I'm re-patriating

[Jean Louise Finch]

Hi everyone,

I've been living overseas for about six years -- for as long as I've been done with university -- and I'm moving back in August to go to grad school in Seattle. I'm anticipating some pretty serious culture shock. I was in Europe for three years and have been in a megalopolis in Southeast Asia for another three. Has anyone here had experience with moving back to the States after a long absence? My partner is joining me; he's not American and has never lived there. What should we (both) expect? Employment/visa issues aside, as we've been able to work all that stuff out already...I mean more about the culture shock of being back in the States.

Thanks!
Jean Louise

[spaced2]

1. Re-patriating

Hi Jean Louise,

Yes, I've been in your situation a few times. I've been living in various places in Eastern Europe and Western Europe for five years and each time I go home I experience reverse culture shock. I went home a few times with my Polish boyfriend and it was interesting to see how life changed for him. When we were living in Poland it was I who was more dependent on him but when we went to the States, it was him totally dependent on me for everything and this put a strain on our relationship since he felt emasculated. I think that this is because we were so different from the start, needless to say things ended but I do have a new partner from Zimbabwe/UK and he has returned to the States with me and all was good. I would prepare myself for a bit of depression, reorientation and people not understanding your experience. I often experienced people who were interested but after a few minutes they lost interest. You'll be in an academic environment which hopefully will harbor more curious people or people with similar experiences who you can speak to. Hope it goes well for you!

M

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Yes, it will be weird

I was in Japan for only a year, and when I came back, I felt that Americans were rude, ignorant, loud, careless, and took up too much space.

I was lucky in coming back to an academic community in which a lot of people had lived overseas. In fact, as I think back, my closest friends were all people who had lived or traveled extensively in foreign countries.

A couple of years ago, I met up with a long-term expat in Tokyo, and he said that he could see a definite but indefinable difference between his relatives who had never left the U.S. and his relatives who had significant foreign experience. It had something to do with their acceptance of conventional wisdom and unspoken assumptions.

[Patriot Abroad]

3. Seattle's cool . . .

Being a former resident of the great Pacific Northwest, I can say that Seattle is in general a great city and almost Canadian in it's liberalness; however, watch out for the people being very withdrawn and slow to seem friendly - I think it's a Scandinavian thing (a lot of the population is of Northern European "lumberjack" descent). Now that I've insulted practically everyone . . .

A lot will depend on your direct environment - if you're at the University of Washington, it is a culture unto itself, with lots of on campus groups of all types - there's students and staff from around the world there. (I'll assume you're not going to WSU. Pullman would be severe culture shock. Pullman was severe culture shock for people that lived in Western Washington. )