So What Exactly is an Expat...?

So what exactly is an Expatriate.


An expatriate is someone who has chosen to live in a country other than the one in which he or she legally resides. Usually, an expatriate is different than an immigrant in that most expatriates do not plan on residing in their new country permanently, and if they do, they plan on retaining their native citizenship for practical purposes. Immigrants, by contrast, usually plan on residing permanently in a new country and acquiring permanent citizenship there. The word expatriate comes from the Latin ex meaning “out of”, and patria meaning “country”. Expatriates are often known simply as expats, and they often form their own communities in their new host countries. Almost all expats undertake this experience willingly and out of their own free will.


Expatriates are sometimes looked at negatively, both by citizens of their native country and by citizens of the country in which they have chosen to dwell.
Some people refer to expatriates who leave their native country as expatriots, indicating that they have a reduced sense of patriotism reflected in their desire to leave their homeland. Some groups in popular expatriate destinations consider the expatriate community to be a negative force in their country, as expatriates often do not pay into the tax base, are not a part of the armed forces, and may not fully integrate themselves into the local culture.

Virtually every country on earth has a decent-sized expatriate community, and people interested in moving to a new country permanently or semi-permanently may want to make contact with that community. Many expatriate communities have websites or local meeting places where they share tips and contacts with the curious, and one can usually find them through a quick web search or by browsing a good guidebook for the country in question.

Generally, there are normally three groups of Expats…

• Highly skilled, Highly Paid; these are people with sought after skills and normally command a premium for their services because of a general shortage of the skills they bring to market. Some skills and vocations such as Finance and or Medicine are more universal and generally professionals in these sectors are more prone to Expat assignments.

• Unskilled, Lowly Paid; This category are normally reserved for those jobs in the economy that the locals simply don’t want to do, such as construction labour and domestic servants. Though these are low paid jobs, expats who accept these kind of assignments are satisfied that their income from these jobs pays them better than what they would have earned back in their home country, or, worst still, at least this low paying job (often in harsh conditions) is better than no job back home.

• Seconded Expats. The third kind is a very specific breed, and they are commonly referred to as career diplomats. They are normally seconded by their respective governments to live and work in different countries, and normally get paid in their home countries, but all living expenses are generally covered when they are stationed abroad. They are different in that they generally enjoy immunity and at times act with impunity.

Generally, expats are very conscious that they live as guests in the host countries and in most cases; the expat community strives to be as law-abiding as any government could hope for. That is, except for the third category.

Besides the obvious financial benefits to being an Expat, there is generally a host of softer advantages to being an Expat. The Author is a South African national and for a long time South Africans were unable to travel freely as a result of sanctions imposed on the country due to its Apartheid policies. This travel restriction has caused many South Africans to develop a pent up desire to travel and when that restriction was lifted, many took the opportunity to live and work abroad. Living as an expat gives one the opportunity to travel to different countries, and experience first hand other cultures.

Many expats view their assignment overseas as a big adventure, and if truth be told, this is possibly the best way to experience life as an expat. This way, you will be prepared for the many challenges that will come your way. And their will be many challenges… from language barriers, to religious differences. From cultural to infrastructural. From what you’ve been promised compared to what you’ve received.

Many Expats go to extraordinary lengths to prepare themselves, obtaining the necessary documentation, getting the necessary medical requirements (injections, examinations and the like) and adhering to obscure bureaucratic processes, and still come unstuck in the initial set up phase. Others merely get onto a plane, and with no fuss at all, settle down in their new environment as it is part of the ordinary.

Like all things in life, there are also several disadvantages in being an Expat… For one, most Expats don’t appreciate initially the effect of the loss of one’s support infrastructure. All of a sudden, your mother in law does not live in the next street anymore. All of a sudden, the café you would pass on your way to your office and popped in periodically to get Niknaks (A peculiarly South African manufactured corn chips) is not there anymore. In fact, all of a sudden there is no more Niknaks available anymore…!!!

Another peculiar disadvantage that you might only notice later in your Expat career, is that your host country and your host employer is of the view that you have been brought on board as the expert, in whatever field, and this means that the organisation sees no need to further develop your capabilities. In fact, in most countries, no effort is made for career development amongst Expats. This means, training courses, or ordinary career development that you would have received whilst in your home country, might simply just not be available to you as an Expat.

Ironically, most expats can list a host of reasons as to how difficult and challenging life as an expat can be… but if you asked them whether they would have done it all over again given the opportunity, almost all of them would agree that it is a life experience well worth experiencing.

The Politics of Fear…

The absurdity of the news...

I always knew when I started this blog that I intend to venture into more complex topics... It’s just that I did not expect it to happen so quickly. But the news I just watched on CNBC (Sunday, 25 July 2010) was just so outrageously absurd, and had me baffled so much I had no choice (I felt like I was driven to) but to flap open my laptop and scribe away to write this piece.

