and not trusting a woman’s ability to handle her own financial affairs, Jean’s legacy is to be held in trust for her by Mr. Strachan and his partner until she reaches the age of 35.

During the War

Jean shares her history with Mr. Strachan over the next several months. He learns that she lived as a young child in Malaya (modern-day Malaysia), where her father worked in the rubber industry. Jean and her brother Donald learned to speak Malay, and their mother encouraged them to continue using the language even after they went to England to attend school. After finishing school, Donald got a job in Malaya, and Jean went to live there as well in 1939, working as a shorthand typist. War had broken out, but the family felt Jean would be safer in Malaya than in England.

However, Malaya was taken over by the Japanese. Jean’s evacuation to Singapore was slowed down when she detoured to help a family with three young children, and she was captured by the Japanese along with others who had not made it out in time. The men and older boys were removed to a prisoner of war camp, but there were no accommodations for female prisoners or children. Instead, the Japanese Captain ordered them to march, under guard, to Kuala Lumpur, from whence they would be transported to new prison camps being built in Singapore.

There was no prison camp for women, in Singapore or anywhere else, and the group was marched from one end of Malaya to the other. After months of forced marches, near starvation and lack of medical attention, and during which two-thirds of the original number died, they found a safe haven in a small village. Their Japanese guard had fallen ill and died, and Jean persuaded the headman of the village to let them stay and help with the rice planting in exchange for food and shelter. They stayed there for three years, until the war ended.

At one point during their travels, the women and children had come across several Australian prisoners who were driving trucks for the Japanese. The men felt sorry for the women, and obtained some food and medicine for them. One of the men also stole several chickens for the women, and when the theft was discovered, he was punished so severely that he died while the women were forced to watch.

After the war, Jean returned to England, went to work for Pack & Levy, a firm that made high-end shoes and handbags, and tried to forget her war experiences. Her brother Donald had died while a prisoner of the Japanese, and their mother had also died.

After the Legacy

Jean leaves her job and goes to Malaya to dig a well as a way of thanking the village that sheltered her during the final three years of the war. While chatting with the well diggers, Jean discovers that Joe Harman, the Australian prisoner who had stolen the chickens for them, had survived his ordeal and recovered after months in the hospital. She decides to travel on to Australia to see for herself how he is doing.

Jean and Joe are reunited, after a few twists and turns, and fall in love. Jean never does return to England but marries Joe. After learning how girls from the small Outback town near the cattle ranch that Joe manages leave home and move to cities thousands of miles away because there is no work for them, Jean starts a business employing a few young women to make fancy alligator shoes and handbags like those she became familiar with while living and working for Pack & Levy in London. This starts a snowball effect: instead of leaving for the cities, the girls who work for Jean stay in town, get married, and start families. They leave their jobs, and more girls come to work for Jean, which attracts more stockriders and other male workers to the town. Jean opens up an ice cream shop to give them someplace to spend their money. The shop employs a few more girls, attracting more men to the area, and giving Jean ideas for more businesses. The town is gradually transformed from a dusty Outback hole to a vibrant little community, with plenty of entertainment for the young families. The initial source of all this growth is Jean’s inheritance, doled out to her in small pieces by Mr. Strachan according to the terms of his trusteeship. Ironically, the Macfadden family money was earned by a grandfather, who worked in one of the “gold towns” of the Australian outback, towns which had boomed during the country’s gold rush, and then gone bust.

Postscript

Fascinating to me is the fact that the middle portion of the story is based on a true circumstance, and the author explains in a note at the end that he expects to be “accused of falsifying history.” In fact, he states, the forced march of the women happened in Sumatra in 1942, not in Malaya. According to Shute:

“A party of about eighty dutch women and children were collected in the vicinity of Padang. The local Japanese commander was reluctant to assume responsibility for thse women and, to solve his problem, marched them out of his area; so began a trek all round Sumatra which lasted for two and a half years. At the end of this vast journey less than thirty of them were still alive.”

“In 1949 I stayed with Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Geysel-Vonck … Mrs. Geysel had been a member of that party. … In the years that followed Mrs. Geysel marched over twelve hundred miles carrying her baby, in circumstances similar to those which I have described. She emerged from this fantastic ordea undaunted, and with her son fit and well.

“I do not think that I have ever before turned to real life for an incident in one of my novels. If I have done so now it is because I have been unable to rsist the appeal of this true story, and because I want to pay what tribute is within my power to the most gallant lady I have ever met.”

The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education by Maya Frost.

Exchange Students

The Frost family, Maya, Tom and four daughters, were living in Portland, OR when they decided — with three daughters in high school — to move to Mexico. In addition to moving the family overseas, each of the girls spent their junior year of high school in a foreign exchange program in another country, independently of the family.


