Living the expat life

I have lived the life of an expat my entire married life, prior to that i left home (australia) when i was 21 and begun travelling. When i go home now i cannot imagine living a 'normal' life. No maid, government schools for my kids, counting pennies, saving for that one night out a week.......

By no means have we ever had the 'expat package' and always paid housing, schooling, flights ourselves. Just would like to hear others thoughts on their experiences. Seemed an interesting thread to start........

Interesting that you look at life in Australia as being 'normal', when for you 'normal' is being an expat.


I've only been here for 5 years (and about to go home to Australia), so for me life in Australia is still what I think of as 'normal'. Still, I think it will be a culture shock going back, even though we don't have a maid or kids at private schools (we do have a housing allowance though). It's so nice to be able to travel home on the train at 11:30 and feel safe. However, it will be good to breathe clean air.


It seems, though, that if you are not on an 'expat package', that you wouldn't be any worse off in Australia (apart from the maid). Housing is no more expensive, schooling is either cheap (at govt schools) or about the same (at private schools), no regular flights 'back home' needed. So why would you be counting pennies there if you aren't here? No criticism at all intended, just curious...

I am also no longer in HK but have moved elsewhere in SE Asia. We had a fairly decent (by HK standards) village house in the NT and with both of us working and earning good money - plus low tax we lived a very comfortable life and do so here as well. The cost of living here is cheaper than hk but schooling is the same. Again we both work. When i go home to oz it so great to catch up with friends but for them organising a sitter, finding time/energy from work and household chores seems to take them a week to organise dinner and drinks. Where as for me it is nothing to be able to make plans same day/day in advance and head on out. Children also seem to be more accepted in Asia, taking the kids into a pub in hk or elsewhere in asia at a reasonable time in the evening is not blinked at but other than lunch time bistros not done in oz.

I will surely end up in oz one day as i still believe it is truely the most beautiful country for me and my heart will always be there..... but i do love the 'expat life'

I have found the opposite having lived HK, Japan and now Singapore I found that restaurants in Asia are less likely to have high chairs when compared with Australian restaurants. I am loving living the expat life too and agree without maids people tend to need more notice but that just opens the door for more backyard bbq's and laid back get togethers were as sometimes things can feel formal and stuffy here. Also friends are usually ready to oblige when you need a baby sitter because they are likely to need the favour in return sometime. In my opinion both lifestyles have pros and cons so just enjoy where you are now.

Interesting thoughts. I really do not enjoy the expat life too much.

I much prefer my house, my old job, and even mundane things like cleaning and driving my own car back home.


I have a very open mind and love the excitement of new challenegs and travel, but I don't think I could live as an expat for a long time. It's just not me. I've made the best of every situation I've been in, but I've been lonely and sometimes depressed living as an expat.


I don't have kids though...and I think that having kids opens up doors for social opportunities almost immediately.

I agree with the coming back in another life as an "expat wife"!! I am an expat wife but working longer hours than my husband and would love to trade it all in for 2.5 kids with a maid (or two) and HKFC/HKCC membership (provided by hubby's firm) and tennis afternoons!! I am sure that there is more to it but, to the outsider, it all looks too too good!

Well, we've never had the 'expat package' either ... no live-in maid, paid our own housing, paid our own school fees ... but after our first overseas posting of 3 years we returned to the UK, only to realise what a huge mistake we had made. Life just wasn't the same. We had had so many different experiences, and done so much more than any of our friends, that we simply didn't have much in common with them anymore ... and these were friends from childhood/teens. Life was so boring compared with what we had been used to. We realised very quickly that it had been a mistake to return to the UK, hence here we are in HK, which has been our home now for 7 years. We still have a house in the UK, although we have no plans to return there permanently ... we love our 'expat lifestyle' too much! Our kids ... both now teenagers and one at university in the UK ... both say that they have no interest in going back to the UK, where all our extended family are ... I can only assume that we are a family destined to be lifetime expats.

Sapphire, what is that you love about HK so much. I like it here, but don't love it. We've only been here just over a year so maybe that's it. But I'd love to hear from your perspecitvie why you love it here so much more than the UK.

Thanks!

Hi Purplelover ... let me say that I don't think HK is without it's problems and there are things which I complain about from time to time. I did actually state that "We love our expat lifestyle" ... and we said the same when we lived at our other overseas destination, which was a completely different experience to HK.


I will admit that it took me quite a while to settle here initially, probably well over a year, but now wild horses wouldn't drag us back to the UK unless we had no other option. The experiences that we have living overseas, and the opportunities that our kids have had over here, compared to what kids back home have ... well, there's just no comparrison as far as I'm concerned. Obviously, others with say differently and at the end of the day it all boils down to what type of person you are and what you want out of life.


Every year we have numerous visitors from back 'home', friends and family, and they all say the same ... they can understand why we love our life so much and why we have no intentions of returning to the UK. When we go back to the UK for visits, life and everyone there seems so boring ... I don't mean that nastily and I'm not showing any disrespect to my friends and family there, but nothing seems to change ... everyone is still doing the same old things that they've been doing for the past 10 or 20 years ... Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, there's far more to life than that.


Also, the safety and freedom that our kids have here is a big plus point. Back in the UK I wouldn't dream of getting into a cab at night on my own, let alone my kids do it. But here in HK it's much more safe. My kids have the freedom to go out with their friends in the evenings and I don't have to worry. For our friends back in the UK with teenagers, it's a nightmare.

Agree with Sapphire. My thoughts exactly.