How Technology Changes How We Live Abroad

When you live abroad for almost a decade, you can’t help but wonder how the distance will affect your relationships with family and friends back home. Technology changes things—it makes it easier to connect than ever. But it also makes it harder to hug and can trick us into making far seem close.

When Dinnertime is also FaceTime

Writer Abroad wrote about this phenomenon in a personal essay titled, See that blurry prone-to-freeze image? That’s your new granddaughter?, which is included in her book, Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I’d Known. She also researched how technology affects our lives abroad and wrote about it in a two-part series for Wall Street Journal Expat, the second of which was published today.

Part One

Does Technology Ruin The Expat Experience?

Part Two

How Technology Is Redefining Expat Relationships With Family Back Home

How has technology changed life abroad (or at home) for you?

Writing for Travelers Who'd Rather Stay at Home

Guest Post by Celia Luterbacher

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort.  -  Douglas Adams

As an American expat living in Switzerland, where my husband was recently hired as a professor, I rely a lot on travel literature. I am still new to living abroad, and Switzerland is close to so many other countries that the Swiss consider a weekend not spent visiting Italy, France or Spain to be wasted. But reading travel blogs and books makes me feel guilty, because I know I am an imposter. While on paper I appear to be a travel-loving, adventure-craving explorer of foreign lands and cultures, I am actually a quiet, anxious introvert who adheres to routine the way some adhere to religion or veganism. I am a traveler who finds it difficult to travel, a homebody seldom at home, an adventuring hobbit. I am an "anti-expat," and I know I am not alone. My goal in writing this post and my blog, the Scrappy Traveler, is to train a spotlight on the anti-expat audience and provide examples of helpful anti-expat information and resources.

Living abroad out of happenstance--as a trailing spouse or as a professional relocated for a job, for example--raises a number of issues. For anti-expats, travel and life abroad are skills that must be strengthened through conscious effort, because we have not been blessed with wanderlust or an innate desire to leave home. This can be embarrassing to admit, because who doesn't love travel (or at least list it as an interest on Facebook)? Travel is the cornerstone of every bucket list, vacation and free giveaway. Saying you find travel difficult is like saying you don't care for puppies or happiness. For me, anti-expat life has meant packing up my things and moving permanently outside my comfort zone. But it has also brought daily learning, discovery and profound growth beyond my expectations.

Anti-expats must learn how to strike a balance between adapting to new cultural norms, and hanging onto old ways. I've found that keeping some familiar habits, at least temporarily, can help ease stress: for example, ordering takeout or buying only familiar foodstuffs for awhile before attempting to cook the local cuisine. I am proud to finally be at the stage where I only need to resort to Switzerland's American Food Market for peanut butter - a product that Europeans simply don't understand, despite their mastery of hazelnut spread (seriously, you can buy Nutella by the kilo here). But it's important for anti-expats to recognize where diving into the local way of doing things right away will make life abroad much easier. If living in Europe, chances are it will be less stressful to ditch the commute-by-car habit as soon as possible and learn the local train, bus, or metro schedule. 

Making new friends may be the most challenging aspect of anti-expat life. Natural travelers often have a knack for feeling comfortable enough in a second language, whether they have mastered the basics or not, to strike up a conversation with a stranger and go with the flow. They don't mind using a bit of sign language or making a few grammatical errors as long as they get their point across, and they enjoy the excitement of meeting new people. Before long, they’ve developed a network of friends who know the area and can provide advice and support. For anti-expats, learning the language as soon as possible is key, because the sooner one can say "please" and "thank you" and "how do I sign up for health insurance?" in the native tongue, the more connections it will be possible to make. Unfortunately, shyness can be an impediment to travel even within one's own country, but when foreign languages get thrown into the mix, social interaction can become nothing short of terrifying. If moving abroad for professional reasons, many companies will finance formal language classes, but for others this option may be too expensive or time-consuming. A fantastic way for anti-expats to become more comfortable speaking outside the classroom is to find someone who speaks the desired language as his or her mother tongue, who also wants to learn English as a second language (in my area, this program is called Tandem). This person could be a friend or co-worker, or a connection made through an online ad. But anti-expats should not discount the importance of traditional learning to supplement conversation practice: for this purpose, I can't recommend the app Duolingo highly enough.

Expat communities can also be wonderful resources for making friends, and finding groups of people with similar interests and backgrounds online is very easy. However, it is important for anti-expats to make sure they supplement time spent in expat activities with efforts to meet local people. Identifying inexpensive, low-key, flexibly scheduled classes or workshops focused on a favorite hobby can be a great way to for anti-expats to accomplish this, as can engaging in volunteer work.