The family was fortunate that both parents were able to handle their work virtually, so finances were not an issue. In fact, Frost explained that living overseas helped them save substantial amounts toward the girls’ college educations.

The result of all this internationalization, according to Frost, is students who graduated from college earlier than their peers, with substantially lower costs, no debt, and opportunities galore.

Under the heading, “Top Ten Reasons to Read This Book,” she begins:

“This is not your typical college-prep handbook. In fact, The New Global Student is more like the anti-college prep handbook.

“Instead, this eye-popping how-to guide offers tips, ticks, and only-if-you’ve been there secrets to show frazzled parents and students how to completely avoid the traditional hypercompetitive path to that golden university diploma and surge ahead with flaming enthusiasm and red-hot qualifications for life (and work) in the global economy.”

Quoting a variety of educational and other experts, and with testimonies from global students, including her own children, Frost cogently and wittily describes how diverging from the beaten path can help students (and their families) in some expected and unexpected ways.

Frost is a strong advocate for a junior-year abroad. Junior year of high school, that is. Frost writes:

“I’ve had three tearful goodbyes with my daughters when they went abroad during high school . . . and I can assure you that the sadness and worry you feel as a parent will be completely overridden by the thrill of seeing your child become utterly transformed into a young adult with a heap of remarkable skills that he or she could never have gained by staying home with you.”

Frost discusses the typical US “4×4″ educational system of four years of high school followed by four years of college, and then gives examples of students who have followed different paths. One of them even managed to parlay her international experience into getting into Wellesley College without graduating from high school!

“Emily Montgomery spent a year in Hungary on an AFS exchange, and after she returned to Texas, she figured out how to get into Wellesley without actually graduating from high school or even taking the GED!”

You can read more about Emily and the other students featured in the book on Frost’s blog.

Even more powerful than the message of possibility for students, however, is Frost’s clear exposition of the reasons why taking the leap to move yourself into another country and another culture at any age is a positive and growth-promoting adventure. Frost challenges the idea that choosing a popular path ensures happiness, or that “stuff” is evidence of happiness.

Finally, Frost provides a “snappy comeback cheat sheet” of responses to those well-meaning family members and friends who just don’t understand. She tells us that “the hardest part of taking the big leap is not the leap itself but dealing with those who warn you about slipping into a dark and terrifying crevasse.” She advises readers to “respond with sass and snark. . . . Wait, did I say that? I meant humor and grace.”

Whether you have children or not, if you have ever toyed for five minutes with the idea of living in another country, you should read this book. If nothing else, it will show you where your life at home could be improved by straying from the beaten path.

Come to think of it, didn’t Robert Frost write a poem about that years ago?

Martin Chuzzlewit is not one of Charles Dickens’ best-known novels, but it’s always been one of my favorites because of the wonderful expat section. Martin Chuzzlewit was published in 1842, following by a few years the author’s first visit to the United States. Dickens’ description of the US is witty, satiric, and scathing in its depiction of national follies.


In typical Dickensian fashion, Martin Chuzzlewit weaves together many strands of plot. The entirety revolves, in one way or another, around elderly Martin Chuzzlewit, a wealthy, crotchety old man who likes and trusts nobody. Convinced that all of his relations are only after his money, his mistrust causes him to disown his grandson, also named Martin Chuzzlewit.

Young Martin determines to seek his fortune as a domestic architect in the New World. Martin is accompanied by Mark Tapley, formerly the barman at a village pub. Mark is determined to “come out strong under circumstances as would keep other men down,” to be cheerful and to earn some credit in life by maintaining his good cheer in adverse circumstances. Unfortunately, he’s thwarted at every turn because everyone likes him too much and treats him too well for there to be any credit in being cheerful. When Mark meets Martin, he believes he has finally found his opportunity to shine in adversity and hires on as Martin’s servant.

The two sail to New York. While on board ship, Mark makes numerous friends among the other steerage passengers. Although suffering from sea-sickness as much as anyone else, Mark entertain the others and makes himself useful, and becomes the most popular man in steerage. Martin, on the other hand, stays miserably in his bunk and refuses to go up on deck to get any fresh air. He does so, he explains to Mark, because “I don’t wish to be recognized, in the better days to which I aspire, by any purse-proud citizen, as the many who came over with him among the steerage passengers. I lie here, because I wish to conceal my circumstances and myself, and not to arrive in a new world badged and ticketed as an utterly poverty-stricken man. If I could have afforded a passage in the after-cabin, I should have held up my head with the rest. As I couldn’t, I hide it.”

In New York, Martin makes the acquaintance of Colonel Diver, the Editor of the New York Rowdy Journal. Col. Diver describes the Journal as “the organ of our aristocracy in this city.” Martin is surprised, and asks of what the aristocracy is composed. “Of intelligence, sir,” replied the colonel; “of intelligence and virtue. And of their necessary consequence in this republic. Dollars, sir.”