Now I have to confess here… I am a news junkie of note… I watch news as a form of entertainment… but I certainly didn’t budget for the kind of entertainment this news piece provided. Another confession… I very seldom watch CNBC, simply because it is not a part of my normal news bouquet… so out of the blue today I surfed through the long list of news channels looking for something interesting and stopped on CNBC. Like a regular junkie, I couldn’t resist to check it out and after a few moments, I figured out some sort of news documentary was on, a piece on counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is the illegal exploitation of trademarks or other intellectual property and placing these trademarks without consent on goods not manufactured by the owner of the trademark. Now, as an entrepreneur myself, I was sufficiently intrigued by the crime of counterfeiting to hang around a bit and check it out. Crime Inc. was running the program on CNBC. I have no idea who Crime Inc. is, but I suppose it is some sort of organisation that seems to use the media and crime to earn its money. In a serious attempt not to be dramatic, I have to confess that I almost fell over in utter amazement when the producers of this news documentary linked counterfeiting to the funding of terrorist activities. In short, the program, without any form of evidential proof, argued that counterfeiting is used to fund Hizbollah, the Lebanese based anti Israeli political party that’s participates in the democratically elected parliament of that country.

Two years ago the world saw Israel go to war with Hizbollah in Lebanon, and the lasting legacy of that military intervention is that the Western world have largely been sympathetic to Israel’s position and subsequently (at least tacitly) accepted Hizbollah to be a terrorist organisation. It is not the intent of this article to unpack the Israeli Lebanon war, or to provide an opinion on the legitimacy or otherwise thereof. Rather we are making the point simply to illustrate how Hizbollah is viewed, as a Islamic, anti Israeli terrorist group, as opposed to a political party participating in a democratically elected government.

The news documentary spoke about how Hizbollah, runs counterfeit cigarette scams in the US, purchasing counterfeit cigarettes in one state and moving it to a different state to dodge the tax implications. Now I am not for one moment suggesting that Counterfeiting is not a problem, but the attempt to use the boogie man of terrorism and Islamaphobia was just beyond belief…!

The more I watched, the more I realized I am watching a piece of lobbying from big business trying to create the awareness that counterfeiting is a very bad crime and could be tantamount to being a threat to national security. In fact, the piece stated that counterfeiting is so bad it now threatens national security.
And the more I watched, the more I realized that the presenter was actually serious, and the program made every effort to portray the boogieman not as the American citizen who trades in these crimes, but rather, it is China, it is the terrorists, it is the Muslims Hizbollah. Anyone who has a semblance of intelligence knows that Hizbollah can, if it so chooses, trade in counterfeit goods in their own back yards, and not under the noses of the US authorities, who boast some of the most expansive covert intelligence agencies in the world.

The reality is… the counterfeit industry thrives because counterfeiters can produce a product of similar look and quality for a fraction of the original item. Consequently, there is a huge demand for these fake products. Consumers want to own the most elaborate designer labels but simply cannot afford the real thing. In this climate of 10%+ unemployment in the US, widespread austerity programs in Europe, the real estate bubble that burst, the banking crisis of confidence, the stuttering of the world economy, is it any wonder that the only economy that is booming is the home of the counterfeit factory?

I suppose big business have every reason to protect its turf, and raise awareness of the damage caused by counterfeiting, but to equate counterfeiting to a threat to the USA’s national security, and invoke the terrorism bogeyman is a serious indictment of the lobby’s inability to tackle a very real problem in a very meaningful manner.
The reality is, if counterfeiting is going to be considered a problem, then most certainly it is for all intent and purpose, a global problem. Here in the GCC, you could purchase an exact replica of the latest Rolex watch and not even the CEO of Rolex would be able to tell the fake from the real one. Or, if you are a really snazzy dresser, you could walk into a tailor shop in any country in the GCC, ask the tailor, and he would be able to cut you the exact designer suite, complete with the same fabric and identical label. And to crown it all, it is likely to fit a lot better because it was cut to size, for the price of a fraction of the real thing.
During the Bush era, the USA became notorious for using the politics of fear to run amok in the world. However, not even during that are did we hear something so absurd that Hizbollah uses counterfeiting to fund its terrorist activities? I wonder if the producers of this program or big business who funds the campaign realize that by being so patently absurd, they do more harm than good to their cause?

The broader question is… how can journalists around the world even hope to occupy the moral high ground and demand press freedom when they can spew such drivel with no fear of reprimand, or no requirement of accountability?

CNBC's tag line is... First in Business Worldwide. With reporting like this, they might just soon have to change that to... Absurd in Business Worldwide!

Summer in the Gulf...

Summer in the Gulf




The six states making up the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council) are in essence made up of large expat communities from many nationalities.