Travel Writers Abroad, take note: there is an audience out there eager for information about travel, but not necessarily for the same reasons as traditional consumers of travel literature. These people may not find living abroad easy or natural, but they still find it worth doing, and targeted resources are essential. Rather than the Top 10 Places to Eat in Tallinn or the Most Scenic Bike Routes through Scotland, anti-expats are more likely to want to read about the Top 10 Tips for Budgeting in Two Currencies or Least Stressful Weekend Activities in Geneva. Perhaps these topics seem boring when there are so many places to see and things to do, but for an anti-expat, they can make all the difference in helping a reluctant traveler find their way in the world.

5 Ways a Foreign Language Affects Your Writing

Guest post by Israel-based writer Gila Green

Does living in one language affect how you write in another? According to Gila Green, there are five main ways that it does:

1. Diction. Slang and other everyday words sneak into our vocabularies. If you don’t live and write in the same language, it takes an extra effort to root out unintended foreign words from your work.
2. Names. Many writers spend time enhancing their work with thoughtful character names. But when you live in one language and write in another, naming characters can be frustrating. Names from your adopted country often seem awkward in your mother tongue or worse, become words that take the reader out of the story. Yet mother tongue names may appear mundane.
3. Setting. If you choose to write about your adopted country, it may appear too exotic or you may worry you lack the background to make the country come alive. How long do you have to live somewhere to feel you have the authority to write about it, especially if the country operates in a language that is not your own? And if you choose to write about your birthplace, what if your notions are outdated? Are you destined to depict your birthplace only in the past?
4. Humor. Because humor is cultural, anything you satirize or depict as humorous can throw you off balance. Is a funny everyday experience in one language going to be understood in the language you use for your writing?
5. Layers. There are layers and depth to your work that can only come from the experience of complete otherness. True, not everyone will grasp your meaning, but the sense of being the ‘other’ allows you to see both your native culture and adopted culture with a broad lens; a powerful tool for any writer. 

If you speak a foreign language where you live, how does it affect your writing?

Canadian Gila Green's debut novel KING OF THE CLASS will be released in April 2013 by Vancouver literary press Now or Never Publishing. Her first short story collection WHITE ZION was nominated for the Doris Bakwin Literary Award. She teaches regular virtual fiction classes from Israel. Please visit Gila: www.gilagreenonline.com

International Writing Round-up: Workshops & More

Can’t find a job in your home country? Then maybe this op-ed, Can’t find a job? Move overseas, from The Washington Post, will convince you to look internationally.

University of Oxford Fiction Tutor Amal Chatterjee and award-winning poet Jane Draycott will present a Creative Writing Weekend in Amsterdam from March 1-3, 2013. Topics include fiction and poetry. The course fee is 250 Euros.

Anyone who thinks China is threatening to become the next world superpower obviously hasn’t seen that a good portion of its residents don’t even have toilets.  Listen to an episode of This American Life on what some expats in China, including the China Correspondent for The New Yorker, have to say about living in China.

The English Bookshop in Zurich, Switzerland will host a reading on Sunday, December 2, from 16:00-17:30, featuring JJ Marsh, who is the author of the Zurich-based debut, Behind Closed Doors. She will read from her second novel in the series, Raw Material.

What the heck does it mean to find a fresh voice? It’s hard to say, except Writer Abroad knows one when she reads it. So if you are looking for a new blog to keep you entertained during work (wait, you would never read a blog during work) check out Reading and Chickens. It’s written by Shalini, who is not a writer abroad, but rather an American writer in Seattle.  But since Seattle is over 1700 miles from her hometown in the Chicago area, Writer Abroad has decided to give her an honorary international status.

Any writing news you'd like to share?

Where in the world is English the most fun?

Much more effective than "Keep Out"

Writer Abroad loves English. Even more so now that she lives in a place that treats verbs as afterthoughts. While residing amongst German speakers allows Writer Abroad to enjoy her one-article language all the more, the place to really appreciate all English is capable of is China.

Yep, for lovers of English, there is no better place to go right now than China. In the People's Republic, English is fun. Even when it's on trashcans.

Please deposit your organism accordingly.

Where in the world do you think English is the most fun?

Is pitching pointless?

Give me a P

Give me an I

Give me a T C H!

How not to land an assignment: the pitch letter

Take any magazine writing class, and you’ll be drilled on how to write the perfect pitch letter. You’ll be told how the perfect pitch is crucial to scoring an assignment. And you’ll get all pumped up about pitching and how it’s going to change your writing life.

Writer Abroad would love to go to bat for pitching. But the reality is, she is a strike out.

Her big pitching effort began in 2008, three years after she began her newspaper and magazine writing career. She took a $400 travel writing course with Mediabistro hoping it would help her take her writing to the next level, publication-wise. She spent hours of time (not to mention money—buying English-language pubs when living abroad is expensive, think $15 for one copy of NG’s Traveler) researching publications, perfecting her pitches, and tracking down emails of appropriate editors. Then she proofread her pitches at least 100 times, sent out the suckers like fly balls, and waited for her home run.