Thus is the America of Dickens’ experience introduced.

After spending a little time in New York, and meeting a number of interesting people, Martin and Mark head west to a place called the Valley of Eden, where Martin believes there will be more scope for his domestic architecture. Martin spends all their combined funds to purchase a 50-acre lot with a house on it from the Eden Land Company. As the steamboat that would take them to Eden is about to leave, Mark hears that nobody who goes to Eden comes back alive.

“At last they stopped. At Eden too. The waters of the Deluge might have left it but a week before: so choked with slime and matted growth was the hideous swamp which bore that name.”

The first settler they meet is ill, and they are warned not to go out at night. ” ‘The night air ain’t quite wholesome, I suppose?’ said Mark. ‘It’s deadly poison,’ was the settler’s answer.”

The “house” they had purchased with such high hopes was “a miserable cabin, rudely constructed of the trunks of trees; the door of which had either fallen down or been carried away long ago; and which was consequently open to the wild landscape and the dark night.”

Mark tells himself,

“Things is looking about as bad as they can look, young man. You’ll not have such another opportunity for showing your jolly disposition, my fine fellow, as long as you live. And therefore, Tapley, Now’s your time to come out strong; or Never!”

To his astonishment, who should Mark find at Eden but a young family he had befriended on the voyage.”It was the same family, sure enough. Altered by the salubrious air of Eden. But the same.”

Martin then falls sick with fever and ague, very common in those parts. He is recovering, after several weeks, when Mark succumbs. Martin has plenty of time for reflection while tending Mark, and finally realizes how selfish he had grown up in his grandfather’s house, and determines to root it out. Mark begins to recover, and they agree to leave Eden and return to England.

This requires Martin to relinquish his pride and ask for help, as all their money was spent in buying the Eden property and getting there. While waiting weeks for a response to his letter, Martin shows Mark how much he has changed in his consideration for others. ” ‘I’m regularly defrauded,’ thought Mr. Tapley, ‘It’s a swindle. I never entered for this sort of service. There’ll be no credit in being jolly with him!’ ” The expected letter arrives, with money enclosed, and Mark and Martin are able to leave Eden at last.

They meet with their benefactor, and Martin apologizes for having had to beg money from him, and adds, ” ‘But live and learn, Mr. Bevan! Nearly die and learn: and we learn the quicker.’ ”

Mark is able to purchase their passage back to England by signing on as a ship’s cook, and they leave New York. As the ship heads toward England, Mark summarizes their experience of America:

“I was thinking . . . that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it? . . . I should want to draw it like a Bat, for its short-sigtedness; like a Bantam, for its bragging; like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for its vanity; like a Ostrich, for its putting its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees it’ –

‘And like a Phoenix, for its power of springing from the ashes of its faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky!’ said Martin.”

Martin and Mark arrive back in London a year after they left. Their expat experience was an unpleasant one, started in pride and arrogance on Martin’s part, and ending in humility and deep appreciation for what he had left behind in England. Back in their native land at last, Martin experiences some further humiliations and setbacks before finally achieving a reconciliation with his grandfather and rejoining the lady he loves. Mark marries the landlady of the Blue Dragon and changes the name of the pub to the Jolly Tapley. Various other characters meet their rewards or deserts, as appropriate. And, in one final irony, whom should Mark meet unexpectedly in London but the little family they had met on the boat to New York and left behind in Eden.

Although Charles Dickens was equally as popular in the US as in England, following publication of Martin Chuzzlewit, his US sales dropped dramatically and he was severely criticized. About 25 years after his first American visit, Dickens returned to the US and was so impressed with the improvements he saw that he wrote a Postcript to be included with every printing of the book in perpetuity. In it, he declares “how asounded I have been by the amazing changes I have seen around me on every side, — changes moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older citiies almost out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take place anywhere.”

Desi Downey is the author of the book NiHowdy, her recently published account of her six years in China as a trailing spouse. We appreciate Desi sharing her first impression of her adopted country. Scroll down for a link to purchase the book.

Neon.

Neon Lights in China

Lots and lots of neon.

That is one of the first things I remember about China.

When I was presented with the opportunity to live and work in China I jumped at the chance, even though I was both terrified and thrilled. And maybe just a little bit deluded.

I thought I would throw myself into this new reality lock, stock and barrel! I would get to know the Chinese people and learn to understand them. I would talk like they talked, walk like they walked, think like they thought, dress like they dressed, dance to their music, ride a bicycle, devour their food, drink their warm beer, live like they lived and sleep on a bamboo-grass mat.

I couldn’t wait to get started.

I’d been off the plane about six minutes that first night when I realized that the natural order of things in the Far East did not carry on in quite the same manner as it did back home in the good old American Midwest.