As has now become common practice, when the summer months come, large chunks of these expat communities trek to their homeland, in an attempt to escape the notorious heat. The heat this year continues to make headlines around the world, with thermometers regularly going beyond the 50C mark, fuelling the now almost religious debate of global warming. In addition to the foreigners migrating home for their annual vacation, the locals also pack up en-masse and look for cooler destinations around the world to spend their holidays.

The local populations of the GCC are generally well off materially, and it is almost an expectation that the annual vacation must be spent abroad. At least a portion of it for those who are really financially squeezed. Not that the citizens of the Gulf states need any excuse to travel abroad.

This exodus of people turns the Gulf States into a most pleasant place to be. Like magic, the usual manic activity that goes hand in hand with a thriving metropolis vanishes as the plane loads of people depart from the airports of the region. The truth of the matter is... it is always hot here. Whether it is 35, or 45 degrees C, it is hot. Trust me, there is little distinction between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius. Hot is hot... and whether 40 or 50 degrees, the air cons of the regions operate at full capacity... to provide that cool air relief required to make the GCC the place to be.

As if to underscore my point... Qatar, one of the six states in the GCC, has announced to host the FIFA World Cup in 2012... a tournament normally held in June... the heart of Summer!

With the absence of the manic activity, it becomes a pleasure to drive on the roads of the GCC. Notwithstanding where you stay in the GCC, any resident can testify to what a harrowing experience it can beat times to get into a vehicle and go from one place to another, using the roads, the traffic circles and the traffic light intersections.

The many Malls become a pleasure to visit. The GCC states collectively boast some of the most amazing shopping experiences, and the malls here can hold its own against any elsewhere in the world. The problem with these fantastic shopping extravaganzas, it is hugely popular, and frequenting them normally is like being in Harrods on after Christmas sale day. But alas... the departure of the masses transform the experience of visiting the Malls into a holiday experience in itself!

The point I want to make is that Summer in the GCC is... contrary to popular belief, a most pleasant place to be.

Life as an Expat...

The unintended consequences of life as an Expat...

Living as an Expat anywhere in the world is almost always a voluntary life experience. Most expats look to live and work abroad for monetary reasons, and almost always, their personal financial position improves with the undertaking of an expat assignment. You normally get paid more, in most cases you enjoy a better tax regime, and most of the daily costs that you would have borne had you remained in your native country is now either taken care of or heavily subsidised by your employer. In short, financially, it is almost always better option.

In addition to the financial benefits, there's a host of non financial benefits, such as a better quality of life, a safer (and at times more sheltered) world to raise your family, the ability to travel and see the world, and many other perks.

In general, the life of the Expat is not half as bad as most Expats would have you believe.

In my own instance, the opportunity to live life as an Expat has brought with it the unintended consequences of having to question my own prejudices, my own world views and my own paradigms. Suddenly, things that seemed straightforward was no longer as simple as I thought. the idea of global warming for instance... an idea so widely accepted in the Western World, has a totally different flavour in the Middle East... where it is widely thought that only countries with no or limited access to natural resources of crude seem to think that global warming is as real or as catastrophic as the West would have us believe.

All Expats enjoy a unique world view... you are not accepted as a local in your host country, no matter how hard you try, and you not an insider in your native country. In other words, in most respects, you are an outsider. Most people find this fact disturbing, but if you on a quest to understanding the ways of the world, then this could in fact be a very interesting vantage point.

It is exactly this awakening that has led me to bloggersphere. We will attempt to use this outlet of blogging to raise many of the issues that the world is grappling with. Some topics will be light-hearted, and some more complex. Some will be seriously written and some will be constructed in academic parlance. All will however attempt to comment on issues that affect people from all over the world, across the political spectrum of East and West. Across the religious divides, of those who believe fervently, and those who believe fervently in nothing.

I hope readers of this blog find some of the things I choose to write about sufficiently relevant, interesting and informative to return for the next installment. My own interest in this blog is to merely find a space to capture my own thoughts, express my own interpretation, and share my own conclusions.

I can assure the reader that I hold views on most things, some very mundane, and some very controversial... These views are my own... informed by my own world view of life as an Expat. For instance, the BP spill in the Mexican Gulf... my view is that the world witnessed an industrial accident and the Americans thought it was the end of the world... 11 people died, and the environment was affected. The world have seen far bigger industrial accidents, with far more destructive consequences, but we survived it, and moved on. BP on the other hand, has responded in monetary terms in ways that are totally unprecedented. Enough said about this topic for now... I will almost certainly return to the subject in future postings. We'll talk about the economic outlook, not from an economist perspective, but from the perspective of the layman. We will peel away some of the complexities of the economist talk, and try to simplify the issues. We'll talk about the Tea Party movement and whether the USA (or indeed the world) will ever be able to live free of racial tension, and we will talk about the impact of technology, in our lives and the lives of governments...

In short... we have a lot to say... and will hopefully say it here... on a regular basis.