But she heard nothing.

Nothing.

Silence. Maybe a rejection here and there, three months after sending the pitch.

Fair enough. Rejection is a part of the writing process. Writer Abroad was not naïve. And she was not going to give up easily. So she pitched other publications...reworking the same idea two or three times. And...

Nothing.

Well, once, a bite. An assignment. And then, a month later, an un-assignment...

So, let’s see here. After 100+ hours with a batting score of .001, Writer Abroad learned something maybe some of you already know: pitching is a gigantic waste of time and money (especially considering the rates magazines pay these days).

So now, Writer Abroad has a new approach to landing assignments.

She does (insert drum roll here)…

Nothing.

  

And she’s much more successful.

How is this possible?

Ok, well, maybe she doesn't exactly do nothing. But she sure does a heck of lot less work that she was doing before.

Instead of spending 10 hours a week perfecting magazine and newspaper pitches, Writer Abroad spends one or two hours a week blogging and about twice a year she updates her personal writing website.

As it turns out, this is the 21^st century. So editors have something they didn’t have before: an easy way to find writers living abroad.

Here’s the thing. As a writer abroad, your location sets you apart. In fact, editors are probably searching right now for a writer in your very location. Make sure they can find you. Fast.

How? Have a blog. Have a website. Have a tweet worth a re-tweet. Have something smart Writer Abroad hasn’t even thought of yet. Then pretend you’re an editor searching Google for a writer. Do you show up in the search results?

If not, take a course on SEO. But heaven forbid, do not take a course on how to pitch.

Unless…we can find writers out there who can prove Writer Abroad wrong.

So let’s hear it.

Are there still writers out there with respectable batting averages? If you pitch, do you score magazine and newspaper assignments? (Excluding personal essays—Writer Abroad still is able to place personal essays through pitching completed pieces). Or do you think pitching is pointless? 

How does culture affect creativity?

If you've lived abroad for a few years, do you find that country rubbing off on you? After living in Switzerland for almost five years, I can hardly travel without becoming severely disgusted by the rest of the world. There's a leaf on the sidewalk, there's bird poop on a bench, the approaching train is dusty, oh my.

How does culture affect creativity and what can you learn from another culture as a creative person? I think a good example of Swiss creativity is represented by Ursus Wehrli. He demonstrates how the Swiss mindset makes it possible to "tidy up" anything. Even great art.

How does the culture you're living in express itself creatively?

The secret to making a living as a writer abroad

A lot of people want to know: can you really make a living as a writer abroad?

It sounds so glamorous, after all.

Well, last week, writer Alexis Grant challenged the myth that it’s possible to make a living as a travel writer. It’s about time someone did this. For instance, the travel website Matador pays $25 for stories, but that will barely buy you lunch in Switzerland. And I’ve pitched enough higher-paying publications to know that a reply is so rare that I cheer even when I get a rejection. Of course, if you’re a writer abroad, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a travel writer. In fact, I hope for your sake, you’re not.

Next month, I’m teaching a course on how to make a living as a writer abroad. But here’s a secret—there is no secret. It's not easy to make a living as a writer, abroad or at home.

Most writers can’t just write novels, can’t just write travel articles, can’t just blog. In most cases, if you want to do those things and make a living wage, you must do all of those things. And more.

For instance, in the last five years, I have done copywriting, blogging, journalism, essay writing, PR writing, translating (bad English into good), radio writing, memoir writing, novel writing, teaching, and more. Sometimes I do all of these things at once, at other times, I concentrate more on just one or two of them. Over on the Urban Muse, you can see which kinds of writing were the most profitable for one writer last year.

But let’s hear from you. If you make a living as a writer abroad, what’s your secret?

The Two Most Popular Expat Locations

There are two places in the world that most expats live: in a Bubble or in Reality.

It can be wonderful to live in a bubble. In a bubble, everything counts on your perception, rather than the reality.

This can be good or bad, depending on your imagination. You can imagine your boss likes you. You can imagine your neighbor loves your new wind chime. You can imagine you're fluent in German.

But at some point, if you stay in a foreign country long enough, your bubble will break.

Often, this happens when you learn the language, know the customs, befriend a local, or have to visit the unemployment office.

My bubble broke last year. And then I realized. This is my real life. And three years had gone by since I noticed I was living it.

Now when my neighbor says, “Baden used to be a nice town but now it’s trashy, dangerous, and filled with foreigners,” I no longer smile and nod.

Reality is hard that way.

Even though I moved to Switzerland four years ago, today I’m really living here.

Where do you live? In a bubble? In reality? Which do you prefer?

Next week on Writer Abroad: expat author extraordinaire, Stephen Clarke, talks about the vast conspiracy that is the publishing industry and how to crack it. Hint: put your books in a shopping cart and push them around Paris.