Oh my. What had I done?

Forget the Customs guys chattering nonstop at me in a language I didn’t understand while ransacking my bags.

Forget the horror of my first encounter with the squatty potty at the airport.

Forget the fact that all the men carried purses and the women held hands.

And once outside the airport, forget the walls of people, the constant car-horn honking, the incessant bicycle-bell ringing, the smells, the mist, the fog, the noise. All that noise. There was so much noise. I’m from Nebraska. I was used to wide-open spaces and quiet. Lots and lots of quiet.

Oh my. What had I done?

I remember pink. Hot pink. Lots and lots of hot pink neon, set against a black, black Chinese sky. Eerie pink neon, wavering in that misty night sky, written in a language of characters I didn’t understand, in a foreign country that was, for me, just about as foreign as it gets. For the first time in my life, I was illiterate. I couldn’t read their signs, and I couldn’t understand their words.

Oh my. What had I done?

My romantic delusions about living and working in a foreign country were quickly shattered. This was my new reality, and I had to get real, real fast.

I did.

I lived and worked in China for six years. I lived it, loved it, thrived in it. Sometimes it was hard. Sometimes it wasn’t. All times, it was incredible.

If you choose expatriate life, choose realistically. There will be fantasy and frustration, ups and downs, trials, tribulations and triumph.

And that is all part of the charm.

Buy the Book Ni Howdy!: An American Woman’s (Mal)Adaptation to Life in the People’s Republic of China.

New Feature: Books About Expats

Just as we recently started a monthly series on Expat Films, this is the first of our new monthly series on Books About Expats. Once a month, we’ll review a book about an expat(s), and I welcome your suggestions on books to review. Just post a comment (click the link below) if you have a book in mind. And now . . . drumroll please. . . the first in our new Books About Expats series:

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

A Year in Provence

Peter Mayle, successful British advertising executive, retired from the mad scramble of the English equivalent of Madison Avenue and bought a farmhouse in the Luberon region of southern France. A Year in Provence is his account of their first year in France. Divided into 12 chapters, one for each month, the book is peopled with delightful characters from all walks of life. Plumbers, masons and other builders figure prominently, as do winemakers, a stressed-out Parisienne who swoops past him on the roads on a regular basis, and the farmer neighbor who tends their shared vines.

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And, since this is a story about life in France, food plays a prominent role. In fact, food begins the story. Stating, “The year began with lunch,” Mayle describes their special New Year’s lunch in a small local restaurant, and states:

“While we ate, my wife and I thought of previous New Year’s Days, most of them spent under impenetrable cloud in England. It was hard to associate the sunshine and dense blue sky outside with the first of January but, as everyone kept telling us, it was quite normal. After all, we were in Provence.”

Throughout the narrative, which maintains a slow but steady pace, with lots of interesting side explorations into topics of perpetual interest (the weather, food, politics, food, winemaking, food), Mayle allows us to glimpse life in that part of France. Remodeling the kitchen, pursuing the perfect wine, entertaining wanted and unwanted visitors from England, shopping in local markets, even cleaning the swimming pool, are deftly and wittily described. And, integral to those descriptions, are the differences between the Mayles’ home culture and the culture they find in France. On donating blood:

“Our veins were plumbed into the plastic bags. . . The hall was noisy and good-humored, and people who would normally pass one another on the street without acknowledgment were suddenly friendly, in the way that often happens when strangers are united in their performance of a good deed. Or it might have had something to do with the bar at the end of the room.

“In England, the reward for a bagful of blood is a cup of tea and a biscuit. But here, after being disconnected from our tubes, we were shown to a long table manned by volunteer waiters. What would we like? coffee, chocolate, croissants, brioches, sandwiches of ham or garlic sausage, mugs of red or rose wine? Eat up! Drink up! Replace those corpuscles! The stomach must be served! A young male nurse was hard at work with a corkscrew, and the supervising doctor in his long white coat wished us all bon appetit. If the steadily growing pile of empty bottles behind the bar was anything to go by, the appeal for blood was an undoubted success, bot clinically and socially.”

The year, which started with lunch on New Year’s Day, ends with a Christmas party. It leaves a good taste in the mouth, and I highly recommend it.

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All quotes are from A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle, Vintage Departures, Vintage Books A Division of Random House, Inc., New York, 1989.

Footnote: A Year in Provence was filmed as a 1993 BBC television series starring John Thaw and Lindsay Duncan. It is definitely worth watching, but I’d read the book first. Along similar lines, Frances Mayes wrote a book, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, recounting her attempts to rebuild a farmhouse in Tuscany. This was later made into a movie by the same name. Her book is nowhere near as delightful as Mayle’s look at Provence, and the movie was a sad disappointment.